Lux Altera

I love science because...

2009-05-21T23:21:00.002+02:00

Enjoy... This was a well spent 17 minutes. Seriously. I lolled.
M

What does my job compare to?

2009-05-12T12:50:00.013+02:00

I get that question once in a while...
I get a lot of other questions a lot more frequently like, "How did you learn this?", "Do you also do your own tattoos?" or "Will colors really fade?"

I got a studied response to each one of those by now. They are all legitimate questions, some requiring a bit more patience than others.
But i rarely hear "What Job compares to what you do?"
Probably because an answer to this would require a certain degree of imagination to be useful. But perhaps also because there is just not anything in particular that is obviously comparable to what a Tattoo Artist does.
I would have to dissect this a little bit if i would want to be anal about giving a satisfying answer. Satisfying to me, of course. In other words, being anal about it is not an evadable matter.

i will try to not get into a rant this time... i am a stern mofo sometimes and of course rants write themselves without any help so
"i'll try, everybody!" I might fail in which case, do take my shit with a grain of salt...
Of course if you want to rant back at me and give a chance to dismantle your disbelief for my lack of respect, i can't wait. But since this is not gonna be a rant. everyone will love me after this, of course... Can't wait.

Now on to the main subject. What would I compare this job to? I had to think hard on most of these a few were very obvious. i will start in no particular order. They are all important.

The Pharmacist:
-you are in a trade that requires huge amounts of knowledge in a manifold of different subject matters. None of which is directly open or obvious to your client but has crucial effects on the quality of your performance.

-you are the go to person if people run into problems that the best friend or neighbor has no satisfying advice for or if any given advice by above subjects failed to deliver the goods.
You are very likely the one that has to be ready with a solution to problems that could be impeded by coming to you as a professional directly.
Which is a bit nerve wrecking but stupidly how all of us seem to roll: First trust those you know albeit their total lack of professional experience for the subject.
If this fails (and only fucking IF) will you look for advice by your much trusted (accusing eyebrow raise) tattoo artist or in worst case scenarios your most trusted medical doctor.
(whoops, no worries i am out of rant mode right away. Here we go)

-you are in a position that requires a responsibility of good advice towards your client BEFORE you have earned any money of those clients, who very likely will be unable to estimate the effect of the product you are selling.
Not only are you a trusted adviser but also will you, from time to time, have to give advice that could possibly harm your business and meanwhile improve the business of those that lack this same responsibility (which really hurts).

I.E.: a client comes in and has to wait for an hour until you are ready to talk. Turns out he/she wants a lettering tattoo on a very visible spot consistent of arabian letters (which are hyroglyphs for me) . My reference which he/she brings in is a PostIt with a horrible 2 second example of the most horrible clawfingered scribble i ever saw. All of which, in a language i can not read, understand speak or in any way comprehend. Me, struck with disbelief try to point out that i can not tattoo it as it is but also lack the means to repair it in a manner that would be tattoo worthy since i have no idea how you write arabian. The client, obviously confused and angry tells me that it is not of my business to judge his/her handwriting and tells me to do it anyways because she likes it as it is. I refuse and of the client wanders to find someone who will say yes...

another Example:
"Can you do bio-tattoos?"
"Sry, what?"
"you know those that fade after a few weeks."
"Nothing like that exists, i can assure you that"
"But i heard from all my friends that it could be done!"
"i am sorry to disappoint you, but there is no way to tattoo anything in your skin that wouldnt stay there. Anyone who tries to sell you a bio-tattoo is lying to you."
"Maybe you are lying!" takes off...
Me thinking: "I am not the one taking your money... why should i be the one who lies."

So you are in a position where you have to make decisions between good advice and good business by yourself. And this exactly is one of the main pointer that determine the professionalism and/or quality of a tattoo studio and/or Pharmacy.
There are pharmacies that will happily sell you any kind of feel good, homeopathic, herbal or plain mystical bullshit you could ever want and that doesn't do dick or is plain harmful.
Or there are the responsible one that will tell you that there is no known treatment for your disease or at least none without any unwanted side effects.
The cozy, no side effect, no inconvenient dosing schedule, no health authority, no animal testing, non chemical, non poisonous approach is just too nice sounding to dismiss... It's also too good to be true.
But that doesn't matter to most of us... We want, we get.

Always listen to the ones that don't tell you what you want to hear! The wants that will reject your money to save their professionalism.

(Whoops, did rant again or what?!)

I have to keep those a bit shorter so on the following i rely on you coming up with the connceting examples yourself which will also help me staying out of rant mode.
Okay, next

The Nurse
i know how gay it sounds but we actually do a lot of
-Cross contamination prevention
-Listen to whining and personal stories, nodding knowingly while sharing advice...
-Spend hours with people that we don't like and/or that don't like us while having to remain our highest standards of executing our job and without forgeting our responsebilities
-Trying to comfort where we can and/or want
-Vomit pouch providing in those rare cases needed (that's crossing into stewardess which is even gayer so i stick with the nurse which is a tad bit hotter, too. IMHO)

The Plastic Surgeon
pretty much another twist on the pharmacist.
-having to educate people about the decisions they make is tough if those decisions are for life. Something not many first-timers can wrap their mind around. Not to sound condescending.
-dealing with the human body as a medium for your creation is tough and challenging. It asks for a certain level of experience and can not be learned in theory. And there is always a level of risk involved that the client needs to know about and take into consideration. We are after all making changes on the appearance of out clients. Responsibility!

The Graphic Designer
no not the artist.
I don't feel that artists have the necessary distance to their work. which is required for doing good, solid work.
And by good, solid work i mean work that not only satisfies the tattooer and the "tattooee" but also has mainstream value of looking right, being readable by most people and aging well.

Design is something that is made to look good and appeals to most people.
It is tailor made for the object or purpose it is used for. Art is stiffly attached to the artist and a very egocentrical thing to toss into a tattoo.
If you are an artist that does things that have a big audience and is tattooable in a sense of longevity. Fine.
But art can be ugly and lame. Still an artist always likes what they are doing and there are always people that like the most ugly and twisted shit for personal reasons.
But something that is specifically attached to a certain taste is automatically fragile when it comes to accepting it as a body part for the rest of ones life... Time changes opinions.

This is very generalizing and i understand that there are exceptions but it's the way i feel about it. The way I define art (a personal way of execution of imagery that is directly connected to an Artist and wont conform without sacrifice to a medium it is not intended for), is has no place in tattooing as such.
Changing art into proper design without loosing it's appeal and/or style is an art form in itself so this most controversial.

The Scientist
this certainly does not appeal to everyone in this trade but i think it is something that can make one a fast learner and better tattooer. Most of the best Tattoo Artists out there (that i know) use the scientific method (consciously or not) to determine how to improve their work step by step, the safest way possible with the biggest feedback of valid information.

-Ask the right questions
-Gather knowledge
-Find a problem
-Work out a solution with the foundation of the gathered knowledge
-Experiment (if that fails, don't get attached to your brainchild but swallow your pride and move on!)
-Execute
-Implement
-Move on to higher ground
-Repeat

Good stuff.

The Musician
-knowing your instrument by heart is what this one is all about. A good tattooer hears and feels when he does it right. It requires a well trained ear, hand-eye-ear coordination, dexterity and experience. Tuning and using a tattoo machine right is like tuning and playing an instrument. It is very intricate and asks for a lot of practice and endurance. Working with the ever changing medium of skin and the ever changing setup of a tattoo machine/needle/grip/color makes this probably one of the hardest and unpredictable instruments that you could find. So in a way a tattooer not only has to have the abilities of a good musician but has to be able to improvise in a jam session with a new band every day.

So far for the parallels to other professions...

Now, i realize that these cut into each other as most of them are comparable to one another.
A good question that remains is, what is the difference between a good solid tattooer and a good solid tattoo artist? Both of which deserve the same amount of respect. Well, maybe not the same but both have their place and are vital to this industry. and of course the field here is also all shades of gray between the two.
In order to not be totally wishy-washy though, i have to generalize while totally being aware of the unique ways everybody handles their job. That's the scientist in me, the statistician, the bit of geek if you will.

I understand that all this makes it sound like we tattoo artists/tattooers are some kind of übermensch, super entity that can do pretty much everything. Remember, i am trying to convey the most perfect scenario, the way this should be taught to a student. Not the way it actually is. Only the way it should be.

