Blog posts of '2015' 'June'

While the popularity of tattooing for decoration and adornment has done nothing but escalate over the years, cosmetic tattooing has waxed and waned in the public eye. Cosmetic tattooing differs from the more traditional, artistic tattooing techniques in that in order to tattoo cosmetically, you need a deep understanding not only of the mechanics of tattooing and the tattoo process, but you also need to understand how tattoo inks interact with different skin types and skin tones, as well as how different colors of ink will appear on the skin. Really good cosmetic tattoo artists understand that there is a level of artistry to applying even the simplest cosmetic tattoo, since they need to have depth even though they are generally simpler in color than more traditional tattoos. 

Cosmetic tattooing historically has been used to make lips appear fuller, to apply permanent makeup that will not wear or wash off, and to give eyes a larger, more luminous look. Some cosmetic tattoo artists even claim to be able to cover or “fill in” scarred areas so that it is no longer obvious that you have had an injury in an area. (note: scar tissues do not accept tattoo inks in a predictable fashion, and you cannot every be one hundred percent certain that a scar will hold ink or that it will hold the lines of a tattoo properly. Many people use tattoos to cover scars each year, but you must be aware of the way that the scar will interact with the tattoo and also you should work with an artist who is comfortable tattooing scar tissue. Another popular way to use cosmetic tattooing is in the form of replacing lost hair or camouflaging temporary or permanent hair loss. 

People can lose their hair for a variety of reasons. Cosmetic hair replacement tattoos are most often used to fill in eyebrow areas. You can lose your eyebrow hair from chemotherapy, over-plucking, or skin conditions like alopecia, which can cause hair loss on the head and other parts of the body. Whether your hair loss is temporary or permanent, cosmetic tattooing can provide an ideal solution for your eyebrow area. Cosmetic tattoos in the eye brow area are designed to look like real brows, and they are comprised of tiny lines that are designed to look like carefully plucked and sculpted arches. You can have your entire eyebrow tattooed, or you can just have thinning areas filled in to give you more dramatic eyebrow lines. Either way, you will enjoy the look of perfectly groomed eyebrows that you get every morning as soon as you get out of bed. 

If you are balding, there are also tattoo solutions available. One type of tattoo hair loss solution is called cosmetic camouflaging. This technique uses a computer to analyze your hair pattern and design a tattoo for your scalp that matches the way that the hair already grows. This is a great way to mask balding areas or thinning areas of hair. The computer designs the tattoo pattern, then stencils the pattern onto the scalp. Once the stencil is in place, a tattoo artist can tattoo your new hair onto your head, giving the illusion of thicker hair. This technique works best if you have thin hair or a bald patch, but will not really work if you do not have any hair at all. The technique of filling in thinning areas on the head with a tattooed design actually dates back to roman times, when men would tattoo their scalps to try to cover up thinning areas. If you have used another resource to stop the progression of your hair loss, then this can be a good way to get your old look back. However, it will not ultimately prevent the loss of the rest of your hair. Some fully bald men do get their heads tattooed to give the illusion of an extremely short buzz cut, but this look is questionable at best, and will probably not fool anyone who comes close to you. 

Many people hesitate to tattoo their heads because it seems like this would hurt a great deal. However, in reality, while tattooing your face can be quite painful, tattooing your head itself is not because the skin on the scalp is so thick. As a result, it is much less sensitive and hurts far less than most people expect. If you are interested in hair loss tattoo solutions, you should consult a dermatologist and a hair loss expert to determine if a permanent camouflage will solve your problem, or if it will just look silly when you lose the rest of your hair.

Well, today is the day. You finally decided to go ahead and get that tattoo. You spent a lot of time looking through page after page of flash, and then you spent even more time trying out and testing a variety of tattoo designs until you finally found the perfect tattoo for you. Maybe it is a tribal armband tattoo, a swallow tattoo, or, the most popular tattoo design of all, a butterfly tattoo. Whatever the design, at this point in the game you know just what you want it to look like, and you can wait to enjoy it for the rest of your life. You hurry into the tattoo studio well hydrated and having eaten breakfast, of course -  and settle down in the tattoo chair. About forty-five minutes later, your wonderful, perfect tattoo is done. You cannot wait to show your friends, your family, your neighbors, and the world. After all, part of getting a tattoo is telling the story, and now you have a beautiful tattoo and a great story to tell.

