Hand tattooing

A little bit of hand tattooing to show before heading out on the road again. Anything I do with machine I can technically also do by hand... the only difference being time. When travelling I only work with hand tools.

Enjoy!

A healed photo of the Carbon Atom I tattooed last year using only soot as ink. Turned out pretty solid and healed up sort of a blue/grey that you usually first see after a tattoo is many years old. While the design is representative of a Carbon Atom, I added my own Celtic and graphic sensibilities as well as Flower of Life symbolism in the nucleus. 

This small silver Valkyrie was found in Hårby, Denmark just before New Years 2012 and dates from 800 AD. It is actually one of the few figures which actually shows a female figure armed with sword and shield. As far as I know there hasn't been a tattooed version of it yet and I was very excited to get the opportunity. To keep it as authentic as possible I tattooed it only using hand tools

Here is the actual figure... it was found just over a year ago and was one of the newest pieces shown at the "Vikings" exhibition at the National Museum this past Summer. The exhibition has been sent to London and will continue it's travel to Berlin this Fall

The Axeman from Hunnestad.

The Hunnestad Monument is probably the most important set of runestones aside from Jelling. Unfortunately these stones were destroyed in the 18th Century with only three remaining. Thankfully they were well documented by such antiquaries such as Ole Worm.

The remains of the remaining picturestone at the museum in Lund

A forearm wrap that I haven't gotten any decent photos of, as Kristian moved to South Africa.

 Hugin & Munin circle a Shield knot while an Odin's knot (Valknud) protects their back. I then filled the rest with various dot patterns. The hardest thing was to get this design centered on the forearm which is very unsymetrical. Took over 4 hours just placing and removing the stencils! But it was time well spent... the Shield knot sits in the center of the inner side while the Valknud sits directly under the elbow. Really love this piece... but don't want to do another one anytime soon :-)

 A Double Dragon calf wrap I did a few years back by machine. I still haven't gotten any decent photos of it, so I did it in Black & White to cover the red and flash glare . All freehand including the patterns in the dragons. Technically these dragons were done by machine... however the rune text was all handpoked and I haven't shown this piece before, so here it is :-)

Start of a leg that will continue to the ankle and then be filled with rows of patterns. A little slow progress as she lives abroad... but looking forward to continuing on this.

And continued on the Haida sleeve project with a wolf on the forearm.

And finally a little bit of Colinesian cover up... because nothing says, "fuck you bitch" quite like Solid Black