Still doing the KickAss stuff

It's been a while since I blogged. I've been concentrating on more important things. Working on my screenplay is at the top of my list. Im trying to punch it up, make a final out of this rough draft. It feels really good to be back into it.

Been kinda seeing a new girl too. Plus I guess I began to wonder why I'm doing this. In my professional capacity, it would be unfair of me to really say that So'n'so was a punk in the chair, or even that I thought that girl was really hot, etc.

which makes for a pretty sterile blog. Sure I could say the true stuff, but i guess it comes down to my clients are more impt. to me than my blog readers. So I guess i'll be signing off for a while. I will continue to update my website though, and I'm always available for questions.

Thanks for reading.

Joe Drache

back from the east coast

Whew! Man i just went back to Va for 11 days. what an ordeal! It was fun! it was terrible! I made money, but now im broke. i did some good work, and i did some boring stuff too. i had a lot of extra curricular fun though so its all good. I takes about 12 hors from my door to theirs- car, bus, plane, plane, car. its exhausting. I flew into norfolk va, and tattooed for about 5 days then i rode out to roanoke and worked a few more days there. i need to start charging more money on these trips. Im fairly sure id have made more cash if i'd stayed home, but it was great to see all my old friends and hang out. got to see my mom, n my mom away from mom, n i got to see my best friend get married. did a lot of great work on continuing projects and even got top finish a couple. im sposed to be going back in june, thats soon enough for me!
I'm so glad to be back in Calif though. gosh i felt like i just came down from a bad acid trip by the time i got to my house.

special thanks to crazy mike and jaybird, and angie. see you guys all next time i hope.

theres a whole pile of pictures on my dedicated blog photo gallery, go see them at:
http://bloodywork99.tripod.com/recentphotosfortheblog/

back from the east coast

Whew! Man i just went back to Va for 11 days. what an ordeal! It was fun! it was terrible! I made money, but now im broke. i did some good work, and i did some boring stuff too. i had a lot of extra curricular fun though so its all good. I takes about 12 hors from my door to theirs- car, bus, plane, plane, car. its exhausting. I flew into norfolk va, and tattooed for about 5 days then i rode out to roanoke and worked a few more days there. i need to start charging more money on these trips. Im fairly sure id have made more cash if i'd stayed home, but it was great to see all my old friends and hang out. got to see my mom, n my mom away from mom, n i got to see my best friend get married. did a lot of great work on continuing projects and even got top finish a couple. im sposed to be going back in june, thats soon enough for me!
I'm so glad to be back in Calif though. gosh i felt like i just came down from a bad acid trip by the time i got to my house.

special thanks to crazy mike and jaybird, and angie. see you guys all next time i hope.

theres a whole pile of pictures on my dedicated blog photo gallery, go see them at:
http://bloodywork99.tripod.com/recentphotosfortheblog/

Back from the East Coast

Whew! Man i just went back to Va for 11 days. what an ordeal! It was fun! it was terrible! I made money, but now im broke. i did some good work, and i did some boring stuff too. i had a lot of extra curricular fun though so its all good. I takes about 12 hors from my door to theirs- car, bus, plane, plane, car. its exhausting. I flew into norfolk va, and tattooed for about 5 days then i rode out to roanoke and worked a few more days there. i need to start charging more money on these trips. Im fairly sure id have made more cash if i'd stayed home, but it was great to see all my old friends and hang out. got to see my mom, n my mom away from mom, n i got to see my best friend get married. did a lot of great work on continuing projects and even got top finish a couple. im sposed to be going back in june, thats soon enough for me!
I'm so glad to be back in Calif though. gosh i felt like i just came down from a bad acid trip by the time i got to my house.

special thanks to crazy mike and jaybird, and angie. see you guys all next time i hope.

theres a whole pile of pictures on my dedicated blog photo gallery, go see them at:
http://bloodywork99.tripod.com/recentphotosfortheblog/

