Tattoo - Decision to get tattooed in Thailand

Recently I started getting my left leg tattooed. When I first arrived in Pai I met a tattooist called Mink who works out of a studio called 'Cross tattoo'. He had tattooed my friends Petr and Guy from the gym and is an extremely talented tattoo artist.

We started talks about doing a large back piece for me but when my triple entry visa became a single entry and my stay in Thailand was no longer guaranteed I had to cancel my plans with Mink. I couldn't start such a massive under taking when I didn't know month by month whether my re-entry would be approved.

Months later, after my fight and after my trip to Cambodia I find myself back in Pai but with a little spare time before leaving for the monastery, and still the desire to get something tattooed. Just something small. A little momento. But isn't that how all these things start.

My decision to get tattooed was clearly influenced both by the trainers getting tattooed and by the prevalence of tattoo artists in the gym. I started to see everyone getting tattooed, and not just gym logos or small designs but larger mandala pieces and they were having the work done either in the gym itself or in their relevant guesthouses by the swimming pool or in other beautiful locations. I made my mind up and started talking with Iris, a dutch tattooist training at the gym who specialised in black and grey dot work. She had recently tattooed my friend Germaine and it just seemed like a good fit. I left the design very much up to her and my input was simply that I wanted to incorporate some dot work geometric patterns and the whole shape to follow the shape of the shin guards we wear when training/sparring.

I moved into the same guesthouse as Iris (Pai Chan) to make things simpler in the hope progress would be quick so that I could heal up and get back to training without losing too much of my time in Pai. I needed to avoid rushing back to the gym and catching an infection as so many others had suffered.

The experience of getting tattooed whilst sat in a bamboo hut next to the pool over looking the mountain ranges was amazing. It made the pain really easy to manage as I was able to look out over the mountains and not concentrate on the localised pain. I also think after the Muay Thai training my shins were very desensitised.

After starting the front of my shin with Iris I decided to do the back of my left calf with Mink. The idea was to link the two pieces and have the large shin guard shape on the front with a mandala tattoo on the back to balance out the distribution of ink/weight when looking at the whole piece.

The work done in the studio was the same experience as I have had in London based studios. Very clean, very professional and very precise. I am extremely happy with the work Mink has done and  I'm really looking forward to getting more of his input on finishing the design and making sure both pieces work well together. Both him and his team at Cross tattoo have been extremely helpful with the design element of the work being done. The plan for this week is to fill the area behind the mandala, framed by the black border with dot work geometric patterns to better match and work with the panels on the front of the leg.

Neither the front nor back are finished as I write this, but I will update soon enough with another post that shows the 2 pieces once they are all finished and healed up.