Tattoo Thursday ~ Geek Week Special

I haven't done one of these since I started bloggin again, so it's about time I did. I spend a lot of my time looking at tattoos for inspiration so as you can image I have quite the Pinterest board full of them. Today I thought I'd share some of my favourite tattoo finds from Pinterest and seeing as we're all embracing our inner geeks this week we're having a geek theme.

Nerd tattoos are a favourite of mine as I love to see how folk choose to express their loves and geeky obsessions with ink - I can't get enough of them! I have two myself one from The Crow and another Tolkien one of the Evenstar, there are plans to get a Bat Tatt on my wrist eventually, just need to save the pennies. Enjoy!

 1. Bioshock // 2. JRR Tolkien // 3. LOTR, Dr Who & Hitchhiker's Guide // 4. Star Wars // 5. Complete Geekery! // 6. The Joker // 7. Nintendo // 8. Harry Potter // 9. Firefly // 10. Batman // 11. CSS
 

If you have a geeky tattoos or in fact any tattoo, feel free to share your pics and inky experiences in the comments!

 

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Tattoo Design & The Honour of Being Inked

Whilst thinking about my 30ish things I've done before 30 post I hit on one thing that I am so proud of myself for achieving. Normally I hate talking like this as I feel like I'm being big headed, but sometimes I think we have to bask in the glory of our achievements and be a bit big headed in order to feel some pride in our work and continue on down the path of happiness and success.

The other week I posted about a tattoo design I had done for Marty and the pics he had sent to show me it all inked. Photos like this make me feel all fuzzy inside and the smile doesn't leave my face for a while. It's such an honour that lovely folk like Marty and others choose to take my work to an artist and get it inked for life.  

So I thought I'd do some sharing and show off some of the amazing clients I've had over the years and the ink they've asked me to design.

All designs are copyright Claire Glasgow

Many thanks to Marty, Dan, Rian, Elaine, Carrie, Crystal, Michelle, Amy, Katherine and Mel. Biggest thank you hugs to you all for asking me to design your tatt and getting inked!

If you're interested in a possible tattoo design please get in touch via the contact page or email me: hello@daisybisley.com. You can also visit the website for more design examples.

 

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DaisyBisley in the Wild - Tattoo Design

Designing tattoos for folk means the world to me. I get to translate their feelings, ideas and sometimes memories in to a single design that they can have forever inked on their skin. It's a big responsibility and I don't take it lightly. I've been responsible for designs that symbolise a loved one lost, the birth of kids, friendship, life loves and so many others and I am so moved by some of the stories that clients tell me when they're sharing the reasons behind their ink. It's so rewarding and humbling to be a part of that process and I would like to take the opportunity to say thank you from the bottom of my heart to all of you who have asked me to design for you.

So with all this in mind I like you all to meet Marty, drummer for the Australian band The Eternal, who are awesome by the way {their new single is embedded below}. Marty asked me to design a tattoo that was special to him and his family. This is the second time I've designed a tattoo that is now permanently on Marty's skin. A while ago his brother Dan asked me to design a triskele for them both and I had a lot of fun doing it. I won't be sharing any of the reasons behind the guy's tattoos as they're all very personal to them and I like to keep that a designer/client secret. But I will say I put extra pressure on myself to get that first design perfect and I'm so glad Dan and Marty were happy with it.

This time around Marty asked me to design this one - a symbol that represents a very traditional idea, but wouldn't be too obvious to figure out. I had loads of fun experimenting with this one as it was totally different to the triskeles I usually get asked to do and let me go nuts with the pencil lines.

The design was inked by Melbourne artist Brittany Kilsby whose work is fantastic and I'm so ridiculously over the moon with the work she did on it. You can see more of Brittany's work on her Facebook page.

I'll maybe post in the future about some of my tattoos that have been inked before, but for now you can have a look at some of my previous inked designs on the website. If you'd like a custom tattoo or design for your business, please don't hesitate to get in touch.

Also, take the time to have a listen to The Eternal's new track Beneath These Waves, now available over on their Bandcamp page, it's pretty awesome!

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Newest Obsession: Red Ink

I've got a couple of tattoo commissions on the go at the moment and as usual I've been doing research for ideas. During my rounds on the interweb I came a cross some red ink tattoos and I have to say I'm in love! I've always wanted some white ink , but now I'm thinking red might be the way to go. It's eye catching and elegant and these designs just look beautiful.

What do you think? Do you have any favourite tattoo styles or colour ideas?

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Digging Through the Archives

It's day 21 and I've missed 2 days - easily forgiven as I was spending the days with my Mum for her birthday. This involved her teaching me how to sort our wee garden, wanders round Ikea, lunch and dinner with The Bruv and Grandma and a girly trip to the cinema to swoon over one Mr DiCaprio. Fun times!