So what is the difference between a tattoo artist and a tattooer anyways?
Why always the distinction and is it really that important to think of the difference?
No it is not that important. However a lot of us do like to make that distinction. And there are certainly people that do not deserve to be called artist in any way just as there are artists that are not to be called tattooer out of reasons you might understand after reading the following.

The tattooer:
will happily accept that he/she is not an artist at all but knows what looks well on a body and will pridelessly turn any proudly signed, eagerly and egocentrically self drawn piece of crap into a valid and well applied tattoo that deserves to be on a body.
He/she is also able to tattoo stuff he/she has tattooed a thousand times over as long as it is well applied and looks good and is what the client wants/deserves. Tattooing right from flash is no problem as long as the flash is looking good and is tattooable,
80% of the tattoo clientele is theirs and in good hands, too.
a few drawbacks are:
-Less artistic freedom
-More younger clients
-More clients with money problems
-More discussion time on bad ideas
-More repair work on bad tattoos or bad drawings
-More chance to have inexperienced clients
-More repetition of the same old
-Can easily turn into a time stamp job like any other

The tattoo artist:
Has to understand all the qualities of the tattooer. Remember, designer, not artist. eventhough we call it tattoo "artist" a good "tattoo artist" is also giving up a substantial amount of freedom to suit a customer and their skin without loosing what makes his/her work unique. This in itself is a leap that takes long for most to understand and/or accept.
Tattoo artists are in somewhat of a more luxurious position than the tattooer, one might think. But there is a flipside to it.
They normaly receive more respect and trust while being handed more controle over their subject matter which is a freedom many people dream of in their jobs. What a dandy live. Depending on how well they do, they can choose the pieces they want to do and might even reach a point where every piece they start is total fun for them.
While mostly doing custom work and getting to lay his/her own ideas on the bodies of others, doing bigger scale work and probably earning a lot more attention than the tattooer, there is also a few drawbacks:
-Smaller clientele
-Longer waitinglists
-More pressure
-Less tattoo time, more drawing time = less free time and less money
-Less pieces that will take longer
-More public awareness resulting in
-More critique which can be good depending on how one deals with it. resulting in
-More pressure to not fuck up, which can be good depending on how one deals with it
-More required self controle and self awareness, which can be good for ones character but also backfires a lot. All those extremes can lead to a
-Bigger chance of burn out
-not a lot of room for other non work related problems

And those two examples are only the absolute best case scenarios IMHO. Probably none of the above exist in real life without or without leaking into each other. Those are the prototypes.

This is a bit of a weird blog, and you might ask where i am going with this...

It's for those of us that get tired of what they do from time to time,
Those that feel on the edge of a burn out,
Those that have lost the fascination for the best job in the world and esp.
Those who think this job is something they can learn from the kitchen or like to try for a hobby because it looks easy on the TV.
Hey, fuck, it might just be the way to get rich and happy without that degree in school or that totally over rated talent in anything! You don't need to be smart to draw a little!
Jump right from the building side or the housekeeping into the fabulous future life of the rich and famous tattoos artist who has two cock addicted, hot girls, dry humping each of his legs at all times while talking in the coolest and funniest catch phrases the entire day without ever breaking into sweat or looking anything less than cool even if totally out of any physical shape... Holy crap! I can finally look like a total social misfit, and it will be my work outfit!! Look at those badasses leaving their lifelong mark on rock stars, touching half naked girls on a daily basis while listening to their favorite (also socialy unaccepted) music, swearing, farting, burping, being fucking rich rich rich and famous and defining the word c o o l.
You only need to draw a bit... and my neighbor loves my drawings and mom also always said i am a big artist! So lets go! This is so easy!!

whoa... i am not deleting this... it was too much fun to go to that parallel universe.

[Reality check]
If you don't plan to get really fucking good and put in what it takes, you are in the wrong business and should look for something where your premediated negligence is not harming the future of other people. Good luck with that. Anyways, you are in for a wakeup call sometime soon.
Agrivatingly, some can do their job with an attitude like that and sicceed grately while living of of the ignorance of our beloved but uneducated clientele...
If you are really into this and want to go all the way, always listen to advice, be humble and leave out the ego until you established your own stuff to a level that is accepted by other peers.
Always raise your bar just out of reach.
Never should a tattooer raise their bar to satisfy the taste of friends family AND customers. Or to just be a bit better than the guy next door. never be too lazy or irresposible to forget the hygiene and never think you know enough about any subject. Accepting critisicm is a virtue having faith in the own abilities is a crux.
And of course, always be the most skeptical of your own ideas before you distrust the experience of others. No matter what you think of them. These are the most important things to take on board when going on the long journey that is becoming a good, solid tattooer/tattoo artist.
just try to add to the industry. If you don't have anything to add. Keep doing what your doing because after a few years of struglle tattooing will feel the exact same to you as the shit you do now, only that you harm the business of those that do work hard on themselves while underperforming with possibly lifelong consequences on people that trust you.[/Reality check]

thats it for today. no imagery to make this easier to read.
ranting again towards the end there...

sincerely,
stern motherfucker,
over and out...

;)

Well, damn!

2009-02-26T10:53:00.004+01:00

... just stumbled upon this...
this is just fucked up (exaggeratedly weird and great)

Fish With Transparent Head Filmed

It has a fucking transparent dome as a head! With frickin, green swiveling lenses mounted inside it!

if this shit doesn't leave anti evolutionists holding onto their knees and rocking back and forth while mumbling their mantra of choice, i don't know what will.

Evolution is bad ass... If shit like this can happen, given enough time and stability, imagine what else could be out there in environments that we have always thought to be absolutely uninhabitable... granted, most worlds would have never been able to kick start any life into existence, but like mars, some worlds might have been "life-friendly" in the past and very gradually, over millions of years degraded into the icy, irradiated deserts that they are... If that change took long enough, life could have adjusted to it though... why not?
Last thing i heard was that they find unusual amounts of methane in Mars' atmosphere. Way higher as they would expect to be caused by vulcanism (which doesn't really happen anymore on mars) or comet impacts (which should be traceable. For the amount of methane that we see, can't hang out for as long as it would take for erosion, to erase all the signs of a big enough comet impact...)
So... who is doing all the farting on mars?

Shit like this is more inspiring to me than any Science Fiction novel or movie or the most bizarre creature designs i have ever seen... because reality always trumps fantasy... always.

I can't believe (after seeing weird/awesome shit like this that some people prefer their self conceived fantasy world over the surprising fascination that is waiting out there... (and on our televisions and Computer screens for lazy fuckers like myself.)

In that same sense i cwant to list a few documetaries and movies every human being must have seen in his/her life.

Planet Earth
Earth a biography
Blue Planet
Life in the Undergrowth
Baraka
Carl Sagans Cosmos

to name just a few of my all time favorites.

have a week.
M

The Greys are fucking with us!

2009-01-08T02:14:00.004+01:00

aw damn...
I am on a role again. i just started thinking about aliens... That can happen.
I wanted to flesh out the thought i had in my last movie review.

To start off.
Here are a few types of civilizations in easy frames. Those civ types were established in 1964 by Nikolai Kardashev. i put it really briefly here. But go ahead and read up on it on Wikipedia its a fun entry.

Type I
this civilization harnesses the energy output of an entire planet.

Type II
this civilization harnesses the energy output of a star, and generates about 10 billion times the energy output of a Type I civilization.

Type III
this civilization harnesses the energy output of a galaxy, or about 10 billion time the energy output of a Type II civilization.

Dammit,
where are we?
right?! RIGHT!
we s u c k.

Lets get this straight!
Now, a type 2 civilization on their way to become type 3 would be the right candidate to be visiting us here on earth right? They would very likely be on their way to become a type 3.
I would if i would be a type 2 civilization (maybe i am... but thats pseudo philosophical banter), i would like to get to type 3 status or at least I would work on that...
Which means they want our resources... I am not talking about our oil or money or women (like in so many movies).
I am talking about our whole biosphere and sun.
They would not go and chat with us... we are not going to the forest to chat with monkeys about turning the place into a parking lot. Some of them might try just for kicks or as a hobby or to take a few samples to some kind of interstellar zoo project. But i think if they would want our planet they would simply take it.
If we would not comply with this they would make very (very) short process with us.
Oh, they might be allergic to the earth makeup of bacteria, microbes and viruses, like in war of the worlds. They would surely not have been able to write very smart software that can control killing-machines.
No no! They like to come here and do the shoot em'up by themselves. They are into sports.

fine.

