Time for another installment of my fabulously entertaining random tattoo phone pics.
It was a early summer morning in Port Angeles and I hadn’t finished my coffee yet.
The sun was already shining much too brightly for eyes used to cloud cover and rain.
A girly I know sent me a nice morning text and asked what I was doing.
I said I was thinking about work and the tattoo I was doing that day.
She asked what it was, and I told her it was a biomech tattoo.
“WTF is a bio-mech tattoo? I don’t know all your tattoo lingo.” she replied back.
I then proceeded to try and explain.
Biomech, Bio-Mech, Biomechanical tattoos are not easy to explain unless the person has seen either a tattoo of the style already or at least some art of the style.
Add to that… it isn’t exactly a particular style.
From Wikipedia: Biomechanical art (also called Biomech) is a surrealistic style of art that combines elements of machines with organics. Rendered with distinct realism, biomechanical art expresses an internal fantasy world, most typically represented with human or animal anatomy where bones and joints are replaced with metal pistons and gears, but infused with muscles and tendons.
Biomechanical art was popularized in 1979 when Swiss artist H.R. Giger designed the alien creatures in the 1979 feature film Alien.
True story that, but it has evolved into all kinds of different looks.
The aliens looking stuff which was once very popular is a rare request nowadays. For myself I usually go with a more functional biomech or an extremely organic looking type.
I never dug the aliens stuff. Cool art & all, but as a tattoo look it didn’t jive with my personal tastes.
So… I told the chick I was texting that I would send her a pic when I was done.
This is the pic.
(Click the pic to see it larger)
I did the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club skull tattoo three or four years prior to the client coming in for this addition of biomech.
The client is from Norway and because of travel/time/etc… the tattoo had to be done all in one shot.
Usually for something of this size with as much detail as is included I would have done it in two sessions spread out about three weeks apart to make it more comfortable on both the client and myself.
Prior to his arrival I had him send me reference images of biomech tattoos he liked, photos of his existing tattoo, and a big description of what all he wanted going on.
The client supplied great references and a very nice description which made my job easier to say the least.
I drew it all up and when he arrived had a bunch of sketches for his approval.
One lucky thing was that he a night owl at home so didn’t suffer a bit of jet lag switching to being awake in the day in the USA.
While tattooing him I was told a really cool story of showing Zakk Wylde the tattoo and having Zakk say it was the best done / most detailed tattoo he’d ever seen of the skull.
I kinda knew this before as he had sent me a picture of himself with himi showing of the tattoo and whatnot a couple years back.
Got the full story this time though.
So… back to this tattoo.
This biomech piece was the third time I have tattooed the client, but by far the longest haul when it came to amount of work.
He handled it like a trooper though, and feeling a bit raw from so much detailed work at once was very excited about the finished result.
I was happy about that because I wanted it to look functional and this client just happens to have an engineering degree. (that adds pressure on the working mechanics end)
I snapped pics and sent them (glued together as one like shown above) to the “WTF is a bio-mech tattoo” girl via text.
She was thoroughly impressed with both my handy dandy tattoo skills and the concept, but said she probably wouldn’t be getting anything like it herself.
So… That concludes this installment of my fabulously entertaining random tattoo phone pics.
Hope you keep coming back for the odd tattoo babble that I spew forth.
Did you look at the tattoo biggy sized? If you didn’t… just click HERE and do so now.
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