2nd and 3rd and 4th Tattoos

I honestly forget what order these went in. I know for sure the lip tattoo was before my lower ankle one but other than that. I kinda forget the order in which I got them.
Inner lower lip tattoo
At the time I was hanging out a lot with Rachelle Bogue. Enough to nickname each other Sidekicks. I don’t remember how we came up with the idea to tattoo Side Kicks on our inner lips but we did. I honestly thought she was gonna chicken out. Then we actually went to a tattoo shop and got it done. We had trouble finding someone who would tattoo it because the lip is hard to tattoo and it fades quickly. We finally found a non fun hater to do it in San Jose. It was her first tattoo and she handled it like a champ. The lip actually doesn’t hurt that bad.

Right Lower Ankle
This is almost the same story as the lip tattoo. It started off as a joke and turned into a game of chicken, in which case we both won or lost depending on which way you look at it, lol. It was St. Patricks Day and I was on the phone with Elizabeth Rodriguez (no relation) and I was talking about how I don’t ever need to wear green again on St. Patricks Day because I have green permanently on me (my tattoo) and she says how her next color tattoo will have green on it and I say you can tattoo a shamrock, we can get matching tattoos and without hesitation she agrees! I was caught off guard, I wasn’t expecting her to say that, so we talked for another 5 minutes each saying how we’re not playing around, how we’d really go get it done right now and how the other one is going to chicken out. There was no way I was backing down from this, I’m King Spontaneous. So we found this new tattoo shop in Fremont called

We walked in and both of us walked out with new shamrock ankle tattoos. This all happened in the span of an hour or two. She later got hit by a bus.

Left Lower Arm Tattoo
I knew I wanted a Dia De Los Muertos tattoo, I just wasn’t sure what to get. I started looking at some flash and finally decided I want a sugar skull. Then I thought of putting roses around it but not symmetrical. I wanted it to kinda flow on my arm. Then for the eyes I decided to put poker chips and add sort of a poker theme to it. I wanted the suits in it but I wasn’t sure where to put them. Next I needed to pick a tattoo artist.

I immediately knew who I wanted for this design. Freddy Corbin from Temple Tattoo in Oakland. Freddy is sort of a big deal. He’s worked with Ed Hardy. He’s done tattoos for Rock Band. He does all the tattoos on Sons of Anarchy, he designed the SOA logo. If you ever watched Miami Ink you can see a sticker on the doorway for Temple Tattoo. I went in and set up an appointment. I think the wait was only a few months for him.

A few days before the appointment, I went in, discussed the design with him and let him do what he does best. Freddy is a really nice guy. Not a huge ego or anything. Halfway through it I realized I forgot to tell him that I wanted color, lol. So basically we set up another appointment after he was done with the outline and shading to come back in and do the color. After he was done with the outline and shading though I almost didn’t want to go back in and add color. It looked really good without it. But I like color and so I did and I think it looks even better. I’m proud of it. I guess I forgot to mention why did I want a Dia De Los Muertos tattoo. That part of it is kinda personal and don’t really tell people, but if you know what Dia De Los Muertos stands for, then you have your answer. Its a reminder for me, which is why I chose to put it on my lower arm where I can see it everyday.