What do we do before we set foot on a planet? we send probes... and more probes.
Heck even looking at a planet a 1000 light years away we (remember not even type 1 civ... we are still type "tard" civ.) can very precisely tell what it's atmospheric makeup is by using spectroscopy. Really easy actually.

Those guys might look at our little world and run a computer prediction program based on our atmosphere and climate to determine what kind of lifeforms they might encounter. They certainly wont touchdown and bring a bad cough back home... We (tardians) are not even that stupid.

So in a nutshell.
Aliens will not talk to us or negotiate with us about anything.
They kill us and thats that.
Or they leave us alone. Which is unlikely.
They would not be stupid enough to wait until we become a nameable threat. But they might be smart enough to wait until we are extinct. Which i far more likely to happen a lot sooner than us becoming a threat to a type 2 civ... We have yet to become a proper type 1 ourselves... type 2 is a huge (!) leap.
type 3 civ is certainly not going to fuck around negotiating anything... no way. the simply switch our sun off or wait... a race that can travel around the galaxy has lots of patience... takes time to get around.

plus, think about this:
what spurs technological advancement more than anything else?

WAR

(play Manowar's "Kill with Power" for the rest of this paragraph)

The first Cro Magnon that hit his opponent over the head with a thighbone was very likely to have more offspring than his dumb and dead opponent. The army with missiles will beat the one that only has canons. I think that the thought that no warlike race would hold their act together long enough to advance into a space faring race is not entirely logical at all.
It is more likely that the one most aggressive and intelligent race will be likely to overrun others and feast on they booty.
If i would be that advanced i would likely be very xenophobic or at least very bored by other less advanced species and make it a habit to annihilate any semi-intelligent race on its way to space i come across. If you are that advanced there is not a lot of point in studying them. You might not see anything very new or exciting. This is a very bleak view, i know. But a very likely one, too.

I find his argument very convincing when also a tad bit narrow minded. Alien Logic would not be alien if we could predict it this easily.
But the logic is there. I like logic. I am human i gotta work with what is given to me. And i like fantasizing about cool aliens. Killing all of humanity wont make them any less cool btw.
A purely scientific and friendly race that harvests all energy of a galaxy or is on it's way to do so(would not be all that fucking friendly now would it?!!!!) would need a lot more logic and thought to be explained coherently.
Using occams razor i arrive at a warlike, xenophobic killer race that will most likely not even make the step and visit personally but send self-assembling drones across the whole galaxy to eradicate any sign of intelligent life. Well i didn't arrive at that conclusion, Phil Plait did. And i ate it up and walk away with it. I totally think this would be the case.

Somber right?

The good news if there would be a type 3 in our galaxy, we would know by now. they would have wiped us out or made their presence very obvious by now. The fact that we see no unexplainable events in the sky at all times with Dyson Spheres and life teeming in the galaxy is a pretty good sign that we are safe for now.
We might never make it to be even a type1 civilization (yes i am getting very bleak now, sry). Let alone a type 2. That's just ridiculously far away. Even when considering a scientific singularity (look it up it's fun!) happening.
Which in my mind is also pretty far out yet. But what do i know... really, i am not nearly educated enough to have a proper opinion about those things.

(oh to hell, here i go...)

But i think i am doing a lot better than any of those that believe that we are visited by aliens...
Give me one proper reason why they should do it!
Now, give me another reason why they would make any blatant mistakes in not being discovered!
Why would they not want to be discovered? A race that can come here for observation in a ship that we can not see, will not make stupid mistakes and end up on blurry photos or in corny campfire stories.
They will be seen if they want to be seen... or not.
"I saw weird lights in the sky and i can not explain them, therefore it must be aliens."

-sigh-

No, therefore you are a suggestible dreamer and build all your conclusions on your own personal treasure of wisdom...
Dragons aren't real, too. Not to try and make anyone cry now.
But really,
no dragons.
I mean, damn, in a few years not even our cars will necessarily need headlights anymore. Why on earth would they want to have fancy lights on their spacecraft?!
Did they get pimped by some alien UFO pimp shop? Oh yes those are the engines right?
Get this: Atmospheric flight does not need engines that emit any light.
Nor does Space travel... Aliens know that.
I would be a lot more alarmed by a very weird sound traveling across my head at night and not seeing anything. That would freak me out good. Fancy bobbing lights without any sound, not so much. There is so much ways to explain lights in the sky. I wouldn't even know where to start. Almost everyone that has an issue with his/her "need attention chromosome" has a very riveting UFO story, ready to go... And it's always really watertight, too... Nobody to confirm aroundand nothing can ever scratch the story one bit. Because you can always explain away any explanation by simply being creative with your "memory" of what happened on you personal D-Day.

And another thing:

imagine a type 3 civ (try!). And now imagine these (to us) godlike entities to be interested into our assholes. (yes i am really going there...) Enough so to be willing to beam us up into their spaceships to analize us with dildo'esque probes and to shove shit under our skin... The dirty rulers of the galaxy like to stick it up puny mammals butts...
They are making the most perverted porn possible. Fuck something that is not even sharing the same molecular makeup.
That was their motivation to explore space. To travel bazillions of light years and very likely spend thousands of years between the stars. Traveling. Observing. No chance to know where to look. (No chance to see our signs of life early enough to already be here, but that aside... light travel at a finite speed at last). All this vast and stupefying technology and awe inspiring patience... (it makes too much sense not to be true)
To find mammal type aliens on a little blue planet and rape them, infiltrate their governments to play extremely stupid human politician, provide them with nightly light shows, scratch art into cornfields and toss mutilated cattle through the sky... and of course, thee pr0n. Now that really sounds like very significant work to be done by a race that is able to spend thousands of years on a spaceship traveling through the galaxy. Even "the Hitchhikers Guide To the Galaxy" was not that ridiculous.

But who knows... they are aliens after all... they might be into weird shit.

Well, i am really happy i was able to turn this post into something having to do with porn.
Deep thoughts, deep thoughts.
Whatever keeps you folks looking at the night sky (or porno). It is never a waste of time. Thats for sure.

have a good night.
M

stuff to read

Death from the Skies -Phillip Plait (nonfiction... awesome read i am gonna review this soon. really.)

Revelation Space - Alastair Reynolds (trilogy. Includes a robotic alien controlmind called the "inhibitors" that kill off all intelligent life they come across... one of my all time favorite books)

House of Suns - Alastair Reynolds (Humanity as a type 2 - 3 civilization... omfg so good)

There is so much more but i am not going to overwhelm you guys.

Yes please! the day the earth stood still

2008-12-20T23:28:00.004+01:00

So, i just watched this movie. i came into the theater with my usual skeptisicm for Science Fiction movies. This one took of really nicely and i gotta say i liked it a lot. For those who have not seen it yet. Spoiler alarm. Go watch it. It's worth you money. Don't expect independence day or war of the worlds effects or action, though.

The basic idea behind this remake of a 1951 movie under the same name inspired by Harry Bates' short story "Farewell to the Master"

The idea is that aliens land on the earth (in Manhattan [ sigh #1]) and the first alien to make contact gets shot by a fellow, puny human.
Luckily the aliens are kinda trained in making contact with civilizations that are 4th kind contact virgins and don't destroy the earth because of a stray bullet. Which i find very believable. actually the whole nature of the aliens, the American government and humanity is pretty believable.
So Klaatu (Keanu Reeves) is that poor bastard that got shot and is subsequently helped and held prisoner by the american government. He wants to talk to the world but they don't let him and think, you invaded OUR airspace, therefore you are our alien.
Not so.
All goes pretty bad from here as to be expected. Klaatu goes through with his plan and proceeds to cleanse the earth of all human traces. The nanocaust starts. Awesome effects on that but i would have hoped to see a little more death and destruction and some more alien-human interaction. i would have loved to see what they looked like and how they're civilisation is running. That was a bit of a bummer. Nothing.
However the superiority of the aliens is pretty convincing.
Just one point.
Klaatu gets convinced by Professor Barnhardt who had a nobelprice for biological altroism but a blackboard full of physics ecuations... doesn't really connect... quite a genius and what a gem to show to an alien in order to show that we humans can change and do wonderful things?! Oh well... he was played by John Cleese so i will wave that through... i liked that scene a lot actually. Again very convincing dialogue.
But, and here is that point i want to make.
Klaatus species had to evolve into those higher beings because of a looming catastrophe of an aging star in their star system. But people have to die because we destroy our planet and earth is too precious. Live supporting planets are rare so humans have to be exterminated to save it. Professor Barnhardt has to convince Klaatu of the pretty obvious fact that mankind might grow into the same suit Klaatus people did.
And this is where i part.
I do not buy that the aliens did not take this point into consideration. No way. They came on a mission. And than one guy tells them that we will all change if they let us go on with killing the planet a little more...