Back from the East Coast

Whew! Man i just went back to Va for 11 days. what an ordeal! It was fun! it was terrible! I made money, but now im broke. i did some good work, and i did some boring stuff too. i had a lot of extra curricular fun though so its all good. I takes about 12 hors from my door to theirs- car, bus, plane, plane, car. its exhausting. I flew into norfolk va, and tattooed for about 5 days then i rode out to roanoke and worked a few more days there. i need to start charging more money on these trips. Im fairly sure id have made more cash if i'd stayed home, but it was great to see all my old friends and hang out. got to see my mom, n my mom away from mom, n i got to see my best friend get married. did a lot of great work on continuing projects and even got top finish a couple. im sposed to be going back in june, thats soon enough for me!
I'm so glad to be back in Calif though. gosh i felt like i just came down from a bad acid trip by the time i got to my house.

special thanks to crazy mike and jaybird, and angie. see you guys all next time i hope.

theres a whole pile of pictures on my dedicated blog photo gallery, go see them at:
http://bloodywork99.tripod.com/recentphotosfortheblog/

Back from the East Coast

Whew! Man i just went back to Va for 11 days. what an ordeal! It was fun! it was terrible! I made money, but now im broke. i did some good work, and i did some boring stuff too. i had a lot of extra curricular fun though so its all good. I takes about 12 hors from my door to theirs- car, bus, plane, plane, car. its exhausting. I flew into norfolk va, and tattooed for about 5 days then i rode out to roanoke and worked a few more days there. i need to start charging more money on these trips. Im fairly sure id have made more cash if i'd stayed home, but it was great to see all my old friends and hang out. got to see my mom, n my mom away from mom, n i got to see my best friend get married. did a lot of great work on continuing projects and even got top finish a couple. im sposed to be going back in june, thats soon enough for me!
I'm so glad to be back in Calif though. gosh i felt like i just came down from a bad acid trip by the time i got to my house.

special thanks to crazy mike and jaybird, and angie. see you guys all next time i hope.

theres a whole pile of pictures on my dedicated blog photo gallery, go see them at:
http://bloodywork99.tripod.com/recentphotosfortheblog/

Been So Busy..

i havent even been able to blog. I've been doing lots of great tattoos lately. I'm always trying to get better and better. i'm never(almost never) satisfied with my work. the shading is never perfect, the outline is never perfect. Admittedly, im nitpicking, but i think its healthy to be self-critical. I'm posting a lot of recent pictures on my website for your perusal. I've also been working on my tattoo flash, and I've been doing a lot of custom design assignments for tattoos, and even a letterhead for a motorcycle company. Its great to be productive, and im sweetly grateful.
Im also starting to think and prime myself for the re-write of my screenplay. So anyways, im making a trip back to Va. soon, so the blog will be silent while im away for a couple of weeks, but i'll be sure to come back with lots of pictures, including my brother's full backpiece which is near completion.

see the pictures at: http://bloodywork99.tripod.com/recentphotosfortheblog/

so i hope you can all tune in then.

later

Some great work today

Yeah, days like this are what i'm all about. I've posted pics on my dedicated blog reference page. go check em out at:

http://bloodywork99.tripod.com/recentphotosfortheblog/

first up is a dark fairy girl i tattooed on a regular girl yesterday. I really liked this tattoo, and i think i pulled off a lot of neat tricks especially for a tattoo this size. It is a huge tattoo, almost 11 inches across, but the face and details are still very small. the tattoo took over 2 hours, but i only charged her 225.00. By the time we got to the end of the session, she was pretty sore, but all in all, she was a trooper. And she tipped me so its all good. You'll notice that i do the really great tattoos for a little bit less cash. naturally, if its something i want to do, i dont mind taking a hit on the price. conversely, if you want a barb wire thing with a rebel flag, i hafta jack the price. so it all balances out.

next up is no doubt one of the best girlie sacrum pieces i've ever done, the purple lotus with tribal. now this piece was based on a piece of cherry creek flash(and any tattooer reading this is groaning at the mention of that brand. dont get me wrong, CC is some of the best, and most succesful flash brands out there, but sometimes its a little tiresome- no offense) but i decided that if i was going to do this piece id hafta do it my way or not at all. so i replaced the flower with a lotus based on a photo. thats the only way to do natural objects. below the tattoo, you can see the reference picture. i was really pleased with the way this one turned out. i cant wait to see it when its healed up.(180$ posted price)

lastly is one of my favorite clients- mike g. hes an aquarius, but he decided to twist the idea a bit. he told me what he wanted and i drew it up for him. i think this is a really cool colr piece, again, very small details. 120$(buddy price)

im currently using a lot of different ink brands, but im really happy with the latest white, black(both intenze brand) and the red(skin candy) and the yellow(national powder mix). We are always looking for brighter colors around here. constantly pushing the envelope of quality.

