Newton Omondi Oduge, who tattoos out of Mombasa in Kenya sent me these pictures of him tattooing a lion on the back of Ammelie, a Swedish tourist. I asked him what the tattoo scene was like in Kenya, and he replied,

“The tattoo scene in Kenya is actually not that much of a scene, with very few artists and even fewer good ones. I wouldnt say we have a scene here at all, but nonetheless, we try and give our best ink. It’s only made harder because 90 percent of the time your are tattooing dark skin, and small pieces at that. Then, once in a while you get a big job, maybe all-out colorfull on white skin, and you have to pull it together.

I have been fortunate to visit Europe and do some work there, but honestly, without the interaction from the Western world we are not going to go far. I hope to get to visit Japan or the States one of these days and just sit in a corner at a great studio and watch and learn. Peace.”

In all honesty, I’ve seen a lot of lion tattoos, and this is far better than most!

So one one hand I’m sure that she was happy to have Pete cover up her name from his shoulder, but on the other hand I don’t think she was too thrilled about him permanently saying, “Rachel has become a demonic clown-bitch from hell!” This great coverup was done by Tim Victim at Deep Six in Philly.

After the wearer of this tattoo broke his back in a fall, the doctors put pedical screws in his back, an infection set in under the cast, and he had four follow-up operations which left him with a giant wide central scar and a back full of smaller scars. People who’d see him on the beach in Daytona would ask him if it was a shotgun injury over and over, which is what it most resembled.

He went to multiple tattoo artists, none of whom wanted to go near the project, until one day on the beach he met a girl who turned out to be Anna from Anna’s Artat2 who told him she could fix it. He’s twenty-five hours into the project now, with about ten hours to go, and says he can now take his shirt off and feel proud.