And that is also a little weird isn't it?
We are not killing the planet. earth will be fine because we pretty much only help it to kill us. And a bazillion species will suffer from that subsequently of course... but earth is not gonna be uninhabitable. with humans gone, earth will stabilize withing a few thousand years and within a million or two there will be a rich and thriving ecosystem, ready for the aliens to decsent onto without having the burdon of killing an intelligent (oh well...) civilisation on their minds.

I do not think that aliens that are willing to travel thousands of lightyears (which takes at least a little more than thousands of years) can not wait and see if we can make it by ourselves. i think they will wether kill us without asking any questions or offering any kind of dialogue. Or they are of Klaatus kind and will watch and see what happens. A spacefaring race that far evolved would have patience and reasoning for that kind of an approach. If they do not want to kill us they are interested. if they are interested, we are of value to them. I would expect this value to be a lot more worth than a few thousand years that they would have to spend anyways in order to get to us anyways...

But again, i will rest my case because if one of those two scenarious would be true for this movie if would be either called "independence day","war of the worlds" (or any other generic "bad aliens come to kill every human being" kinda movie) OR it would be called "sex in the city, Rainman, Brazzers Vol. 66 or any other movie where nothing significantly "outer space alien" like happens...
In other words. this movie is very enhjoyable as a science fiction movie. The science is good, and the fiction is good too. I had a great time. I actually just came back from the theater and went straight to my computer to get this outta my system. Not that i want to exagurate anything. there is not a lot of storie to get into, some of the characters where weakly developed and some stuff was just straight up badly done. but there were moments in this movie that made me shiver with excitement. They actually were brave enough to keep the huge Gort robot from the first 1951 movie in there and left it very close to the original which i think was quite a leap to get to work. But i liked it. And it had Jennifer Connely in it...
So there was no way i could hate that movie anyways! I mean... she made me watch Hulk for, like, 5 times. Hulk 1!

crickets

Anyways.
I guess i am a bad critic if it comes to just go about what makes a movie good or bad, because i don't care as long as the aliens are cool and science and/or the viewers intelligence is not insulted by ridiculous physics or plots. This movie looked like the guy's that made it where smart people with the right intensions. Not like the embarassing overtanned, overpayed idiots that made "Sunshine" or "Armageddon"... ramble attack, argh.
No, wont go there...
The Day the Earth Stood Still.
Best Science fiction movie i have seen in a long, long time. Not best action or special effects movie, not best fiction movie either. But certainly great great SF! I hope this will set a standart across this genre. That science is not boring and that superstition, faith based desicion making and other superfluous human bullshit gets us killed in the long run. We need to grow up. Stop making more and more babies without a chance to feed them find energy that is sustainable and cost effective. Save the planet and leave it while we can.

Otherwise Klaatu will be pissed off and kill us with his nano. I do not want to get randomized by tiny robots just because i left the heating on while i went shopping.

Good night
M

2008-11-06T14:08:00.004+01:00

New sketch i somehow ended up drawing out... that can happen...

it might end up as a t-shirt but then with the full sword... i gotta look into it. If anyone is interested in wearing something like this, let me know. Might need a few requests to end up doing this. This would only be a small run so shirts wont be cheap but rare...

2008-10-20T22:07:00.012+02:00

So what do you know!? An actually work related blogpost!
And big news, too!

I can announce that my apprentice of the last 2,5 years and i are finally joined under one roof again. Rob is going to start tattooing in my studio in late october and will be all setup and running early november. We are very excited about this and want to let everyone know that we can't wait for interested people to check out his stuff and get tattooed!!
He can be reached under rob@luxaltera.com

Also check out his Myspace profile! If you don't have a myspace account yourself, get one! I am posting most of my fresh stuff there too. So go make an account and add both of us and whoever else you like. You will find all big names in tattooing on myspace and most likely a lot of their works that you have never seen before.

Robs profile
http://www.myspace. com/tattoo_spiral

Markus' profile
http://www.myspace.com/luxaltera

Of course i wouldn't let anyone work with me that i do not fully support. Robs work is very nice, detailed and technically sound so lets cake him in appointments people!
I cant wait to have company here, let's make it work!

here a few samples of his work

M

Latest Find

2008-10-07T10:33:00.003+02:00

I was having a bit of a nerdgasm today. I am still terribly sick. Having a cold that is making my muscles feel like they are made from brittle, rusty iron rods. No fun at all.
So, nerdgasm,
i am long sick of those badly done Discovery Channel & National Geographic documentaries that show funny pictures and have lots of great sound and cg effects but don't tickle the brain at all... Actually i am not even trusting them anymore to tell me facts but i suspect most of the shows to be so filled with bullshit that it becomes really hard to filter the stuff thats true from the sugarcoating the general audience seems to need to even go near any common knowledge at all these days. I am quite delighted that it can be a different way without being at all boring. I found two very cool sites.
Now i am normally not much into chemistry and only have very basic knowledge from whats left of my time in school which is rather poor.
Here are a few guys that i wish would have been my teachers in school for they are really funny and obviously love what they do. They also put together the Periodic Table of Videos for each element.
What a great idea! check that out, it is not at all boring. Esp the basic elements are really fun to learn about because they are so vital for our existence...

another site that i found is connected to the Periodic Table of Videos is called TestTube.
It is more generalized and is a Youtube channel from the Science City of Nottingham.

Both these Channels demonstrate very nicely how you can make an entertaining program with very little budget and lots of tasty brain food without getting boring or confusing.
It really shows what science is and doesn't render scientists as those enigmatic, strange people that just claim to know more than anybody else without telling anyone why and how that can be so... I started to grow a little aversion against the bigger documentary channels for that reason. I dont think they do a good job in conveying the fascination that drives people to dig ever deeper into the stuff we don't know.
I am in danger of starting a ramble now so enjoy those links and let me know what you think!

Here a taste of the Periodic Table of Videos
Beautifully blue Oxigen

And one from
TestTube

small stuff

2008-09-25T20:05:00.005+02:00

always interested in small tattoos!
here a flavour of whats possible...
2,5 hours

loved to do this one!

Bad news!

2008-09-14T09:21:00.010+02:00

I hate to say it but...

I wont make it to the London Convention. Some stuff came up in my life that requires my immediate attention and some figuring out. My home clients will hopefully not be affected by this. But i am sure some changes in my agenda and booking schedule will arise from this. Hopefully some good changes, too.
I am quite dissapointed since it was the first time for me to be listed for a spot on the London Convention and i was really excited to go. But it is just very bad timing for me right now. Stuff will look different next year.

For 2009 i am trying to be in Berlin a lot more. I miss that place too much and whenever i get out of Rotterdam i just feel 200% better. Esp. Berlin is just my goddamn city!
Hopefully for a at least a week per month. No idea how and where yet but if you are interested in getting work done in Berlin, i am all ears. That will also mean more collab opportunities with Lutz. But i will post here again if i know more about this.

I am also looking to do a lot more small pieces here at home. I am flooded with huge work at the moment that will take some time to finish. Which is absolutely great and what i always wanted but it is nice to have the instant glory of taking a tattoo from start to finish in just one day.
I am always very happy to squeeze in a smaller piece here and there for that kind of satisfaction.
So if anyone is thinking about a handsized piece and is afraid of my waitinglist, let me know about it. It has to be something cool of course. I am still not willing to do the ultra ordinary stuff that doesnt require any thought to do. It has to be challenging.
Thats it for now.

Hold Fast
M

PS.:
on a lighter note, some witty humor can't hurt

THE LARGE HADRON COLLIDER (LHC) at CERN

2008-09-13T00:16:00.003+02:00

Well i have to do it and i am already late...
The Latest CERN baby the LHC is finally in it's last test stages and getting ready for it's first virgin collision. I am not holding my breath for amazing science to unfurl itself into the world and i am certainly not waiting to see the event horizon of a black hole to roll over the planet and turn us all into hyperdiamonds. But this is certainly going to be interesting and might lead to great inovative breakthroughs in the future. Just like Einsteins theory of relativity helped us to synchronize our satellites and develop lasers and nuclear fusion... there are a thousand ideas for what door the LHC can open in the brains of eggheads of the future. But as always in science it wont hit us with a striking headline... But these videos certainly are enjoyable. Some of them are more educative than others but all are pretty nice.