On to todays topic - A list of links to our favourite posts in our own archives. I've picked a few that I'm proud of and enjoyed writing the most.

A Public Apology


One of my favourite topics so far in the Blog Everyday in May challenge, writing a public apology to my brother for all the wrongs I have done.



DaisyBisley In The Real World


The invites are done! I was so chuffed to see these in person after our friends Joni and Joe asked me to design their wedding invites.



Weddings, Pirates, Turtles & Tattoos


A little catch up on some of the work I was doing in 2012, including custom tees, tattoos and the original wedding invitation design.



Ode To Special Fx

This was a post professing my love for special effects in movies and the hard work done by the artists that create them.

I hope there are as fun to read as it was to write them! Thanks for reading and please leave a link to your favourite post from your archive.

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Don't forget to leave your blog link in the comments   

Never Regret Your Tattoos

Now here's a tee that every tattoo lover needs in their wardrobe.

http://www.inkedshop.com/men-s-never-regret-t-shirt.html?acc=9bf31c7ff062936a96d3c8bd1f8f2ff3 

I love this tee - you can pick it up over on Inkedshop.com along with some other pretty cool tattoo inspired works. 

If you've seen any great tattoo inspired merch leave a comment or Tweet me, I'd love to see it.

Visit Spread the Nerd on Scoop.It for nerdy things from around the interwebs!

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Wonder Woman Ink

Found this online and had to share it.

I love a good tattoo that has a meaning and declares a love of something or someone, so when movie, comic, music, or whatever type of nerd they may be, shares their love in the form of ink I jump for joy at these great ideas and designs.  Spread the Nerd!

http://brainz.org/50-awesomely-nerdy-tattoos/

Tattoo Art... In My Coffee

I found a fantastic Tumblr blog during the week called Art In My Coffee. It's full of amazing designs that folk have magically swirled designs into cappuccinos. I have a few favourites:

http://artinmycoffee.com/post/28642474606/cafe-mocha-at-nice-matin-manhattan-beth 

Batman in My Coffee
http://artinmycoffee.com/post/27587238503/so-whos-seeing-a-midnight-showing-of-the-dark 

But I found this one and it made me think of a design I did a while back for Derek in Holland.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/russelljsmith/6785856181/

Derek Design
http://daisybisley.com/

Totally addicted to the site now and have been checking back constantly this week to look for new Art in My Coffee.

Thanks for reading the blog. If you have any questions about a custom design for a tattoo or other wise, please leave a comment or Tweet me.

This Week's Round Up

In an effort to become more active on the Facebook page I've been using Austin Kleon's handy hint of using a simple calendar to time my posts. I've been using it all week in the office too to try and bring some sort of structure to our social media and so far its working. I know I've only posting once a day on the Daisy Bisley page, but I'm hoping to get more up and more active as time goes on and I get more into the swing of things with the new routine I'm setting myself.

It's a really simple calendar, I just choose the number of posts I want to do and cross them off throughout the day to mark that I've completed the task. Eventually seeing a clean sweep of red X's will keep me going - appeals to my compulsion to list things I guess!

So Monday was my first foray into HTML and CSS as I was sent on a day course to get the basics under my belt. I kind of knew bits and pieces about tags and how they work, but the course really helped me understand structure and how to build a site.
The actual building of a site is a little way off yet though, but I did by this lovely big mag to help me along the way. I need a lot of tutorials to get me started and though this would be a great way to get me going.

Tuesday was a Pinterest day! I find Pinterest a massive source of inspiration for not just tattoos, but everything. I'm constantly scouring the boards for pretty things to look at and share and am constantly amazed by how much material is on there. I try and add to the tattoo board at least twice a week and have been sharing some of the amazing work by artists all over the world, most recently on Tuesday when I found this one.

http://ladylucktattooaz.com/photos/heather-alvin/tattoo-photos-5-24-09-036.jpg.html  

I love the Henna style of it and the smoothness of the lines. I'm hoping to get some of the Henna influence into my work in the near future as it's something I've loved for years now. I'd also love to get a design myself from a professional Henna artist or try one myself, but I don't quite know if my hands would be steady enough!

Another great find this week was animator Adam Proctor's Water Lives animation on Vimeo It's absolutely beautiful! A collaboration between Adam, water scientists, a musician and a haiku poet that is designed to show the "rich diversity of life within our precious water sources." I love the style and the music is beautiful too. 

http://www.behance.net/gallery/Water-Lives/3413089

It's worth checking out Adam's work over on Behance, and looing out for it in the new BBC/HBO series Hunted that is starting soon. Another favourite piece of mine is "An Underwater Tale" and if you, like me, love shadow puppets then it really is a must see. Short and sweet!

http://www.behance.net/gallery/Ocean-Terminal-an-underwater-story/1045821

Thought I'd finish off with a sneaky peek at a couple of commissions I've been working on. One for Kristi and one for Karen. 

