Tattoo Dress

Wow that's a really neat and unique dress! Worn by Asia Argento at the Cannes Film Festival

Koi Tattoo

, originally uploaded by amfdesigner.

The shading on the koi is so amazing!

Britney Circus Tour

Britney Spears Circus Tour Live in Louisiana

A guilty pleasure of mine because sometimes you just want some fun music to listen to and dance around by yourself or with your girlfriends! I love Britney's tattooed body suit she's wearing on her current Circus Tour. Check out even more pics from the first stop of her tour on ohnotheydidnt.

There are a plethora of bootlegged videos of the show on youtube but I gotta say I'm really disappointed in the choreography, too much walking around on her part but maybe it'll get better as the tour moves along. I mean you don't go to see Britney live for her singing! You go to see her performance so hopefully it gets better lol.



Britney Spears - Boys & If You Seek Amy Live

Tattoo machine

Fifth, Sixth, Seventh..., originally uploaded by ImeanHoneyBee.

The contrasting colors in this pic are great aren't they? Also I love the concept of people building tattooing machines, in this day and age how often do we handcraft the tools we work with?

Holy crap! I literally gapsed out loud when I saw this! Amazing!

Evil Twins Tattoo

Skull and Sakura by Johan of Evil Twins Tattoo

I am loving this style of Black & Grey with a hint of color. This Swedish tattoo shop is filled with some amazing talent, check out their portfolio of work! So beautiful!



I am in awe! *bows down* hahaa.

Kat Von D High Voltage Tattoo

High Voltage Tattoo
$19.79 on Amazon


Last week I picked up Kat Von D's first book entitled High Voltage Tattoo, I was pretty excited to flip through it because I've been wanting her to release a compilation of her tattoo work for a long time. I think the skills she has in terms of rendering realistic imagery onto the skin are just mind blowing.

I first became familiar with her work on the TLC show Miami Ink, on that show she was the only female crew member of an all male tattoo shop, although the men on the show had some great skills of their own hers really stood out to me. Before I saw her work I didn't give much thought to the artistry that really goes into tattooing, I didn't know much about it or had any respect for it, but seeing the things she was able to accomplish with a needle, ink and skin, were really amazing to me. It made me look at tattooing on a whole other level and her attention to detail, the intricacy and Baroque inspired artistry that she puts in her work are really inspiring to me.



Memorial tattoo by Kat Von D

Kat Von D now has her own show on TLC, called L.A Ink, for her shop she focused on hiring a mostly female and very talented main crew. The contents of the book range from the biographical to her portfolio of work. I wasn't that interested in the bio stuff as much, but I loved the portfolio section more than anything.
I can't really put into words how beautifully designed this book is, its something that you have to see for yourself. Conceptually its very Gothic and has many little intricate details that totally reflect the artistic and personal style and lifestyle of Ms. Von D herself. It makes for a great coffee table book and an awesome reference piece if you're an illustrator interested in tattoo work, or just someone who is a fan of hers and her work.



She specializes in Black & Grey work, which she thinks allows for more realism. My favorite thing about her work are all the little details she adds like the filigree and her use of shading to add volume and dimension. When I first started illustrating my work was very minimal but that was more because I was lazy and not a chosen aesthetic. Her work inspires me to take more time and really add those details that will make my work look like a completed piece instead of something half way done. You can always tell when you work needs that extra something to make it pop.

I love the fact that drawings she did as a kid are included in the book. I still keep a lot of my early drawings from when I was around 5 or 6, and some of the sketches I did in school while bored lol. Its great to look back on that stuff and see how much you've grown as an artist over the span of your life.



I highly recommend checking out the book if you're a fan of hers or you want to see some great examples of tattoo work if you're interested in getting one done yourself. The book has advice on how to go about selecting your tattoo, finding an artist, what you need to communicate to your artist, what the process will entail and what to do to take care of your tattoos. She also has a section where she busts some tattoo myths. There's a 3 page layout chronicling all the individual tattoos on her body, and at the end of the book the work from some favorite fellow tattoo artists is featured.

Its a great book, filled with rock n roll and some of the best tattoos in the world!

Kat Von D will be doing a book signing at Borders Bookstore on Broad Street in Philadelphia on March 7th! So look out for her in a bookstore near you.

Valentine's Day cards

Sweet Cupcake

Part of my February design goals was to design a series of Valentine's Day themed cards. I went into a wonderful paper/card store the other day and looked at their Valentine's cards and they were all cheesy and in the same shade of red and pink D: When I first started to put these together the color scheme was no where near pink or red, they started out blue and black actually lol. But my new favorite and indispensible part of Adobe Illustrator CS3 is the color guide function. It makes picking your color schemes much easier, basically you just select a color and go to the color guide and it lists all that color's complements, analogs, compounds, etc. Best thing they ever added to that program in my opinion because color schemes are kind of difficult for me.