I put them in an order that helps to understand what all the hubbub is about.
and as a goody i added a few vids explaining special relativity by the guys from CERN 30 years ago... When educative science shows didnt need boobs to keep people focused. (ramble ramble)

behold Atlas! (just one of the 4 detectors on the LHC ring. The biggest one!)

more about the way atlas works

more size conveying stuff... look for people in the pictures... they might appear smaller than you would think.

so about relativity... it helps to understand it sometimes...

having pictures seems to help me understand all this
so here i found a few videos that even are ontopic by showing CERN 30 years ago... pretty cool stuff and the best explanation i could find on youtube.

i love this shit.

Everybody also check out The Elegant Universe

Over and Out
M

I have a bit of a Rant again

2008-09-05T12:19:00.003+02:00

Just so you know whats coming, be warned.
This was such a good day... I have a day off. I was gonna make myself a really nice breakfast with all my favorite stuff, kick back and watch a movie on the big screen while taking my time munching down my first meal of the day. In my Pajamas! Before i do that i check my favorite forum. One of which has an ongoing discussion about spirituality and religion as opposed to reason, science, rationality, skepticism and critical thinking. Now, I can't go off to my day without checking out the latest post and it simply was a big mistake...

because i saw this Fuck...

so what this nutcase (!) is trying to say is, if you are crazy enough to believe so hard in santa claus that you can actually feel his dick in your butt, he must exist...
HANDS DOWN END OF STORY I WIN THIS THE PROOF I SAVED THE WORLD LETS ALL GO PRAY TO THE LORD!

yuk!
I can almost feel this guys tongue in my ear and still i dont believe its there... I wish i would be able to believe in made up bullshit so i could believe i never saw this or that people like this just belong to a different species. i feel mentally raped my intelligence soiled buy this shit i am ashamed for our brains to not have an automatic fix for shit like this and really angry to have to share this planet with numbnuts like this.

This vid has the word NON SEQUITUR written all over it.
It would be so much fun to count the logical errors this guy makes and all but i am tired of taking this from a rational stance because rationality is just not the realm these people live in.

So lets talk spritual for a difference. I am sure i can do it somehow. Let's see how it goes.

Recently two people in the family of my girlfriend died.

We went to both funerals and i had to go to church and all. I was totally fine with it and respectful. I didn't sing or pray but i stood up and knelled when i had to because i think i owe it to the people and family to not focus ANY attention on me and/or my atheism because this is not about me or what i think, but a mourning ceremony and i found it absolutely important to respect this and not be any source of badness in the memory of the people attending.
that aside as i think it's common sense.

Both times i was in that mass i did feel that all the choir singing and the whole atmosphere of the mass and the church are really doing something with the mind.
I didn't get a feeling of awe but I had a good chance to analyze that it had uplifting and calming qualities.
Esp. the choir singing was very emotionally altering to me. very interesting.

I naturally tried to compare it to my catalog of emotions and found that
all of this can be easily reproduced in my own home.

I had the exact same feeling (only with the awe) when i saw the movie "winged migration" the mix of scenery and soundtrack gives me a feeling of awe. The Soundtrack is very very heavy on the emotions the imagery is also quite intense.

So why do i get a way stronger feeling watching a natural documentary? Why is it, that whenever i listen to the soundtrack of this movie i can channel the exact mix of emotions if i let myself go?

I can see how people that do believe in god experience this a lot more intense than I, while listening to choir singing or attending a mass in church. The feeling of awe must be immense in them. It's this feeling this prick talks about, being a proof (!lol!) that god exists.
I also understand that once you have tasted that, it is hard to loose.
Something one would not want to loose. You'd be very afraid to loose in favor of the cynical looking world of a critical thinker.
The thing is you wont loose it.

I sometimes sit on my balcony and look at a flower. Imagining what it took to produce this exact flower and for me to look at it:

The millions of years of evolution that shaped the petals and the leafs to the shape this plant needs to have the optimal terms of life in its environment.
Then somebody decided it is not beautiful enough or that it could need more variety. Took it and cross bred it, experimenting just like evolution does with some scrap and some promising parts as an outcome.
Millions of years and a few decades of human intervention and here it is.
Still doing it's job. Surviving in a hostile environment. Being bombarded with cosmic rays, surrounded by fucking deadly oxygen that destroys everything by oxidization and still here it is. Still evolving. Still learning how to make the best use of the enemies weaponry to it's own favor.
Every petal absorbing the light of our sun in the most efficient way. Using sunlight to turn oxidized hydrogen (water) and oxidized carbon (CO²) into glucose... the start of all life on this planet. The very first link of the food chain. Everything has to start here. absolutely stunning.

This is awe for me. And this is a flower... don't get me started on a beetle or even an ant colony. I might loose it. And never ever sit next to me if there is a bright night sky full of stars... seriously i don't stop smiling stupidly or just sit there with my eyes glaced over. Not automatically but if i allow myself to dive into that feeling of awe i am overwhelmed by it.
There is so much to know...

Using science to know as much as you can about your environment will make you automatically understand what real awe and respect is.

It makes you appreciate our environment and our whole physical world so much more for what it is. It's about understanding why to save it and nourish it. It tells you why (!) to respect it.

To look at this flower and thank god for it can not compare to the line of though i have when looking at it.
It's intellectually lazy, unsatisfying and does not do nature any justice.
Then the only reason to not crush it under your boot is the fear of gods wrath. But you have no idea why you are not allowed to crush it. I don;t crush it because i don;t feel i have the right to conciously make the decision to destroy something that has fought so hard for it's place in nature without a real good reason (a real good reason could be it offending my view already, lets get that straight i am no treehugger)

as an everyday life experience:

If my kid drops something expensive i could beat the shit out of her so she will never do it again.
She will probably never do it again after such a rifeting father/daughter experience but does she know exactly what she did wrong? What that expensive thing was worth or WHY it was not supposed to break or how to prevent it in the future? And WHY she should care?
no.
She only knows she can not break this particular thing on the ground again because it will lead to punishment.
If one takes the time to explain and maybe go through the process of loosing a few items due to trial and error you will end up with a kid not WANTING to destroy instead of being afraid to...
Also you teach the kid how to think critically and use it's own reasoning instead of going the fast and easy lane of terrifying it of the consequences.

A very significant difference. Thats why i always cringe when religious people tell me they are more morally healthy than any atheist could ever be. Just better people. When you see it through the "no god glasses" it becomes very obvious and logical that the opposite is the truth.
I am aware that i am talking very black and white now but it serves to make obvious what i want to get across. And those two approaches are very black and white. there are not a lot of gradations in between them.

so yeah, rational and critical thinking and a healthy thirst for knowledge can lead to a way greater feeling of awe and awareness of the world, nature and the universe with us in it, than religion ever could.
Our brains are able to compute and understand so much more than the simple explanations pop culture or religious beliefs hold for us. Such a shame to not use it. Or to instead use it to come up with ever new ways to justify the blatant wrongness of religion to critical people.

just saying

WU7 Collabing Marathon

2008-09-05T12:03:00.011+02:00

Oh man... long time no see people. i am so sorry i had shitloads to do.
I was in The states to collaborate with Guy and travel a bit around.
after that i was in Germany to collaborate with Lutz and after that iactually had 2 weeks of vacation. so 6 weeks of the ether... pretty much.

I am not wanting to go into the stories of my trips. Lazy. Was great, though. i might write about it some day... Only this. Two almost full sleeves in 3 days is fucked up. My deep respect goes out to Dan Hazelton who took around 34 hours of sabering* without so much as a twitch.
Impressive.
Here is what i did with Guy (remember to click on the pics for bigger viewing)

There is more on my myspace as always...

i have more but i need to start another post for this because i wanna rant.

*=sabering
collaborative tattooing in which each artist works a respective arm of the tattooee. Mostly used (by me) if connected to ridiculously long sessions.
Sabering comes from the 2007 show "Tattoo Wars" in which Aaron Cain and Guy Aitchison tattooed both arms of Graffiti Artist "Saber One" in a duration of 5 days. You do both your arms as one project and without free days inbetween the sessions, call yourself sabered.

