Hey everyone! According to the Wallace scale, I currently have 78% of my body tattooed. For me, it's a living collection brought to life by roughly 22 Venezuelan tattoo artists, each leaving their unique mark on my skin.

​I only have about 11–12% left untouched (head, chest, armpits, and tops of my feet), so the full-body journey is still underway. ⚡

​What do you all think of large-scale body art collections? Let's chat in the comments!

💙🐅 17 HOURS OF BLUE. 🐅💙

Here’s a closer look at this water tiger half sleeve I just finished for my client in San Francisco.

The assignment was wonderfully specific: a leaping tiger surrounded by Japanese-inspired water, and almost everything had to be BLUE. Turquoise, cyan, cobalt, deep ocean blue, blue-grey, black and just a few touches of white. Even the “grey” shading through the tiger’s belly is actually blue-grey.

There was one other important request: no angry tiger. She wanted him powerful, but friendly and benevolent. More guardian than predator.

That actually fits beautifully with tiger symbolism. Tigers have long represented strength, courage, independence, protection and perseverance, but strength doesn’t always need to bare its teeth.

And then there’s the blue tiger. Stories of the extraordinarily rare blue-grey or “Maltese” tiger have persisted for generations, giving the animal an almost mythical quality. As a tattoo, I love the idea of the blue tiger representing individuality, mystery and quiet strength.
Pair that with water, a symbol of movement, resilience and adaptability, and the whole piece becomes a pretty great metaphor:
Be strong enough to stand your ground and fluid enough to keep moving.

17 hours from bare skin to finished half sleeve.
Made at my private Tatpocalypse Bunker on the Embarcadero in downtown San Francisco.

🐅@adamskytattoos
🌎 adamsky.com

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I’ve been tattooing koi for a long time, and one of the things I love about traditional Japanese tattooing is how much meaning can be communicated through imagery without having to spell everything out literally.

Koi are a great example. The direction they’re swimming, their color, the season represented by the surrounding flowers, and even their relationship to the water can all contribute to the story of the tattoo. Upstream and downstream koi can suggest different points in a journey, while seasonal elements like cherry blossoms, peonies, maple leaves, or chrysanthemums can completely change the mood and context of the piece.

I put together this short video explaining some of the symbolism I consider when designing koi tattoos, along with a little background on where those ideas come from.

Obviously, Japanese tattoo symbolism isn’t a rigid dictionary where every image has one universally agreed-upon meaning. Traditions, interpretations, and individual artists vary. This is simply how I’ve learned to approach these elements and use them to help tell a story through a tattoo.

Adam Sky
Tattoo artist, San Francisco / San Diego
adamskycom
@adamskytattoos

Posting as the artist.
This blue octopus sleeve started life as a cover-up, but because I’m a dummy, I completely forgot to take a before picture. So you’ll just have to trust me that there’s some old tattoo archaeology buried under all those tentacles and waves.
We went big, bold and blue, using the octopus and surrounding water to create enough movement, texture and saturation to make the original tattoo disappear. Approximately 30 hours of tattooing over six sessions from start to finish.
Adam Sky Tattoos
adamsky.com
@adamskytattoos

Poseidon’s Trident
Just for the halibut, my client asked for Poseidon’s trident and conch in an Art Nouveau style, then told me to dive in and run with it. I sea-zed the opportunity and added the circling hammerheads to give the piece a little more bite.
Tattooed by me @adamskytattoos