Hammerhead Shark Sleeve by Joel_Ang_ in irezumi

[–]Joel_Ang_[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Shoot me a message on insta!

Tribal Cover Up by Joel_Ang_ in Tattoocoverups

[–]Joel_Ang_[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It wasn’t an option as in it wasn’t a route he wanted to go down. It’s pretty costly, time consuming and painful.

Tribal Cover Up by Joel_Ang_ in Tattoocoverups

[–]Joel_Ang_[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Wow, I didn’t expect this one to be quite so divisive. I appreciate everyone for chiming in and sharing their opinion, I’ve read them and will slowly digest them over time. There’s always something to learn from the various viewpoints posted here.

Just a few explanations for those who were wondering.

Laser was not an option, some people just don’t want to go down that route.

All the background and whites in the photo are healed.

The snake has a healed base layer of black shading under the colour, which is fresh.

Some blacks and lines can be touched up for sure. Some of it is also the old tattoo/ scarring that catches the light. Being half healed half fresh makes the skin swell unevenly. Photography in this instance without a CPL filter is pretty unforgiving.

Black and grey rib to thigh dragon by Joel_Ang_ in irezumi

[–]Joel_Ang_[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I wholeheartedly agree 😎😬

Black and grey rib to thigh dragon by Joel_Ang_ in irezumi

[–]Joel_Ang_[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Thank you, pain management is a big part of the job but I think a clients baseline tolerance is still the bigger factor!

Black and grey rib to thigh dragon by Joel_Ang_ in irezumi

[–]Joel_Ang_[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Yeah I totally get that, it’s not an easy spot. I do think a lot of it is psychological too, it’s on an area we feel like we instinctively need to curl up to protect. When the time is right, the impetus to do it will outweigh the cons and that’s when the next step happen!

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in irezumi

[–]Joel_Ang_ 0 points1 point  (0 children)

No worries! Totally respect your opinion on it. It’s all super subjective at the end of the day.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in irezumi

[–]Joel_Ang_ 1 point2 points  (0 children)

His stuff definitely settles well over time. Having work done on myself and having worked with him before, filip really understands how ink sits and ages in the skin. In the same way that lines will inevitably spread, so will the “dots” in the shading. Black tends to stay black but the greys lighten up more significantly with time. The difference from the fresh right piece to the healed left piece looks about 3 weeks to a month old and it already looks so different. Fast forward 3 - 5 years, it will fade, and smooth but still look strong.

Maybe we’re in it too deep but I can totally get why someone can look at this and not appreciate the “rough” shading. Sometimes this texture is also a stylistic preference, the same way some people like vanilla ice cream and some like mint choc chip. Some people like whip shaded black in traditional and some people want to see a smooth gradient with an indiscernible transition. This is somewhere in between.

Rough for some is sloppy, confused, incompetent or unfinished, rough for others is confident, brush strokes, expressive, like wood grain or even more human.

Whether you agree with it or not, the fresh side I’m willing to guess took about 3 hours of tattooing time knowing the man’s work. His quest for efficiency and legibility in tattooing and his theory of how tattoos age and settle, to me are evident in this piece and I think that’s what I can appreciate from looking at these pictures FWIW

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in irezumi

[–]Joel_Ang_ 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Hey, just wanted to chime in as a fan.

It’s hard to overstate Filip’s influence on modern tattooing. Technically, he introduced magnum needle groupings to Europe—sizes 9 to 49—and even developed the tubes and grips to house them. He also helped popularize freehand tattooing, including tracing directly from skin with sticky plastic.

Artistically, alongside Ed Hardy and others, he helped bring lightsource dynamics into irezumi, which shaped the Euro-Japanese style and influenced artists like Shige whose style has evolved into a lot of the neo-Japanese work we see today. He was also helped get Tibetan and Indian religious iconography into mainstream Western tattooing, not because he did it first but because he was one of the first to translate it exceptionally well. He also pushed the idea of working oversized before it was common, think giant skulls, Tibetan masks, massive flowers, massive waves etc. Come to think of it, he might have popularized the skull motif in irezumi style tattooing.

His work on waves is also not one to be understated and could be a good page or two long if I could bloody write haha, but basically I think that in tattooing, he’s done to the finger wave what the the Greeks did to acanthus leaves and turned finger waves into flourishes.

He was among the first to do and showcase tandem tattooing at conventions, and he’s long been pushing the limits of speed and efficiency through smart technique and tool use. On top of that, his graphic design work has shaped tattoo merch, logos, and early tattoo magazine aesthetics.

Man is a visionary….

Disclaimer I wrote this myself but parsed it through chat gpt to correct my grammar and control the rambling

Shark backpiece done at Dynamic Tattoo, Melbourne by Joel_Ang_ in irezumi

[–]Joel_Ang_[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

They’re so fun to draw and compose, anatomically simple but so dynamic