TimeOut

2008-07-08T23:38:00.003+02:00

Hey!

Long time no blog... I am a lazy fart. Not really. Just nothing really noteworthy has happened in the last few weeks. I am still doing a lot of work. Much of which i wont reveal for now because i am wanting to get some pieces i am busy with finished first. It seems that some projects are going on forever and i am reluctant to take on new stuff until i got some of the older ones out of my head.

FYI:

I am not going to be available at all for the upcoming 2 weeks. Not on the phone, email, myspace or the door. I am flying out to do some collaborating with Guy Aitchison again. This time we take on a new project which consists of covering two lower arms of one owner.

The happy victim is no stranger either! Someone i have looked up to for a few years now for he is doing extremely nice work in the same subject matter Guy and i are at home.

Check out Dan Hazelton! He has a big amount of work posted on his myspace. Worth checking out! http://www.myspace.com/danhazeltondotcom

Anyhow, just wanted to give everyone a little heads-up. There is going to be videomaterial but i will most likely leave the editing in Guy's hands since he seems to have better understanding of the whole process and a great narrating voice. I can;t say any of that over myself with my stern german accent and hilarious attempts to hide it with bad immitations of a random mix of american, australian and english accents. Not in for that kinda comedy.

Check out the vids he has done so far and also the older ones of the both of us collaborating here

http://www.youtube.com/user/tattootelevision

Here is a little taste of what one finds there

Tapping one out for science

2008-05-09T00:26:00.004+02:00

I know, i know, nobody is interested in what makes my dick twitch... i 'll show you anyways. this is so awesome

for real!!!
nerdgasm!!!

you find the part 2 to this here :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYRQpcJVQx8&feature=related

i need to go there and see it!

in case you ask yourself what it actually is going to do:

While i am at it. i might as well share my new desktop image.

wait wait, i am wanna give this the right outfit.
First search and download the following song:

"Sol Om On" of the album "The Place Where the Black Stars Hang" from "Lustmord"

turn on music

and behold

the saturnian eclipse! (this is a real photo made by the casini spacecraft and not by an artist)

i think i stared at it for more than 10 minutes... And i had that song on by accident but it gave me goosebumps. But i grew up on 2001 - A Space Odyssey... guess i am biased.

However.

enjoy!
M

What i read and/or listen to in audioform

2008-04-12T10:22:00.009+02:00

Richard Dawkins is awesome here is the guy that can put the stuff in my brain in more nice words...

Go get his Book!

The God Delusion

Also check out this guy!

Christopher Hitchens!!
more pithy and a bit more sweaty, cigaretty and all that. But non the less intellectual

and his book

God is not great

Both of those titles are very offensive. They are however written very nicely and frame religion quite nicely.

Check it out!

I got audiobooks of both of those. This is the stuff i am listening to when i am tattooing.

Oh and just for a good laugh,

here some stuff from the believers. Cracked me up.

Yeah who exactly is the deluted one...

good question. Maybe the one that hears voices in his head... i don't know.

rofl

oh yeah and for all americans, there is a new piece of bullshit coming into the theaters around your neck of the woods.

Expelled

More fundamentalist science bashing. Nothing new to me but i am afraid it will seed more hate and fear amongst those that don't know better and those that are already into that kind of bananas... such a shame.

http://www.expelledexposed.com

you all take care and keep your thoughts free from bullshit,
M

WU6

2008-04-04T11:52:00.009+02:00

Updates! All pics clickable for full size!

Marker sketch and after the first coloring session. underwater biostuff. Fun!!

Coverup stuff! Gonna be a huge phoenix piece, full back + back of legs, some frontal stuff and arms. Exciting!

cheesy old dragon got pwnd by flowers.

more views as we go... We might do some work on the amsterdam convention...

More underwater stuff. Octopus fun!

Gnarly Fist!

Cute snowflake

some sketching for a sleeve i started...

Apprentices and those that think about starting to tattoo!!

2008-03-25T10:36:00.002+01:00

If you are a client or regular tattoo fan or artist you might as well ignore this post.

This is the deal. I am getting an assload of emails from you guys about advice for starters and so on. I am always happy to answer them since i did the exact same thing when i started out.
But i have limited time so i want to give a condensed version of things that seem to be consistent in my replies.

I wont ever give technical advice to anyone over the email. Advice on how to start is something that is vital in my mind. And with the right mindset you can go really far, really fast. And if anyone can get to the point i am at earlier and faster than i did, we have advancement going on which is good for the industry. So this is my justification for even writing this.

Here goes:

Before You Even Think About Getting an Apprenticeship:

Draw your fingers of and only measure your stuff against the best you can find that blows your mind. Analyze it, copy it, try to understand how and why it is what it is and why it works.

At some point where you are starting to feel more secure and can do stuff on paper, start reading books on perspective, technical drawing, color theory and shading techniques.

Draw a lot from reference and try to do realistic renderings before you even try to do anything crazy or fancy. Never start at the tip but always at the foundation.
This is pretty global advice so just remember it and check against it if you are not sure where to start.

Get a sketchbook and use it! Through shapes on paper and forget about any lines. SKETCH. Don't do line-drawings.
Sketching is loosening up and that is very very important if you want to be a good artist with an own style. You develop line-drawings from sketches, not the other way around. Whenever you see awesome flowing, dynamic stuff, it most likely started out as a conceptual sketch that looked like a mess.

Once you are ready and fleshed out some good motor skills between your arm/wrist/hand/finger/pencil/paper setup, start making a walk in tattoo related flash set and set it up to be a portofolio.
Include a few of your nicest sketches, those can be freaky and crazy. Sketches reveal more about your character and where you want to go with your stuff. But make sure you have mostly nicely rendered and colored drawings that look finished and clean. You need to show that you can draw simple and small tattoos that everyone can like.

Once you have all that, get out and find someone how wants to teach you about tattooing. Don't try in your kitchen. At least don't do it for long. You are putting people in danger by working in such an environment and you have to learn what "working clean and hygienic" even means so don't get cocky about that.

Hygiene is where a good apprenticeship starts and where a long and successful career can end.

Technically, you wont learn anything good by yourself and if you are doing it for too long you will have trouble getting rid of bad habits and that will slow you down big time. So spend your time drawing on paper and skin and study tattoos with your eyes and your pencil or marker or whatever the hell you use for drawing, as long as you can take before you touch a machine!

If your neighbor is coming to you with a deep nasty cut, you don't suture him up yourself but take him to the doc. Treat tattooing with the same respect for the same reasons!

About Ego:

Crush it. You don't need it at this point and not for a long time. Be humble and never be satisfied with what you do.

Most important thing that needs to really stick in your head(!!):

If your drawings are not better than the usual flash (and not the worst flash you can find but the nice stuff) DO NOT TATTOO THEM.
Really there is nothing wrong with using flash right of the wall or for reference or for puzzling a piece together.

You don't learn drawing on skin. Learn drawing, than tattooing!
If you cant do that, at least make sure that you split those two things up until you can draw good enough to make your stuff worthy to be tattooed. Learn to appreciate the responsebility you have and dont give a fuck about what clients say about their own tattoos. They are always happy with what they got. They are the worst critics! The exception to this of course is if you fucked up so bad that even a fresh new tattooee is pissed off. Lots of homework there.

If you ask people what they think of your stuff, listen to anyone who has something bad to say and think about it. Take your time with that. Don't listen to people that have only good things to say, they have no idea what to look for or try to be nice, or both.
Nothing to gain from that apart from a bloated ego that will hold you back.
Think about it, whenever someone tells you anything that might piss you off, that person makes quite a leap and effort. It always simple and short to be nice but being honest and confronting sucks 90% of the time and takes a lot longer if you want to be good about it. So, if someone makes that kinda effort, don't whine, don't bitch. Swallow and say "thank you".

Many kids wanna start tattooing without ever having to do a tribal or name or anything. You need to find all this exciting and see it as a challenge. Every tattoo can be fantastic no matter how stupid the customer or the idea... You are the one to make it supercool. if you can't, you have found your homework. Some find out that they love doing tribal and start doing it really freaking good. There surely are not enough people how really enjoy that kind of stuff and that is a real pity.
However denying tattoos because you find them stupid is a superpower that you have to earn! And at this point, do everything you can get your hands on as good as you can!

thats it.

