good days and photos

gravels in fall, riding with the little man and new ink. been a good stretch of days.

wet gravels lead to filthy bikes
not all fall gravel rides are sloppy

plenty of sun and fall colors

larsson tearing up the pines

how long til i'm chasing him cause i can't keep up?

working back through the prairie

end of what turned out to be an awesome monday

new ink...before pic

drawing and a little bit of outline done

sun rays filled

brock doing his thing

getting the clouds filled

sleeve's getting close to finished...gotta get the moon and clouds filled/finished, color the night sky, add a little more water then go around and touch up the entire leg. it'll be done someday.

before/after

a little bloody and still far from done but here's yesterday's improvements...

chronology of the sleeve

since i'm headed in today to get some more work done, i thought i'd get caught up on the timeline of how the leg got to where we're at.

step 1...tribal piece on the calf

this was done by a guy just finishing his apprenticeship at valhalla. did a pretty good job and he's somewhere further down in iowa now (mt. pleasant?) and i hear he just keeps getting better. best guess is this piece was done about 4 1/2 years ago.

step 2. larsson's initials (w/crooked crown)

this one was done by a guy named al at a place in rochester. he was good, and pretty fast. pretty sure he's moved on as well, i believe back up to the cities. this was a father's day gift in '06. 3 months later i was dropping like 3 feet off an elliptical box out back of the shop, slipped a pedal and tore a scar right through the crown. the doctor did a good job of putting the puzzle back together but there's still some ink missing.

step 3. the ship's outline (sorry, no pics)

this was the first piece done by brock at valhalla and i can't imagine going anywhere else right now. i'd been wanting to find someone i trusted enough to just walk in with an idea and say "have at it" and he's finally the guy. no good pics of just the outline but that part took a few hours in itself.

step 4. filling the ship and water

sorry about the crappy pics, i'm far from a professional. two things really grabbed me after this sitting...the detail in the wood grain on the boat and the colors in the face of the dragon head. brock is awesome with colors and we spent a lot of time getting exactly what we wanted out of this.

step 5. filling the sail

the goal from the start was to orient the ship/sail so that the original tribal piece on my calf sat as a symbol inside the sail. unfortunately this wasn't the plan when the tribal piece was done so the perspective isn't quite right but brock's done a good job working around that. the colors in the sail are awesome once again. lots of purples and magentas with almost a tie-dye look to them. there's a ton of detail in what seemed like it could have been just a quick fill job.

step 6. the sun and clouds

the goal for either side of larsson's initials is to fill the space with a day and a night sky. ultimately the way you see the two will depend on your perspective. it will look both like a ship sailing out of a sunset into night as well as a ship sailing through the night toward a sunrise. so far brock was able to get the sun and the outline for the clouds done. he tried a new-to-him technique filling the sun so he has some touch-up to do on that which will be part of what he does today. the main focus of today will be to fill the clouds thereby completing this side of my leg. all that should remain is probably two more sittings to do the night scene on the other side then a whole lot of touch-up over the whole leg. at the rate i get my work done i'm guessing this should be completed in only like two more years. :)

valhalla

stopped and talked with brock today. i'll be heading in for some more ink next thursday. 3-4 more hours of work on my leg. he told me they've got a new site up with some pics of my leg here after a couple different sittings.