so here’s some shots of a sweet black and grey piece i was working on and just finished up… well, the inside of the arm has some color so maybe it can’t be defined as black and gray ONLY… but you get the idea… here they are…

here’s a snap of the outer arm… the nautical star you see at the top of the shot is not mine… that piece was alread there and i had to work around it…

this is a snap of the back part of the arm… that sweet “A” filled with skulls and what-not isn’t mine either… that’s another piece i had to work around and will probably end up reworking eventually because it would tie in easily to what i put around it…

this is the inside of the arm… i’d like to go on record that this is not my original artwork. it’s from a SULLEN t-shirt… i converted it to a more tattoo-able style but i am not the creator of this art… if you are interested in checking out some of their clothing click HERE…

a super close close-up of a stickers/prints graphic i am working on… i would show you the whole thing but i have to do my copyright stuff on it first… don’t want to get ripped off again… you know who you are…

stay tuned! i’ll be leaving for the Milan convention in a few weeks and i will be posting pics from the road! i bought myself a sweet point and shoot camera and will be taking all kinds of fun photos from the road! you can expect to see that being used in my daily posts as opposed to my phone… i am just tired of all the washed out colors and what not… plus when i travel i can’t use my phone too much… in London my bill was like 500 bucks because i was trying to send myself pics all the time so i could post them… so now i have it all streamlined… gonna be awesome!

also, i’ll be doing a few interviews and articles here pretty soon for some magazines and websites… i’ll let you know more about those when they get a bit closer… anyway, ENOUGH RAMBLING!!

HS,

TURK

yeah yeah yeah… i have been lagging like usual… my band had a couple shows and i was trying to work draw and blah blah… here’s a couple funny pics from the week… i had to empty my phone’s pics out too… my SD card was full so i couldn’t take any new ones but all that is fixed so be ready for new pics a plenty!

TACO NIGHT!!!!!! my buddy Ben was in town for a few days and asked me for a lip tattoo! i haven’t done one in years and i explained to him all the risks about lip tattoos and all that then we blasted out this bad boy! hahaha… taco night has a sweet story to it, but i’ll leave that story to Ben and you guys are stuck jumping to your own conclusions about what it means, hahaha… i’m sure you already have a few ideas in mind… so far according to Ben it’s healing almost perfect! i’ll try and get a healed pic as soon as i can.. i am interested to see how it holds up as well.

here’s a snap of a day of the dead lower half sleeve i am working on… it has banners with his sons names and there’s an anatomic heart on the other side with a snake wrapping around it all… the heart on the skulls head has a .223 round in the center of it. because the client is a law enforcement officer and loves shooting and guns… just like me!!! this was the first session of color so stay tuned for more!

here’s the line-work for a cover-up piece i started on a wrist. she had some lettering there originally but had a few sessions of laser done to break it up before we covered it… the original letters were really dark and the way she wants to fill the rose (black and pink checkers) the lettering would have shown through no matter what so now with the tattoo lightened we are able to color it any way she wants with no hassle… the word “bless” is written above it and each letter in the word is a first initial of a member of her family… pretty awesome. i shaded it that day too but i decided to make you wait to see it when it’s finished because the shade pic is just confusing due to all the checkers… don’t worry, it’s gonna look sweet!

some more coloring on the elephant music chestpiece…

here’s a flyer i did for a show my band is playing in San Diego… well, it’s not MY band but i play bass in Crushed On You and we are playing this show… i think they came out pretty sweet and i decided to use an image of one of my idols as the centerpiece… maybe you know who that is? if you do, cool… if you don’t, cool… it’s not for everybody… the band is FUN and i am stoked to be playing again! we played in LA the other night with Red Devil Squadron and they are damn good! you should come to the show and see me play in Crushed on You and then Red Devil Squadron… i haven’t seen the other bands but i hear they are awesome as well! it’s 6 bucks! if you’re local, go dammit!

okay, enough ranting…

i got emails to do!

HS,

TURK

today i worked on a friends arm just fixing up some of his tattoo work he got from other artists… no pictures, as it is not my work or art to post… but here is some goodies from the past couple days…

this is a panhead motorcycle engine with a skull reflection and some banners for a fallen friend… the engine will be colored as well but this time we only colored the banners and the roses around it… it’s right in the ditch too… one more session and then it’s done…

here are a few sweet traditional style tattoos that i did the other day… they are both based on Sailor Jerry designs but i drew them… the “cock of the walk” is almost line for line but not traced and i did my own color and shade… the hearts and lock are my version as well… plus i added the crossbones. those weren’t in the Sailor Jerry version… i just though the would look cool… we’re gonna do an old school looking hinge on his ditch too… that should be fun…

this is a delicious California burrito that i was nice enough to put in my belly the other night… there’s a place on El Norte called Mi Hacienda that is just fantastic and i thought you should see what i mean, hahaha… mmmmMMMMmmmmmm nothing like carne asada and french fries…

i have some fun stuff to do tomorrow so i will get some shots and share them… it’s supposed to rain like crazy all week too i am stoked about that! i love the rain… you know what else i love? i love Tim and Eric’s Awesome Show: Great Job… if you have never seen that show you are missing out!