The fact that an apprentice can go on the Internet and find something like this might piss some people off. I sure hope someone finds it and takes it to heart. It is for sure one of the hardest ways to do it. No matter if you read it here or live it up by yourself. It's going to be tough as shit.
If you really go by these few tips you can become a really good tattoo-artist instead of a mediocre tattooer.
Make up your mind about what you want to be.

I have not added anything to make this easier to read. No pictures, no bullshit. I already paragraphed it nicely so it is readable at all. But i was really close to just making it a solid block of letters so that only the most dedicated take the time to tear it apart.
If you are starting out as an apprentice, in your kitchen or wherever and feel offended by what i wrote here, fuck you! Go draw! You didn't get it.
(getting this all the time so just making sure ;) )

I live by those guidelines myself and like to be taken the piss out of and doing it to those that need it. If you feel i need any piss taken out of myself, go right ahead.
Defending and debating my points and beliefs is my most beloved hobby. If i cant defend them properly they gotta suck, right?
In which case i am happy to move on without them. I just need good convincing.
It's a system that has worked for me so far. Having no emotional attachments to my own beliefs and conclusions that is.

enough from me again,
take care
M

Interview with Yours Truly.

2008-03-12T00:05:00.002+01:00

TattooNow features a brandnew Interview with me.
Turned out to be quite a long one, too.

go here to check it out!

I will do another post on here soon! Keep forgetting my camera in the shop. Busy, busy, busy.

M

WU5 (Milan) and some Hardcore tattooing stuf

2008-02-14T23:46:00.012+01:00

Just back from Milan! I had loads of fun again and met some really awesome people. Some of which i still hope will find my myspace page!
I did not do a hell of a lot. Instead I had more time to run around and catch up with friends and came back with full batteries.
I also need a smaller camera to take with me so i can actually make some pictures of the places i go. Would be nice...

Again, clicking on pictures in this post will show them to you in whatever size i saved them. but always a lot bigger than seen here.

So, here is what i did that weekend.

I was staying with Tim Kern and i have some shots of him tattooing late on the last day in our hotel room (all good in case you wonder. We bring our tattoo setups to be able to work in a convention environment so a hotel room is actually preferable)

Tattooing some 6 hours on some poor guys neck.

taking photos (hand tattoo by Nick Baxter)

And the result!

Check out Tims stuff here http://tribulationtattoo.com/

Today i did something naughty. It was fun and weird in the same moment. Gave me a bit of a tickle. I went on with my dragon front piece...

See that nipple? Offending little bastards. Like salamis flying through the scene.

So we took care of it.
It is perfectly ok to tattoo the damn things if one doesn't go completely nuts on them and drills them into oblivion.
They heal pretty fast and hold color just fine if tattooed right.

A few buttock clenching moments later we had them rendered nicely.

and solid, too.

So far so good.

M

WU4: Creating new stuff and some Work Update

2008-02-04T16:22:00.000+01:00

Since i didn't really go into detail about how i like to build up a design from start to finish on my site, i thought it might be cool to do that here.

Normally the first step is a consultation with the client and me in which we go over the subject matter. We talk about size, budget and afterthoughts. I make a quick, non-binding sketch, which normally doesn't look anything like what it is going to be but that way i build myself a bridge to remember what we talked about.

After that we make appointments (as many as needed so we keep the momentum and get stuff done) and i take a deposit.

Sometimes i take a bodymap or a couple of photos. Sometimes i feel that i need to go further than that and sacrifice a few hours to make a more elaborate drawing on the body with markers. Which is a lot of fun, so lets see some pics of that process.

This is after about 30 minutes of doodling. Looks like nothing at all.

Next step is to transfer this from 3D to 2D using sticky plastic film. The stuff you used in school to protect your books with.

I will do a lot of clean up work, a little value study and make up my mind about colors and depth, after that I make a line drawing for the stencil.
That process normally will take a few hours.

Here the finished stencil. Still hard to figure out what it's gonna look like for anyone but me... So i normally keep babbling about how it's gonna look and what i am gonna do. Gobbledygook mostly.

On this piece i have been a bit overambitious and we did not get to finish the coloring. It's a foot and feet hurt when tattooed. A lot to be quite honest. So i am pretty happy with my customer for what we accomplished that day. I think we worked around 4 hours on this.
sounds a lot but there is lots of fine rendering in there and in order to stay in the skin, esp on a foot, requires hard work and time t get it solid.
Click on the pics if you find them too small to look at...

The idea was to make some wild underwater biostuff. This is actually going to be a whole lower leg wraparound with a Science Fiction theme so i am pretty stoked about this whole project.

Last saturday i did this one. Doing this drawing took around 3 hours (i think). Lots of work still to do with it. there are a few things that need tuning and it needs a bit more consistency in the subjects. Lots of detail coming in the tattoo of course. It also is an underwater biomech theme. i am doing a lot of underwater stuff lately. So this will have barnacles and sealive textures all over it. Some bioluminescence and other gimmiks should make it crazy enough.

Update:

A few asked about what i was greasing up on the last blog entry since the picture only showed me and my customer but not the actual piece.
So here is what we did that day. Still lots of work to do. More black needed and some linework for the cherryblossoms to make them pop.
The koi is going to be a white one and still needs scales and the water needs some more flow cleanup.

I think regarding on how many hours are put into it now, we have done a lot.

We were joking around about me feeling like this guy.---->

More news:

I have feature spreading over a few pages in this months issue of the German Tätowiermagazin.
Check it out. German skills will help you to read one more of my rants!
Not so bad actually. Pretty happy how it turned out.
Bit bummed that they didn't make me look like an ass like they promised to do... guess i need something to complain about after all. Uh wait, yep, they gave up my oooold oold website for contact, www.toetagtattoo.com
shame on you TM!
Just kidding,
Good episode anyways. Seeing my old Friend Ikker (who's studio was the very first place i ever put needles into peoples skin) on the first 2 pages with his hogheadbelly was kinda funny.
Another nice feature about a good friend of mine from the B52 in Berlin who is doing some pretty hot graphic style biomech.

Parallel to this i had a little surprise leafing through this month issue of Hollands Tattoo Planet where they give me a bit of praise for my website.

Much appreciated! thx mags.

Thats it from me for now.
have a good week!

WU3 - Collab Stuff! And recent small tattoos.

2008-01-20T19:46:00.000+01:00

Yep, another blog in quick succession. whenever that happens you can tell i am putting of some more important work. I am bad.

Here it goes.

since Lutz was here a week ago it's time to share some stuff we have done.
First was our ongoing project with Andy D's double forearm project. The guy is an amazing artist. To the point that i feel belittled when i leaf through his sketchbook. Some shameless promotion towards you man. Now you need to get that website finished and post it here.

Enough of the slime now.
Here are some photos of that session, taken on day two in the morning so all the swelling and residue gunk is from a good night sleep.

After that we started another collab project on a german friend.
Plan was to put some really bolt, robotic biomech on his arm and really go by what the name b i o m e c h stands for. I nerded out over the design of course but i have done enough geeky self humiliation with my movie review from yesterday already. so lets say that this is not looking like much yet but think about that transformers movie and along those lines. Sleek, manufactured multi functional bodyarmor for specialized spacewalks or shit.
There, geeked out on it after all. damn i just can't not be myself!

So here it is. We only did the lines so far. they still look too small but you have to respect that the guy is kinda tall...

More self humiliation. It's true i am almost a midget. i am just a sucker for photos with lots of contrast... ( i wrap this up with plastic wrap here. it's the second day and so no bleeding at all anymore. Since it's only lines we figured that that would be enough protection for the trip. I normally use Dri Loc pads)

And because i am such a good sport. another one... Holland is a land full of large humans. I feel like a Jawa sometimes.

More

I did 2 one session pieces on feet.

A trippy orchid and a powerlined lotus.
Nice, since i am getting caught up in a lot of big pieces lately and that can be quite a load on my brain. (...)

Doesn't happen often that people want to wait that long for a small piece.
I wish it would happen more often.

Both pictures are taken right after finishing the tattoo so the colors are pretty dull compared to what they will look like once healed. I hope to get an opportunity to yake healed shots, soon.

Thats it for now.
M

Sunshine... what crap!

2008-01-19T23:15:00.000+01:00

no this is not going to be a rant over the weather here... it sucks alright but i can sit inside and enjoy a movie right?

Ok, so i rented a movie, Sunshine.
I am a SciFi geek so i probably should not watch SciFi movies ever again...
why?
Because they always S U C K.

