Making progress on my epic Halloween diamond painting. Five of the 8 panels are complete!
I’m taking a short break to swap to my small diamond painting for Drills and Chills. It’s a Halloween event where you can win prizes! This painting wouldn’t count because you couldn’t start until September. So I’m doing this small one from Michael’s:
You might think I’ll never finish both before Halloween, but I have some time off coming up. Possibly. Very likely.
I might have found a job! It will be as a contract to the government. I’ll be doing hardware configuration management in aviation. It’s working for a temporary boss I had.
The benefits aren’t as good, but they’re better than unemployment! And I love my boss. She won’t be my boss boss cause I’ll be a contractor again. But my boss only cares that I make her happy, so SCORE.
Problem is less PTO and not fronting me ANY. So starting late October with 0 PTO. Awesome.
HOWEVER, it is just in time for me to leave my job with a payout incentive to quit. Right in the nick of time! I have to choose by Tuesday. They wanted to try to get me the offer Friday, but it didn’t come so hopefully tomorrow.
This week, my pool will be closed. It’s been too cold to swim in for like a month. Sad times. However, that means — TATTOO SEASON. I don’t work on my tattoo in the summer because I’m not gonna not swim for weeks. And last year, I was still building my savings back up after building the deck. But this year — it’s ON!
Side note — yes, we are having severe job issues at the moment. HOWEVER, I have saved over double my savings goal and Devon books month in advance and I’m finishing my tattoo, dammit. In fact, If I save another 2k, I’m getting a new phone. But uh yeah — if you know anyone hiring configuration managers — please hit me up. I need health insurance. Now with that depressing bit out of the way…
So I knew what I wanted. Kinda. So with the leaves and stuff, it’s already kinda busy. I feel like my pumpkins are already totally lost in the detail. So we either need to switch color palettes or style or something. But it still needs to look cohesive. So I’ve been racking my brain for months over what to do. Well, I love geometric tattoos but that won’t mesh. I love statues tattoos and she’s already highlighted Jack with some teals — we could get some marble statue look in there. Marble statue… WEEPING ANGELS!
OK, I’m 100% serious that I loved creepy-ass distraught angels in graveyards way before Doctor Who. Back in the day, when I wanted to be buried in a cemetery, I wanted some angel just dramatically thrown over my gravestone a ‘la this Italian one:
Angel of Grief
I mean look at that drama! That’s full on Disney Princess angst. I want someone to be that sad I died. But then I grew up and realized that after a single generation, no one will remember me. So like don’t stick me in a depressing grave no one will visit. Fuck that. Bury me and Jack in the woods with pretty Fall foliage and if we can spring for it — creepy angel statue in the woods on top of me.
But we all know about the Weeping Angels. When Doctor Who was AWESOME AS FUCK. And listen, Eccleston was my first Doctor, but he sucks. Don’t agree? Fight me. Has he even come back for a single cameo or special like EVERY OTHER DOCTOR? Nope. Asshole. Then we got DAVID FUCKING TENNANT! The best Doctor of the modern era! I fucking love David Tennant. I would only love him more if he had done it in his real Scottish accent — *swoon*
Anyway, David Tennant was busy so they had to do a very Doctor-lite episode one-off and the Weeping Angels were created in the episode “Blink.” And they were amazing and terrifying. They should have probably died there because the more they bring them back the more it fucks them up — cause like, you can’t really think about them too hard — but they’re fucking awesome. So combine that with the love I already had for them and YES.
So what if we did a Weeping Angel!? Well, that has to go on the back cause I cant be scaring myself in the mirror. Front? Rose window. Play up the stone work between the glass panels. I fucking love stained glass, so that’s a no brainer. Here’s a quick and dirty “like this:”
No notes. So onto the angel. Like should it just be half the face? Cause you can’t fit a whole statue back there. I had husband take these pictures of me posing so beautifully so I could play with stuff in Photoshop. I talked to lots of people. One of my old coworkers (who I occasionally see at my current job) lent me an ear. He didn’t like just the face idea. He thought it needed more of a transition from my current work so maybe a bare tree limb in front of a full angel statue. But that’s like too small? So I emailed Devon. Devon Grieg, the amazing tattoo artist know as theswiftstorm who has done everything I have. Cause this tattoo session is coming up fast.
She didn’t have any clue what I was talking about in my email. So she scheduled a video call consultation. Cause she rocks. And I’m an overachiever, so I made a whole google album of reference pictures and pictures of my tattoo from all angles (thank you, husband) and some mock-ups of the positioning I was talking about.
So during our video call, she mocked up this:
Obviously, her hands will be covering her eyes cause she’s a Weeping Angel, but this was just a great reference image she found while we were chatting. She was 100% in agreement with old coworker that a bare branch would be the perfect transition to her. And we could fill out around the bottom with leaves like the rest of my arm — but not as sharp and detailed.
She’s an artist who does this shit so I’m so glad I called her in before I went down the panic rabbit hole and just asked her what she thought. She didn’t like coworkers full statue — but she didn’t like mine really either. I gotta say — the composition she’s come up with in like 10 minutes of a video call is AMAZING. I didn’t think of the angled face and I fucking love it. It’s going to be fucking AMAZING. I already said that. But it is.
I’m also super pleased that she is excited about this direction. Originally, there was some miscommunication about me wanting it to be a full sleeve wrap look (it wont actually wrap around, but it will look like it does — there will just be some skin under my arm not tatted). So she never designed it to be full wrap. But that’s what I always wanted. Plus, Jack is centered on my arm — but the back of my arm is so much fatter than the front of my arm so I just need more back there. Like I always wanted a full on covered arm. That’s why I did the shoulder joint — because if you had like a prosthetic arm, it would encompass the shoulder joint. And I wanted my arm to look fully different from the rest of my body. So I was hesitant of what she would think.
But she loves it. Since it’s a memorial tattoo with my precious Jack, she loves the graveyard imagery. Which, it does work. I just like stained glass and Weeping Angels — but having it be a cohesive art piece is also important. Even more important is that my artist is psyched about it so she’ll do amazing work.
The lower part of the arm won’t wrap and will taper down. We’ll free hand some ideas with sharpie in person. I’m thinking kinda mirror the top — the flowers at the elbow and the vines like my back tapering down towards my wrist.
Y’all I’m at physical therapy chilling with some ice and tens while I type this. So they have narrowed down my neck problems to nerves in my arms that are too tight, chest too tight, and no upper back mobility at all (but already making huge progress on that).
So today she’s like “I want to do cupping on your back.” Cause the fascia or whatever is too tight. As in, won’t move at all. So the cupping will pull it up and separate it from the muscle.
So she was using the cups to move around my back. Like put it on, suck it up tight, and move along my back.
Holy fuck. I have a high pain tolerance and nothing ever really hurts. But that hurt. I had to keep going “shit that hurts”. I was like “I’m not saying stop, I’m just talking through it.”
She said the next sessions shouldn’t hurt as much.
Jesus, have y’all had that done? She said it was because my fascia was like stuck down to my muscles. I’m gonna have to have husband see if that bruised tomorrow.