This cupcake design was inspired by a tattoo trend, usually when people think of tattoos they think of really scary things like skulls and what not. But a lot of girls love getting cupcake tattoos as evidence by this large gallery on flickr. The first time I ever saw one was in Inked magazine when they had a feature on Twinkie Chan.

It was a fun design to do and I love the color scheme, it complements the things that are illustrated and makes me think of yummy sweets and chocolate, although getting the right shape for the top of the cupcake took some time D:




I also wanted to do a design for men, when I sat down to think about what kind of tattoo inspired designs would be appropriate for men I realized that men get a lot of motifs and designs that are usually associated with women outside of the tattoo world. Whether that be roses or cherry blossoms in American style tattoo or Japanese traditional style. I bought Kat Von D's book which I will post more about later and I wanted to do some black & grey inspired roses along with this pistol design I originally made for a screenprint.
The trick was recreating a textured version in Illustrator, I really like how this design turned out, there's another version that says Death Before Dishonor, a Sailor Jerry reference and I thought it seemed appropriate given the content of the drawing.

Overall my goal was to create some designs that weren't totally conventional and that could also be used for any occasion just not the big hallmark holiday. Valentine's is a weird holiday, it creates really odd expectations on the part of men and women. Women are taught to expect roses, candy and jewelry and men are taught that that's what all women want and that's what they need to give them in order to make them happy on this day.
Frankly I find the whole roses and candy think corny and unoriginal, because its not like that guy put a lot of thought into buying those things right? Also there's that whole other underbelly of it where women are expected to give sex in return for the man's investment in $85 bouquet of roses and jewelry. LOL, in the end it ends up being really unromantic and just a headache for both parties involved.

I hope you all have a great Valentine's day be it with your friends or significant other.

Julie Becker in Inked Magazine

Tattoo artist Julie Becker
Inked Magazine September 08 issue


This is one of my all time favorite photoshoots featured in Inked magazine. Inked is a rare tattoo magazine in terms of design, it debuted in Fall of 06 and when I picked it up I was pleasantly surprised by what I saw inside. I was like ... wow its so clean and not tacky looking! I really commend the design team behind the magazine because it really stands a cut above all the other tattoo magazines, which all have this same kind of trashy look. My first impression of Inked was that it was a lifestyle magazine for people who love tattoos or happened to be tattooed themselves. They hire great photographers and models and the magazine itself looks very highend. And not to mention that they have some great interviews and other written pieces.

Anyway this particular shoot was amazing, I ended up cutting out a lot of the pics and framing them on my wall in some filigree/gothic decorative frames. My only gripe with Inked is that their celebrity photoshoots rarely have any close-up or detailed photos of the person's tattoo. I mean I figure this personality is in the magazine because of their love for tattoos, so I want to see what tattoos they have. Don't make them wear a long sleeve dress shirt if that have a full sleeve. It defeats the whole purpose of being in a magazine dedicated to tattoo culture. I think that's why I loved Becker's shoot so much, the photos really captured the beauty and detail of her tattoos and it wasn't just an excuse to style her in lingerie and kimono robes.

Sailor Jerry

Spring '09 Sailor Jerry Catalog

I dropped by the Sailor Jerry store today in Center City because I was looking for some inspiration on two Valentine's tattooed themed designs that I'm working on. For those of you who don't know Sailor Jerry is a legendary American tattoo artist who specialized in nautical art with a touch of Asian style inspired tattoos.
There's a flagship store in Philadelphia that sells merchandise featuring his artwork, the store is beautiful and it has a great vibe. When you walk in you immediately get visually hit with a ton of really great and inspiring art. What I like about Sailor Jerry's style is his use of color and shading, his style of drawing wasn't the most precise or perfect but that gritty quality and the imperfection is precisely what gives it a great non-mainstream quality.

The Spring line has some really beautiful and surprising items compared to what this brand has offered in the past. These were my favorites.



Jumper $138


Pin-up Dress $130



These are adorable! They had these in the store today, the purse costs $42 and the wallet $24.


Women's Cardigan in Grey and White $74

I have a weakness for cardigans, which has resulted in me owning one two many gray cardigans BUT I really love this one and I kinda want it. If you visit their website you can see that the clothes I've featured here are a far cry from the lame stuff on their online store lol. At least this brand hasn't been completely bastardized like the work of Sailor Jerry's protege, Don Ed Hardy.

A lot of these items haven't arrived on their online store as yet, so check back later if any of these caught your eye!