Full Back Tattoo - Part 1/6

See Project: Tattoo Me for a full description of my tattoo journey.

The Wreckers

Over the past few years I have done some genealogical studies and one of the things that I have found is that my mother's side of the family has lived in a remote coastal region of the UK for over 500 years. This same region is known for its ship wrecks.  Now many of these wrecks are supposed to have been caused by wreckers.  I have no way to prove my family were a part of the wrecking and smuggling, but I also have no way to prove they weren't, and there were right there where and when it was happening. 

So I decided my next tattoo is to be a full back piece that displays elements of wrecking; a wrecked ship on the rocks, a flintlock pistol and lamp. At the time of writing this is a work in progress.

As this is a very large piece, I am documenting this in several posts.  

Wrecker Tattoo

This tattoo is to be a full back piece which is a bit of a large undertaking.  It took several attempts to find the right artist but finally I went with Josh Ready from Sworn Oath Tattoo in Arvada CO.  The man does excellent line work and his tattoos in general are superb. I figured he was the right man for the job.

For a tattoo of this size, it is a very good idea to spend some time with your artist and talk about what you want, get their input, and figure out the artwork before putting ink to flesh.

First pass

The highest level of detail is the ship, as its early 19th century. There is lots of rigging which means a great deal of fine line work. For our first session Josh went with just getting the line drawings in for the ship and some shading done.  Getting the stencil made, scaled up and positioned, and then getting the ship inked took 6 hours in total. I was pretty sore but happy when it was completed.

Currently the whole one side of my back is low level itchy, but healing nicely.  I go back in two weeks for another 4-6 hours, but that will be a whole other post.