I sat out in the long awaited sun working on these today and hope to get out again tomorrow to do some web designing or maybe some Henna...

Thanks for reading the blog. If you have any questions about a custom design for a tattoo or other wise, please leave a comment or Tweet me.

Weddings, Pirates, Turtles and Tattoos!

My last few posts have been about movies I've seen in the last few months, so I thought this time I'd post about the work I've been doing. I've had a few since the beginning of the year and I hope I continue to get more. I've been thinking recently of updating the website again with a new design section. This way my work might appeal to more people wanting different types of commissions as well as tattoos which in turn will mean more design fun for me!

Last month I was over the moon to be asked to design a wedding invitation for a friend and it was great to be able to turn my hand to something a bit different. 

I loved designing these and I was so happy that Joni liked them. I'd really like to do more invitations and print based things, so I'll need to get some sample designs together.

Last year I was asked to do a different type of print based design. Katherine at The Meltemi Dive Centre in Ios, Greece got in touch and asked if I would like to design a couple of T shirts for them. I love T shirts and have quite a vast collection of them so I was really happy about getting the commission. Katherine asked for a tribal turtle and a pirate diver design for 2 shirts that would be available at the centre.  I've only just been given the go ahead to share this design in the last few weeks, which is why I'm now sharing it all over my online profiles - so happy with it!

Copyright Meltemi Dive Centre

                                       

Copyright Meltemi Dive Centre

I was so proud of these designs as they were going to be seen on a daily basis and worn by folk that visited the Dive Centre. I was so happy about this that when I got a package trough the door containing samples of the shirts I shrieked with joy - like a proper shriek!! I'm assuming the same will happen if I ever meet any of you lovely people who happen to my work inked permanently on your skin, so I apologise in advance if shriek with glee in your face!

Not only were the designs on 2 separate shirts, but also on a multitude of marketing materials. I think I might frame them! I will post a pic of all the goodies together soon.

In April I got sent this amazing pic from Marty O'Shea that his brother Dan had commissioned me to design for them last year. Marty then asked me to design another one for him. 

The design was to include the initials AMO as a symbol and we eventually came out with 2 final designs.

On a side note Marty is the Drummer for The Eternal, worth checking out some of their tunes - so good!!

My newest commission is for a lovely lady called Sarah who has been on my facebook a few times leaving comments and likes (thanks Sarah), so I was over the moon when she asked for a design.

This is just one of the first sketches I drew up for Sarah and I can't wait to work together on getting the final design. Experimenting with the infinity symbol is a lot of fun!

I would like to add a wee note to the end of this post to say thanks to everyone who has asked me to design for them and those who have gone on to use the designs or get them inked. I really appreciate the work you have given me and have taken great pleasure in creating all the designs. A wee bit mushy I know, but hey!

If you are interested in a custom design please get in touch via email or Tweet Me

Ice Cream, Hans Zimmer and Squirrels

Hello folks, just back from an odd trip to London to see the Royal Philharmonic's Film Music Gala. I say odd because myself and Peter spent most of the time in a trance of exhaustion from an uncomfortable bus journey overnight on the dreaded Megabus! The concert itself was amazing, the Royal Albert Hall was a beautiful building and the orchestra were incredible. However, London itself was a haze. 

When we arrived at 7am we could do nothing but walk about to kill time. So we headed to a local Sainsbury's near our Easy Hotel and sat for a while probably looking quite strange and rough to the locals. We dumped our bags in the hotel that wouldn't let us check in til 3pm and then headed out for the 5 hour wait til check in and a decent sleep. We walked around Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park with Ice Cream at 10 in the morning which was lovely and relaxing UNITL... were accosted by squirrels.

 

The squirrels were quite intimidating and funny, they came right up to us and almost jumped up on Peter's shoulder ready to pounce on his 99 cone and run off with it! This did make us a bit freaked out and paranoid though as we were really tired and began to think the squirrels were stalking us, I'm pretty sure it was the same one that followed us all over Hyde Park.

We eventually relaxed at the Princess Diana Memorial Fountain as we lost the squirrel and fell asleep on the grass. Half an hour later I awoke to slight burning feeling on my face and realised I had not put any suncream on!!! Being Scottish and of the (slightly) ginger/fair-skinned persuasion, it is fair to say that the sun and I are not the best of friends. Of course I was lying with my head to one side and am now sunburnt down the left side of my face with a lovely white streak where my glsses were,  thank God the Albert Hall was dark.

So we eventually were allowed into the hotel where we got a couple of hours sleep and then right back out again to the Albert Hall. It's such an amazing building and I really fell in love with it, especially the ceiling.