This one though i already had a funky feeling about when i held the sleeve in my hand in the videocenter. I thought "fuck it" there is nothing else i find remotely interesting here (anymore) so lets give her a try.

This is where this post will turn into a rant so kick back and enjoy following me into a bile foaming tantrum. I will elaborate on all the bullshit because i need it out of my system. I do put the elaboration in another color so you can skip it to avoid falling asleep

First thing i see is a guy sitting in a room watching the sun through a filter. cool! apparently he is in a spacecraft of to the sun (dying) to deliver a payload (bomb) to jumpstart it again (enormous bunch of megacrap. By the time the sun will start dying we will wether not be here anymore or wont bother to rescue her for anything else but nostalgia... Our sun has at this point at least another 6,5 BILLION years worth of hydrogen to burn... where we will be at that point, i can not even imagine. Plus, fix the sun by blowing it up? hey if the sun has no hydrogen left to burn, blowing up some hydrogen in the sun won't do anything, at all... maybe create a little more solar wind. the thing to do would be to drop a few jupiters into the sun to increase the mass of the star and sort of refuel it.
But hey, that was clear from reading the cover and i still rented it so i am fine with that... i guess) at least they did not let the sun turn into a black hole bu into a white dwarf which should be the thing that will happen with a smallish sun like ours.

Anyways. So after that guy that was sent out there to rescue the solar system had to ask the ship computer all kinds of really stupid questions that a guy in his position should be knowing by heart for obviously educational side effect towards the mesmerized audience. I realize, that he is standing, in a room.... in a ship that does not sport a centrifuge. And he is facing the direction they are traveling in so it's not the accelerational G-Force preventing him to float around weightless... oh crap. they have gravity in space.
So at that point i went to get some tea and cookies and switched from Cool Sci Fi Movie Mode to Ridicule Every Single Mistake in the BULLSHIT Movie Mode. Which for me in such a case is the only way to get at least a bit of my money back and have fun.

Soooo lets see, what was next. So after a crew of way too young and way to stupid astronauts are introduced (which is realistic since it seems like people do get more stupid by average so by the time the sun dies the morons in this movie should be the Einsteins of the world) The more interesting stuff starts to happen.

They find the 1st ship that failed to deliver the bomb and decide to go there to recover the payload so they have a second chance in case they fail to deliver theirs. fair enough. For some reason though, the computer is not able to make the course correction itself but the ship nerd decides to make the calculations himself and change the course accordingly.

!

while all other crewmembers are asleep

!!!

not only does the semi intelligent computer unit on the ship NOT double check his process OR does it itself (my fucking computer can do that, dammit!)
No. That hypermoron does it alone, no doublechecking, no second opinion, nothing. Never ever ever would an astronaut or scientist do something so unbelievably idiotic. Ever.
So he forgets a crucial thing and all goes wrong from here. Oxygen garden on the ship burns down and all that kinda horror. Guy kills himself later on. Topman. Killed the moron crew and had enough courage to take care of himself, too. Yeah! Hero of the movie right there.

The whole suspense of the movie is based on a human error, so lamely scripted and so pulled out out of some idiots ass that it is a shame that it carries the word science before the fiction... i was really speechless.

But lets go on shall i?

So one guy dies in the process of repair work on the hull and they move on.
Then they find the other ship. no one on there. very spooky. Everything is covered in dust (really, everything) about 1cm deep dust. big ship. And one guy explains how all dust is technically human skin. dandruff.

*deep sigh*

to make it even spookier they flash pictures of dicks in front of me whenever one of their flashlights shines into the camera.
Did i write dicks? i meant dead crewmembers... dicks. idiots. whatever. Creepy. Peeing my pants. When did this turn into friggin 28 Days Later? Oh yeah forgot, same director...

For some reason the ships (that were connected through a pressurized tunnel) jolt heavily and get separated with the irreparable damage of the air lock of the dust-ship as a result. (yay lots of people are gonna die now! right? right?!) And they are loosing air too!
They are 4 guys and only one spacesuit.
The only guy that can set of the bomb (!!!!!what the fuck?! only one guy in the crew can do that on a mission to save our all lives?!?! okokok i get over that...[until it is shown how mundane the setting of of the bomb is. than i loose it]) get the suit the others wrap themselves up in isolation material so they wont freeze to death in space (i will get to that... it's subtle but annoying) while they blast themselves out of the damaged airlock and into the home ship.

ok just to get this straight.
again
If you are naked in space. you do not freeze to death.
You get the bends and die from that. The vacuum will make your blood start to boil with nitrogen bubbles and your lung will start bleeding. plus you simply choke.
Space is really cold. But vacuum is great isolation. so there is virtually nothing to transport the heat away from your body so that is really the least of your problems.

so they blow out of the airlock, one guy flies of into space (yay) and freezes solid within seconds. (grumbel). BUT than h efloats of the shields shadow and get the whole sun radiation and vanishes in a light a match fashion. the other guy misses a bit and the suited up guy flies right into the airlock...
what irony. They did not have the glorious idea to just hold on to the suited up guy since he has the biggest mass and thus the best chance for a straight fall towards the home air lock... it's only about surviving virtually naked in vacuum so why think before acting, right? ... morons.

But the second guy gets rescued and will life. With only minor freezes of his hand. He not even has bloodshot eyes or anything close to the bends. He should at least have a lot of pain in his joints or a terrible headache... nope only a blue thumb. Men of steel those young astronauts. i am impressed.

Another really annoying fact about this scene was that he was floating in space vacuum. weightless. Still in the airlock, still not pressurized and still floating. They pump the air into the airlock, pressurize it. And he drops to the floor...

???

As if gravity can only be conducted by an atmosphere... Very very misleading. What impression can crap like this possibly leave with people that have no idea how gravity or zero gravity in space works? This can really fuck up someones understanding of physics. This is why watching television causes stupidity. Am i overreacting? No because this is a subtle scene. Most people wont mind it but it has a real strong cause and effect message. vacuum = zero G atmosphere = 1 G... whenever you make something really short and obvious like in that scene and keep it subtle it will stick. sure stuck with me.

Oh did i say that they found a perfectly healthy oxigen garden in the dust ship but did not have the idea to disattach the garden compartment and try to exchange it for their burnt one... the ships are similar and the compartments are small exchangeable sections like in our very real space station... they leave the ship with the healthy garden and decide to be heroes and die on their mission.

sigh

a few more things happen but i just scrolled up and saw that i wrote a novel again so i will keep it short from here on.

freakish captain of the dust ship that looks like freddy kruger (bad bad sunburn) has swapped ship without anyone noticing (!yeah right!!) while they had contact to the dust bin. Starting to kill the remaining crew. I love that guy.
He turned into a religious whackjob who sabotaged his own ship first in order to prevent the sun from being defibrillated by bomb. (yeah i guess i did not get over that nonsense, too)
So you got a scientist on a mission to save the planet that turns into a religious wacko... possible but very unlikely.
So he kills everyone and while doing that has the glorious idea to lift the inerts of the board computer out of its cooling solution. computer burns out... (my damn pc can shut itself down when overheating!! wtf!?)
One guy has to manually dive into the cooling fluid to get the board brain back into it's bath. dies in the process.

they fly into the sun set of the bomb and the summer comes back to earth.

setting of the bomb was a matter of pushing a key into a hole and pulling out a lever...

damn that one last survivor bomb specialist guy was a real genius. What would have happened without him...

At least everyone died in the end and the world was saved from being frozen and later consumed by the suns bloated atmosphere...

this movie should be labeled as "morons in space". With added laughter in the right places it would have been a great comedy movie.

Do i have anything good to say about it after all.

well yes.

It is beautiful to look at. The Spacesuits look superb. and it does keep your attention until you reach the last chapter where it all falls apart and turns into a total brainfuck. For people that don't know anything about physics and don't care at all i would suggest, knock yourselfs out and watch it. you will enjoy it. just don't remember any of the science in it please. None of it. It's mostly wrong wrong wrong.

-Earth,
-over and out.

WU2

2007-12-19T17:13:00.000+01:00

New painting.
I am going to make a few with this look.Fits my current mood (winter)
and i like how thism one came out. Anyone interested in an original painting in this style, let me know.
This is a 8"x6" (20x15cm) and something in this size would go for €300...
Not selling this one though.

A bit recent "in Progress" stuff...

Sentiment

2007-12-10T22:54:00.000+01:00

just needed to share a bit of my childhood. Essential stuff.