only 3 days away

This was my deer skull that I started yesterday. We went into the shading in the skull for the time being, and outlined the antlers. I had fun with this one, its my biggest tattoo I've done to date, and I can't wait to shade in the antlers. It'll be cool to see how this heals....

This was done last wednesday....on my bestest friend Lauren. She's been wanting this tattoo for years, she's been waiting for me to tattoo her since I started apprenticing years back at the other shop, however it was well worth the wait. Although the foot was pretty painful for her, she sat through the whole thing. Kudos to Lauren!!!!! xoxox

close up

Walkin done at No Ka Oi last week. She wanted just an outline at first but I think a little shading and the blue really brought it out.

Cool walkin from today at No Ka Oi. She was super nice, from out of town, and this was her first one. Again, she just wanted linework originally, but after some careful persuading we added some shading just to give it at least some depth. Tattoos that are just outline always look unfinished to me (there are exceptions to this of course) So after this was done she was super stoked on it, as was I. I hope to see her back in the future to possibly add more to it.


So the countdown begins. I leave Friday morning. I'm almost done packing, have to get my bike all packed up so I can ride around the island, and getting all my other stuff in order. I can't wait to get out of here for a little while. It'll be nice to be away from everything and come back refreshed. Its kind of funny....I had literally just mentioned going back to Hawaii to my boss a few weeks ago, and then I get the call to go out there. Funny how things pan out.

Until next time....

new pic of sleeve in progress

Hawaii bound!

So it looks like I'm heading back out to Hawaii to guest spot at Skin Deep again. I leave Dec 2 and I come back to Philly sometime early Jan....very excited, yet very stressed out. Unfortunately we lost a very important man named Mike Brown, who has been tattooing for well over 30 years. Super nice guy, honest, funny and a pleasure to be around despite the fact that he can be cranky :) He let me tattoo him the last time I went out there, it was one of the first roses I ever did. He had an impact on me and I'll never forget him ...... here's to you Mike!

And now back to business..... since I'm leaving town in 2 weeks, I'm scrambling to get shit done and do as many tattoos as I can. Here's what I've been up to....

This was a sweet walkin that came in today... super nice guy that has a love for Sailor Jerry designs. He brought this one in, and we got it all done....after I get back we plan on doing more with his arm and adding all the stars and dots to go with it. Definitely fun one to do, my first Peacock!

Finally got to finish this one last week... Jon is letting me do some fun stuff on him lately! He let me design this lettering and do it however I wanted... so we finally finished it after the outline healed.... here's what we got so far...

The next one we started is a rose near his elbow... it's a crappy pic so when it's all done I'll be sure to post it.

Steve came back last week also to finish the poly segment that we started... we were finally able to get rid of that line that divided the spearheads... going to see how it heals up and hopefully I can get a nice touchup session in with him so I can get some good photos of this. I want to be able to put this in my book for Hawaii so I can get more experience with Poly designs.

The lovely Rose came back to NJ last week to get a few letters added to her IRS shield. After we were thinking about it, we should have just put the initials in the center of the shield, but at that time she was unsure about putting his name in there considering the shield was his....Anyway I got to see the tattoo up close and healed up, overall was happy with how the color healed, touched up a few tiny spots....the outline needed some work, I wasn't too stoked on how they seemed to blow out a little after it healed. I'm just being critical. Going to watch myself on that one.

A BIG kudos to Parker for letting me do this boxing cock on him!!! I got to play around with weird color combos and deal with working with really stretchy skin since he's lost so much weight over the years. This second session went way better, I got to see how his skin worked and had less trouble streching. I hope to see this healed great so I can get to the purple behind the head again... I want to blend it out more I think. Also it'll be good to see a pic without the blood :)

This was a walkin about a week and a half ago. A challenging design that definitely made me sweat a little, however it was a good challenge. I guess you could say it's good practice/warm-up for my upcoming trip to Hawaii...lots of tribal-type designs.

Well that's all for now, got a busy week coming up! I'll post more when time allows....

ALOHA

Stuff And Things

Hello everyone!!! I have not been on here for a while so I have decided to post a big update on whats been happening at work. Here's a heap of new pics and a bit about each one...

Alla Prima was nice enough to use my mariachi trumpeter tattoo on one of there new posters! witch was very exiting for me as I am an avid Alla Prima user and a huge fan of there work.

Next up is the latest addition to our friend Tammy's sleeve, this was really fun and I can't wait to get back in and finish it off. 

This is on a new customer of mine, awesome dude, sits like a rock!! 6 hours on this session. 

Me tattooing my lovely wife to be :)

We had a Halloween day at work and i did this on the boss :) was super cool!!

Another session on Ryans owl sleeve about 2 hours on this we bit

Second sitting on this one, can't wait to see what this comes out like!!

So I done this on my cousin Kayla Jordan today, it was a tattoo my dad "Fats" had done on my uncle (Her dad) many years ago.. we re-drew it a wee bit, it was super fun!! Done with my Mark Iddles color packer and Marv Lerning shader :)

Fist session on my little sisters first tattoo, she sat really well and didn't complain about the size i decided on at all haha...

Dragon in progress, nearly done finally!! I'm very happy with this tattoo so far, its way out of my comfort zone but I thinks its turned out pretty cool :)

My first Rob Zombie tattoo!! super fun peace, free hand back ground. Alla Prima Inks

This is my first pointillism tattoo ever, not my usual style at all but had a lot of fun with it.. 

Well thanks all for your time, look forward to tattooing you soon..