That gets you thinking: what happens to a tattoo when your body changes shape? The answer is: a variety of things. The good news is that by taking good care of your tattoo and giving some serious thought to where you put that tattoo before you get it, you can keep your tattoo virtually free of all the negative impacts of weight fluctuation “natural or otherwise” that your body will undergo over the course of your life. 

The first thing to think about when considering weight fluctuations is placement. If you have not yet gotten a tattoo, think carefully about how and where you gain and lose weight. This involves several factors. If you are a girl, then you need to factor in the reality that gravity will at least temporarily impact some of your assets. Even if you swiftly repair this natural sagging, it will impact the dimensions of your tattoo when your skin stretches over time. This means that a tattoo on the buttocks or on the breasts in particular may elongate over time, particularly if your gain or lose a substantial amount of weight as most women do multiple times over the course of a lifetime. The important thing to focus on when selecting a place for a tattoo is where on your body weight gain impacts you least. For example, the hip area is a good one for many women “unless, of course, your family is prone to saddlebags, large deposits of fat on the outer hip and upper quadriceps areas” The small of the back is generally one of the last areas on the body to stretch if you gain weight, and weight loss does not leave this skin area sagging. Shoulders are also ideal for keeping a tattoo in tact for many years. 

Of course, you cannot rule out the potential that you have as a woman for becoming pregnant at some point in your life. Should this happen “deliberately or otherwise” a belly button tattoo or a tattoo in your lower pelvic region is almost certain to undergo some major changes. If you already have a tattoo in this region, there are steps that you can take to prevent these changes from being permanent. They are the same steps that you would take to prevent stretch marks, and they  mostly involve massaging the area and keeping it well moisturized and hydrated. It is important to understand that above all else, weight gain accompanied by stretch marks regardless of the reason for the weight gain can destroy a tattoo more thoroughly than just about anything else. This is because a stretch mark is a tear in the skin that actually becomes a scar. Sometimes they can be tattooed over, but other times the new tissue will not accept tattoo ink, and it can be very hard to ever return the skin to its original form. 

If you are a man, then your weight gain issues with your tattoos will probably be slightly different. Men are less likely to tattoo their stomach areas, but if you do have stomach tattoos, then they will be highly susceptible to stretching should you gain weight as you age. Unlike women, men's upper arms also stretch and shrink far more as they gain and lose muscle and far. This area is prone to stretch marks and sagging, so if you do not plan on keeping those guns forever, then you should probably avoid that armband tattoo you've been considering because it could get pretty wavy as you age and lose muscle mass or gain fat. The calf area on men is good for tattoos that are relatively impervious to weight gain, as is the shoulder area and the upper arm, as long as the tattoo does not completely encircle the arm. 

Getting a tattoo should be a fun experience, but you also want your tattoo to be fun decades down the road as well. Putting a little forethought into the location of your tattoo and how your life in the future could affect the look of that tattoo will go a long way toward making sure you love your tattoo for the rest of your life.

Guy Aitchison is one of the most well-respected American tattoo artists of all time. Best known for his visionary look on tattoo art, he has helped a multitude of artists realize tattoo art is much more than following a black line and shading. In fact, he has influenced the tattoo industry in an amazing way by opening up the eyes of tattoo artists to the endless possibilities in terms of tattoo artistry. He is well known for his incredible spiritual tattoos, biomechanics tattoos and imagery tattoos.

