Another of my aesthetic pieces was by Alexander Grim from Russia, at his studio in Prague. I really love the medieval woodblock style of art and with my skin tone, colour and shading are not ideal. What has the most impact on my skin would be bold lines and negative space and Alexander’s design of a knight riding a dragon captured that perfectly. Despite the size of this piece he managed to complete it in one sitting of 7 hours. A pleasant surprise by him was the bowl of candy waiting for me, sugar really does help with tattoo endurance and I would highly recommend consuming sugary products during a long tattoo session. Alcohol also helps to ease the process, but it has a downside in that it thins your blood and will make visibility difficult for the artist, who will need to wipe away that extra blood more often.
At this stage of the journey, even though the artists were doing a great job in tying all the pieces together, what I lacked was overall symmetry. I wanted the skin art to look as cohesive as possible, so for any consequent pieces I had to carefully consider their size and placement so that there could be balance and aesthetic completeness.