The orchestra were great, it all sunk in when they played te main theme to Gladiator as the brass section was AMAZING lol! Got a bit teary eyed when they played the Out of Africa theme too it was just incredible, we both loved it.

So now we're back home very tired, but having to dive straight back into work mode as we both have projects to be getting on with.

The most exciting email awaited me as I got back. My Tattoo Me design was put up for scoring on Threadless while I was away, pretty excited to see how it goes. You can see and vote for the design by clinking the linkydoo below or the button on the side bar.

Score this design: "Tattoo Me," to help it get printed on Threadless!

Thats about it from me for today, I'm off to get  caught up on some work and maybe some sleep lol!

Thanks for reading 

Daisy*B

xXx

New Work

Yesterday I did some work in Illustrator and came up with 2 new pieces. I've been wanting to get practice with it for a while so I had fun!

Will hopefully have some more new stuff up soon

Thanks for reading
Daisy*B

xXx

Cupcakes and Hobbits

From lovely sunny days to horrible rainy ones, I really hope that isn't our summer over and done with!
While it's been raining I've been working away on a few projects, mainly reading the Hobbit on my new gadget :D I bought myself a Kindle as a late birthday present to myself. I justified it by the amount of weight I would save when reading Lord of the Rings again, well thats my excuse and I'm sticking to it!
But first some amazing news, my lovely other half has only gone and got himself a new job in a computer games company, he's on a wee trial at the moment so lots and lots of luck to him, we're both so very excited although I think he's more nervous than I am lol!

I've also been planning my Mum's 50th birthday cake for the past wee while and on Thursday night (very late) I finished it as well as 24 cupcakes, well 23 as I ended up eating one to test how sticky it was with foil wrappers as I've never used them before, again thats my excuse and I'm sticking to it :P






All the cakes were vanilla with vanilla buttercream. The main cake had three layers of sponge, 2 purple and 1 plain. I used fondant icing to make the roses and I glued them to the cake with a wee bit water. I really enjoyed making it, more the decorating than the baking, but it was lots of fun.
It all went down well and everyone seemed to like it so happy days!

I've also been working on a few tattoos and some stuff of my own. I recently finished Dan's tattoo which was a triskele with an edge and a lot of fun to do. He wanted the triskele to have thorns and be a bit thicker than my usual ones.

I think it looks pretty cool and I can't wait to see it done, was really chuffed with it!
I also started Carrie's celtic turtle tattoo. This took me a while to figure out in Illustrator, probably because of the awkward way I did it, but I got there in the end.


As I said earlier I've been reading The Hobbit recently and have got a lot of inspiration from it. I've been wanting to work in Illustrator for a while now, creating something totally vector so I thought mixing both these ideas would be a start! The chapter in the book that involves Mirkwood was my greatest inspiration and I wanted to use that image for the vector piece.

I had fun doing it and really getting into Illustrator and all the things it can do. Planning other works too when I have the time to sit down and work on them.
And last but not least the most important news of the day *cough* Tangled has just arrived, thank you postie!

I'm off for a watch :D

Thanks for reading
Daisy*B
xXx

Inked

Got a lovely email today from a previous client, Aaron who got in touch at the start of the year asking me to design him a triskele. Aaron was only my second male client so I was pretty nervous about getting it right. I usually design for lady folk so I thought my designs might be too feminine.
As pretty much all of my designs are personal to the client I won't really be spilling the beans on all meanings and reasonings behind the tattoos. What I will talk about is the design aspects. Aaron wanted the design NOT to be feminine obviously, so this was my challenge. I've designed a male tattoo before with my Derek design, but this was different as it was a triskele, something I've only done for women!
Aaron also wanted each arm to have an organic tendril look and have the appearance of living plants, but with a celtic feel.

Here are a few of the original sketches:

These were a couple from the first rounds of designing. They were very celtic with knots all over the place, so much fun! I tried to keep the plant like appearance too, using thin vine-like lines for the arms.

These were the 2 versions Aaron choose to have a look at for the final design. He also wanted a green colour, which works really well!

This was the final design drawn up digitally.

It was pretty refeshing to design for Aaron, as with Derek I was totally out of my comfort zone and having to think differently "what would a man like?" I kept asking myself! Overall I'm really happy with the finished design and so was Aaron, so much so that he put it on his skin!

It looks amazing and the size really does it justice. I'm so happy with it and I can't wait to see it when it heals. Thanks Aaron!!!!!


I've been commission for 4 other designs too, a cluster of stars, a celtic turtle, a celtic version of Superman and a top secret design that will be a gift. There are also a few other design jobs possibly in the works so I'll keep you posted!

Thanks for reading
Daisy*B
xXx