TRIBAL

[NOMAD]

Tribal.
There's tons of the stuff and its now a staple of the industry.
What started out as an orignial medium has grown into some kinda monster.

Mine's 15 years old and was done jailhouse style with a homemade job. You know the old cassette player motor and guitar string kind. It was cool (but small) at the time but now there is so much of the stuff out there its about original as a single-pierced ear.

I got worked over pretty hard so its kinda faded but its still blackwork.

It appears like its nearly impossible to cover and most designs are abstract at best. Alot of them are huge to boot.

I guess I want to do something with mine, so my question is...What are most Artists doing to deal with this stuff??

[slowpain3]

i had a guy go over my tribal mistake with brown,waited a year and then got a blue dragon over it,now no more tribal.

[NOMAD]

Originally Posted by slowpain3

i had a guy go over my tribal mistake with brown,waited a year and then got a blue dragon over it,now no more tribal.

Really. That's very interesting. I was operating under the impression black tribal couldn't be covered. I've seen a few that were but I figured they were faded enough and had enough in common shape wiht the cover to work.

I don't really feel a burning need to cover mine but I defintely might if the new stuff was really cool (and it worked)

[Feline]

Unfortunately 2 of my 4 tattoos include some tribal element. I'm all up for burning them off or paying James Kern to cover them. I f@#king hate tribal: doing it, wearing it, looking at it. I'm bitter.. :x Actually I hate celtic too. And kanji. BUT in an odd twist of fate I love hearts, butterflies, flames and names :P

[NOMAD]

At least kanji means somethng coherent. Knotwork never was for me either, but I guess it (some of it anyway) does have its place in history.

Tribal is just a design now that you mention it Feline. No real meaning or substance to it I suppose. Good point

And where is Kern anyway? Doesn't he have a coverup book out? I thought he was in Chicago, which is only a couple hourse from here, but someone told me that he was in Idaho or something.

[Feline]

Yea he's got a book. $35. I've looked at it but haven't bought a copy myself. Since I didn't actually read it my only opinion can be on the physical presentation - nice glossy pages. I think latest issue of TAM has the ad for the book in it.

[BRANDON BOND]

yeah that book is wierd

[bbfuturewife]

It just seems like everybody has a tribal tattoo. Who wants something everybody else has. I think people with tribal tattoos go into good shops with pre-conceived notions and its art , and its cool , and the artist thinks its cool...wrong

[JoeWaulken]

I love tribal!

welcome bbfuturewife???????? interesting name!

[travis]

my first tat was a big tribal piece i got on my back. i kinda go back and forth between liking it and hating it. i don't really like the design any more, but at the same time it was my first and it has a special place. i have seen tribal that i like though. couple of thoughts ...

in terms of tribal tats meaning something vs. just being a design - maybe it's just me, but all my tats don't necessarily have a deep meaning. i come from an art background, so some i appreciate solely on their art value. a nice clean tribal design is sometimes harder to pull off that doing a dragon down to every last scale. look at modern furniture - it's difficult making something look so simple. finally, in terms of style, everybody's got their own - old school, new school, traditional, asain, ...

tribal being overdone - i have to agree a little bit on this one. there's really not a ton of original subjects in tattooing though. there's original techniques. but people are still tattooing the same things they've always been doing - dragons, skulls, koi, flowers, and on and on. in my opinion, the key to a great tattoo isn't in the subject, it's in how it's drawn out and laid down. it does get more overdone than tribal - there's always the barb wire or taz tats.

i'll stop rambling now ...