off to bed…

HS,

turk

sorry for all the lagging… hectic week… a lot of new rad things happening soon so be sure to stay tuned… in the meantime, here are some snaps from my week that i didn’t update anything…

“i’ll swallow your soul, i’ll swallow your soul!!!” this is the pit-witch colored in from the Evil Dead sleeve i am working on… this is pretty much the whole lower part of the sleeve… behind her (and below the elbow) is a face of sorts that i freehanded in to fill the space… i don’t have a snap of that so you will have to wait on that one… pretty rad seeing this thing come together… i’ll post a few more snaps of the upper arm below… though they are still black and grey cuz i haven’t gotten to them yet…

there’s Ash… he’s on the outer part of the upper arm… the house is up above him but you can’t see it in this picture…

here’s the Necronomicon (book of the dead) on the inside of the arm… remember this is sans color…

here we have a rad little ships wheel and net i did on a forearm… this one was pretty hard to do because of all the lining and perfect circles but i think it came out pretty well… the letters i believe are the first initials of the members of his family and the 182 is for his love of blink-182… a fun tattoo indeed but like i said it was very time consuming due to the complexity of the piece… dude’s the drummer for an awesome band called The Greener The Better… check them out they are pretty damn awesome!

here is the colored version of a piece i showed you a few weeks back… this piece was a hell of a lot of fun! my only gripe, not with the tattoo, is that my camera on my phone kind of washes out some of the colors… so it’s not as vibrant as it is in person… guess you’ll have ot take my word for it… i’ll post a few close ups below…

as promised a few close-up snaps for detail…

here you can see i started coloring that zombie pin-up piece i showed a while back… i took a wider shot but it came out really bad so you are stuck with this one… pretty sweet though… the dress is gonna have leopard spots on it as well… but we had to take a small break to cut off a ring on her finger… yes, i did say we had to cut a ring on her finger… for some reason her finger was super swollen and she couldn’t get the ring off and it was causing her more pain than the tattoo… so i pulled out my dremmel and got to work…

pretty strange to add that to your day, right!?! hahaha… as you can see, i nicked her a little with the cutting wheel… but i got it off and that’s all that matters…

i framed the bat that i got as a birthday gift… some red velvet and a shadowbox served as the perfect home…

here is a RAD ram’s head that i found on craigslist… that has to be one of the best websites on the planet!! i find so much rad shit on that website it’s insane…

THIS…. is the raddest thing EVER… a fellow tattooer moving out of the country sold me this human skull… an amazing specimen… missing a few teeth but regardless this thing is gonna be my art study for many months to come… crazy when you are holding an actual human skull… have you ever held one? they feel crazy… like clay or somethng… i’ve never felt anything like it… all these rad things are gonna be in the studio so drop by and see them sometime!

thanks for looking and sorry for making you wait! i promise to update more regularly!

HS,

TURK

today i did this fantastic forearm piece inspired by a poem by Edgar Allan Poe… i was allowed to design the piece however i wanted but to be based on this poem… i designed it with victorian mourning jewelry in mind, as i found this poem to be a lament for his own heart and tortured existence… my first sketch had the heart in more of a broach looking centerpiece, but i later changed it to a sort of coffin-like shape without making it too obvious… the flowers on the side are taken directly from images of mourning jewelry… this piece will be color, so stay tuned for that… great way to start off the year…

“Alone” by Edgar Allan Poe

From childhood’s hour I have not been
As others were—I have not seen
As others saw—I could not bring
My passions from a common spring.
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow; I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone;
And all I lov’d, I loved alone.
Then—in my childhood—in the dawn
Of a most stormy life—was drawn
From ev’ry depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still:
From the torrent, or the fountain,
From the red cliff of the mountain,
From the sun that ’round me roll’d
In its autumn tint of gold—
From the lightning in the sky
As it pass’d me flying by—
From the thunder and the storm,
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view.

thank you all that is unholy!!

fuck i hate the holidays… my birthday is the day after christmas… so yes i get shafted on gifts but more importantly my birthday is overshadowed by this jesus BS, hahaha… anyway, i’m 32 now… a geezer… anyway, now that all that crap is over with i will be back on schedule here and posting lots of new stuff! this year i will be painting a TON so be ready to see lots of paintings and tattoos and so on…

speaking of which, here is what i worked on today!

this is a chest-piece i started a long time ago that i am finally getting to finish… this isn’t finished obviously but one of the stages of it… today we shaded all the stuff on the collar bones and colored that bottom banner… next we will shade the elephants and then probably one more session for the microphone and the music notes… the chest hurts! i’m sure my client would be the first to agree with that!!

also, here is a angled pic of a painting i just finished… i’m not showing the whole thing just yet as i am not sure if i am gonna make prints of it or sell it or what… so for now you can only see part of it… wanna see the whole thing? come in to my studio and see it for yourself!! and get tattooed while you’re at it!

that’s all for now…

i have a last minute drawing to do and then i am gonna frame some stuff…

HS,

TURK