so thanks for reading.

later

Sunday, no church for me

Yeah, i hate the X-church, freakin murderers, but anyway, usually im off on sunday, but i came in for a special request. One of the clients we met at the Santa Rosa conv. wanted to get one of the dragons from my flash set, so i came in. Thye session went well. we added some batwings to the original design and a little bit of cloud in the background. It turned out really cool, and took about 2.5 hrs. i charged him 375.00. theres a picture at: http://bloodywork99.tripod.com/recentphotosfortheblog/

hope you like it.

So let me just expound about one of the biggest problems in the tattoo world- this industry, like any, is filled with ameteurs, and the worst is tattooers who can't draw. Years ago, this was the rule, the industry was comprised almost solely of bikers and convicts. This job has always attracted a certain type. I guess the biggest problem here is that many clients dont know or suspect that they might be getting work from an inferior tattooist. You have to check the portfolios. If they dont even have one, thats a sure sign they're probably not that good. Now im not saying that im the best in the world either, but my portfolio speaks for itself. I urge you all to raise the bar, travel far if you have to. Nowadays, there are plenty of skilled artists to choose from, and its worth doing a little research. you only get one shot at it, make it a good one. thanks for reading.

later

The beat goes on...

I had a root canal on tuesday n i took a coupla days off in case i was sore. it turned out to be no prob though n now i'm back to work. back on the blog.

So far today, i did a really cool angel on a womans shoulder blade(but i didnt get a picture of it, sry) it was a kneeling girl angel in a robe holding her hands up and looking up as if to say Y me? n theres light shining down. It said Another Fallen Angel at the bottom in script. it was really nice. some subdued, but not much. the urge is to not be too flashy with this type of piece.

then i started a big tattoo of a salmon on a guy's ribs. it was really tough looking. i got pictures of it even though its not done yet. go see it at:
http://bloodywork99.tripod.com/recentphotosfortheblog/

he sure was hurting. this part of the ribs is notoriously painful, especially the nearer the armpit you go. but its a good start. im thinking that next time we'll use some of the anesthetic gel on him, just so we can spend more time on it. i really like the water texture, though it looks really bloody today i think itll be really nice in the end.

and ive posted a photo of a faerie i did recently. this on was designed by terri fox, one of my colleagues at www.flash2xs.com. shes great.

so i guess thats it for now. im playing a new game Scrapland for xbox. its pretty cool. kind of a kiddee game, but its fun. i cant believe how big the environment is.

thanks for reading

later

Back from the Convention

So the Tattoos and Blues convention in Santa Rosa was pretty good. My boss and i were there saturday and sunday, and we were busy the whole time. There were probably 40 tattoo boooths and about 10 vendors there, plus many bands and dozens of motorcycle gangs- yay!
Any way, several clients from home came out to get work done from us, and we did a few walk-ins as well. All in all it was very succesful. I stayed in a classicly cheap motel nearby. It was pure comedy. I could hear every truck zoom past on the nearby interstate, and there was some crackhead bitch in the room next to me screaming on the phone(maybe it wasnt crack, she couldve been a mormon or something, but she was nonetheless imbalanced) all i needed was some cockroaches and it would've been picture perfect. what do you want for 50$ ? I've stayed in worse places.

So, among the conventions i've been to, i give it a solid 5.5. As compared to the conv. in SF on halloween which was a 1.0(lame) Many artists said it wasn't as busy as last year, claiming that it hadnt been advertised well. It seemed busy enough to me though. There was no loudsdpeaker announcemets concerning contest times, events etc. so we were all just kind of winging it. there was no tattoo of the day contest, and no art fusion. All in all pretty disappointing. But hey! we were the first shop to secure our booth for next year. And I hope im not getting us kicked out with my big stinking opinions. Hey i give it a 5.5! thats great, comparitively.

I've posted some bloody pictures of work done there at:
http://bloodywork99.tripod.com/recentphotosfortheblog/

go check it out. thanks for having us guys. See you next year.

later