Regards,

Matt Jordan

new stuff

Even though it's been slow, I did get one walkin the other day in NJ... an older gentleman came in for this one. He brought in the patch and asked me to duplicate it. He was super nice and I hope to see him again.

So this one is just in the sketch phase right now... this is a client of mine from a few months back, I tattooed a bike gear on her calf. She came in a few days ago to discuss a deer skull on her upper back. Naturally I was stoked on this idea, and went right to the drawing board. She's going to stop in tonight to take a look at what I have so far, measure it up to fit her, and then get back to the drawing board again for a solid greyscale study and final line drawing. I'll keep you posted on this!

Until next time....

MEXICO CITY TATTOO CONVENTION, OCT. 29 & 30, 2011

Mexico City Tattoo convention organizer Tony Serrano from Tatuajes Mexico, asked us to do a machine seminar. There were 16 artists in the class. We covered everything in our book and more. The goal is more than just to educate artists, for us, it's important to find people who are on the same page and want to be a part of the solution and NOT part of the problem. First you need to wake up and see that there is a problem and then tear it down bit by bit.

"HOW MANY OF YOU MAKE YOUR OWN NEEDLES?" Looks like 2 or so.. the rest?

The way to maintain quality control over every aspect of your tattooing is to understand every aspect of your tattooing. What you're actually doing when you step on the footswitch, when you put the needles in to the skin, the types of needles you are using, the quality of the pigment. Almost all tattoo supply companies don't care if you're doing good work with the products they sell. Almost all tattoo supply companies don't care if the products they sell are truly functional. Almost all tattoo supply companies don't understand what they are really selling. Almost all tattoo supply companies have never used the products they sell. Almost all artists trust these suppliers to supply them with quality functional products... these suppliers buy and sell products manufactured by people who do not tattoo, people who do not understand what functions are necessary in a tattoo machine. This is only a small part of the problem. Now, hopefully, these 16 students will not be taken by the hype in this unregulated business oriented supplier / artist relationship.

Art, Steve, Pablo Porno and Enrico Colombres.

While we were busy at the booth, selling machines, repairing machines and tattooing...

Juan "super" Arreguin was busy trying out his new prototype model machine, and having great results!

David "Scrappy Uno" Garcia was tattooing with his own model Scrappy Uno machine ...

Manuel "Master" Servin was tattooing also...

L to R: Pablo Porno, Scrappy Uno, and Master... All first place winners! Portrait, tattoo of the day, realism... the best of the best.

Congratulations to all 3 of these artists, we are proud to have them on Godoy Machines.

Meanwhile... Javier "Jade" Campos, was winning in Ecuador & Lima Peru with his own Javier Campos model machine!!!

The talent at this convention was incredible, the organization was perfect, the entertainment excellent.. thanks also to Tony Serrano for being a great host. And Enrico Colombres from Godoy Machines South America for being part of our crew.

Progress

So even though it's been a bit slow round these parts because of the time of year, I've managed to do a few things in the past two weeks.

This was a small walkin at No Ka Oi yesterday, small n simple. Her first one.

 Another walkin the other day...the stencil line is still there but we only did the letters. Another first timer.

 This was an awesome day.... I was scheduled at No Ka Oi on sunday, so in the morning before we opened up I had an old friend come in, Heather. She volunteered to be my first ribcage tattoo. Really stoked on this one. It was also cool to have both Bill and Anna there will be, I was beyond shitting my pants on this one... stretching wasn't as bad as I thought...although it's all because she was the perfect candidate. I took my time and made sure it was really nice. Now the mission is to get more awesome people like Heather to help my cause and give up some skin in the areas and I'm inexperienced in: ribs, lower back, chest, stomach, hip..... any takers???  Many kudos to Heather for this one!!!

This is on a client that walked into NJ a few weeks ago.. he came back for me to finish his big flag. This is one of my biggest thus far, and really excited to finish it.  Another thing was that Bill gave me this really old Micky Sharpz that works wonderfully for greywash....so I got to use that and was really happy with the results... I still need some more work smoothing out the grey, but overall I'm happy with the tattoo and how it flows with his arm when he bends it. I hope to see him back soon for some good photos of this healed.

This was a walkin in NJ a week ago...name jawns for dayyssss

Many thanks to Amanda for giving up some skin for a small one dedicated to her Hub... classic!


Looks like that's it for now, I'll be posting more soon! Come in and get tattooed!

Winter approaches.....

 So winter season has come SO FAST! pretty scary... however I'm happy to announce that I'm going to tattoo my first ribcage on Sunday, i'll keep you all posted on that! Big things are coming, moving on up!

All that aside, here's a few things I've gotten to do over the past week... some lettering done at No Ka Oi...

 This was a fun walk-in, he brought the image and considering how much I LOVE pinups this was a fun one for the portfolio...

Client brought this in too... I tattooed her and her friend, both with a brush stroke look to it. Her friend's tattoo pic came out blurry so i'm not going to post it, she got an infinity symbol smaller with a painterly feel to it.....

I also had an opportunity to work on Steve again for his polynesian 1/2 sleeve. This session was much shorter, traffic was bad so he came late and we didn't have time to finish the section. I was also having trouble with my shader so when I get to finish the section I'll be sure to post more.


This weeks update: Will be finishing the flag I started 2-3 weeks ago, as well as touching up a small part of the IRS badge I did a few weeks back as well. I'll post more soon.

Now off to the drawing board... off to look for more freelance work so I can afford to pay my bills this winter.