ouch.

sometimes,
at the last minute,
a client changes their mind a little.
and some of those time, it's NOT such a bad thing.
that's rare, for sure, since we're usually booking appointments
based on estimated time for what was scheduled.
y'know?
don't add twenty thousand extras, and think it's all getting done.
that's just dumb.
anyway,
my duder the death-elf came in for the first time in over a year-
ostensibly to add onto his back full of viking jauns.
but,
he asked if we could do it a little differently than we'd discussed.
instead of zipping in the blanks at the edges of all that weirgold,
we did a big ol' twisty jormundgand norse-knot jammer
biting at the butt, and slapping it's keel-hauled keistertail from his hip to his pit.
check the teleport:

ouch!
drawn on with my marky markers, all the way live, in one take,
no erasing, no wiping, no nothin'.
...yeah.
i didn't expect to do that when i showed up to work.
however,
there are worse ways to get put on the spot.
it beats having an unfilled spot in the schedule,
and having some entitled d!ckturd walk right in
and assume they can 'just get a quick half sleeve'.
right?
ew.
wanting more and having that be fortuitously possible is a very great deal
more tolerable than having nothing but somehow still expecting everything
simply because you've shown up.
i appreciate more.
i believe in more.
hell,
too much is the right amount.
the thing of it is,
i'm not a F*ing art servant, here to heed your demands, duders.
i'm closer to a profane war-poetic savant, in all honestly.
a sort of tourette's etcher, occupying my hands with all that tatouage,
while my mouth and my mind make up a whole other other
tongue-twisting tatuaje montage.
is that weird?
maybe.
i don't even hate walk-in tattoos.
i do 'em when i can.
i'm not like that.
i just hate hate HATE being talked to and treated like i'm indebted
to a potential client because they've deigned to let me tattoo them, right now,
a.s.a.p., stat, because no other time on the face of any clock on the face of the earth
could possibly work besides this completely impromptu whimsical immediate instant.
nope.
no way.
the death-elf made an appointment, and brought a pile of loot,
and basically let me summon some skald-style scribe sh!t to inscribe on his hide.
that's really all i want when i'm at the studio, neighbors.
real talk-
i'm probably NOT going to draw your tattoo ten times
in advance of any appointments,
but i may perform for you a pointed and perforce punctuated anecdote
about the hard styles and really real life of an unimpressed
and unamused magnetic animal man...
that's sort of what i do.
i think i'd maybe just appreciate a few days worth of advanced unhappiness
about whatever time i've got to span and energy i'll have to expend to tatzap
all the great big all-day appointments i've already got on the docket.
i'd hate to derail that griping with a whole lot of on-the-spot snide and
but,
how about that swollen, wonky midgard wyrm girdle on the guy's ribs, huh?
ha.
i've veered from the path a bit.
it helps a whole heck of a lot when your client doesn't suck.
that's the truth.
i was finished with all of it, drawing, tattooing, wrapping, and everything,
in under three hours.
sure, it's just an outline, and it's gonna get SO much help from the shading,
but,
it's there, and he took it like a real warrior.
the stillness with which he sat freed up some exxtra time
on an otherwise overcast and overwrought day so i could also tattoo
a little ditch-spikin' elbow-pit-swellin' zipzap on my buddy wayne.
...and STILL get out of work early!
uh-huh.
expert.
-
i still tattoo a lot.
and while the jury is out on if i've gotten any better over the years,
i don't think i've gotten any worse.
i'm thinking there must be SOME positive gains for all the punitive remuneration
of days turned to weeks turned to years of all of this...
y'know?
there are the movie checks at least.
that'll have to do;
never quiet, never soft.....