Guy was born in 1968 and graduated from high school in 1985. Always interested in art, he initially became an art department apprentice at The Jacklich Corporation for one year. He then went on to painting record covers for a few years and was lucky enough to work with acts like Vinnie Moore, David Chastain, Apocrypha, Hexx, Skatenigs and other Shrapnel Records California-based bands. He did approximately 40 record covers during his stint there. In 1989, Guy became interested in tattoo art and started apprenticing at Bob Oslons Custom Tattooing in Chicago, Illinois. He apprenticed for two years before he opened his own tattoo studio in Chicago. It was called Guilty & Innocent Productions. However, in 1998 Guy chose to close his extremely popular tattoo shop. This move shocked many people in the area. However, those who knew him well understood he wanted to travel the country and focus on his painting more. Highly publicized, Guy Aitchison work has been published in popular magazines like Outlaw Biker Tattoo, Easyrider Tattoo, Skin Art, Skin & Ink, International Tattoo Art and more. However, his tattoos are not the only things which earn him artist acclaim and praise. His paintings have a following all their own and have been published in Art Alternatives and Savage magazines. Respected not only by fans but also by other tattoo artist greats, Guys work is also featured in several artists books, including world renowned tattoo artist Don Ed Hardys Eye Tattooed America fine art book.

In addition to tattooing and painting, Guy Aitchison travels the world speaking to hundreds of artists each year at conventions and festivals. His tattoo seminars draw thousands of artists, almost immediately after they are announced as being available. He reaches out to other artists through his desktop-published tattoo manuals as well (The Graphic Language for Tattooists and Special Effects for Tattooists). Guy speaks freely of his passion for both tattooing and painting and says they both compete with each other for the first place in his heart, with neither holding the spot for long over the other. He appreciates the dedication required when working as a tattoo artist, claiming the industry is a very critical one because it deals with commercial art. In fact, he realizes and stresses to other tattoo artists the implications a client can have from any given tattoo project. He addresses the fact tattoo artists must be much more flexible and willing to adjust to the clients requests and ideas. Thus, he enjoys the wildness of the process in which the artist can chase after obscure and specific personal notions.

In addition to being a famous tattoo artist in his own right, Guy has an extremely famous tattoo artist sister. His sister is Hannah Aitchison, one of the original cast members of Kat Von Ds famous reality television TLC show, LA Ink. Hannah currently works at High Voltage Tattoo shop in Los Angeles, where the LA Ink show is filmed. Her style is similar to Guys because she has an open mind when it comes to tattooing. While Hannah is more focused on details and the mechanics of tattooing, she shares with her brother the unlimited potential she utilize to think out of the box and create amazing tattoo art pieces on her clients. Another cast member, Kim Saigh, also worked with Guy in Chicago before coming to do LA Ink. Kim has mentioned more than once that Guy was one of the most influential artists shes ever worked with. She credits him for opening her eyes more in the tattoo artistry world and has said Guy made her want to constantly strive to be a better overall artist. Guy Aitchison thinks of himself as being an artist who is most often focusing on natural geometry and organic tattoos. With interests in science, science fiction, religion and architecture, he is able to excel at a wide array of tattoo designs. His work is highly respected by his fans and all other tattoo artists around the world. When he speaks, artists listen.

Hayden Panettiere's birthday falls between July 23rd and August 22nd, making her astrological sign Leo. She pays homage to the Leo's characteristics with a small tattoo below her right ankle. The tattoo is the astrological symbol for the Zodiac sign Leo. Its curved design represents the mane or the tail of the lion, which gives the sign its inspiration. Leo's are said to be creative, arrogant, dramatic, bossy, generous and loyal. Hayden got her tattoo at seventeen and hid it from her mother for over a year. The tattoo was only revealed when she being body scanned for a special effect on her television series "Heroes". Her mother saw the tattoo, tried to rub it off and started to cry when she realized it was permanent.

Hayden Leslie Panettiere (born August 21, 1989) is an American actress. She began modeling as a baby and moved on to being a child actor, landing roles in the movie "Remember the Titans" and the TV show "Law and Order: SVU". She is currently playing the character Claire Bennet on the televisions series "Heroes". Hayden is also an accomplished singer that has recorded songs for some of the movies she's starred in. As she releases her debut album in 2009, she will be in the unusual position of releasing her first album with a Grammy nomination already under her belt for a recording she did for the movie "A Bug's Life". Hayden has been romantically linked to reality TV starStephen Colletti and "Heroes" co-star Milo Ventimiglia.