Howdy friends, acquaintances and anyone else stopping by to check out my new ink.  For those of you who know me, I've had the last star added to my Southern Cross design just recently along with some more work on the compass rose I had done some time ago.

I'm really enjoying the process.  The tattooist is Happy at a little shop called Mischief Moon, located in Surry Hills here in Sydney Australia.  Happy has a bloody excellent touch with the needle and is a down-to-earth good bloke who enjoys his job.  You can't ask for anything more than that, can you?

We spent some time discussing the next step, which is going to be background and features to accompany the stylised Southern Cross.  I'm keen to keep with the symbolic nature of the design so far and would like to go with a stylised Japanese galaxy spiral, with little stars and maybe a planet or two.  This is going to continue down my arm to about halfway along my forearm.  My next appointment is in 3 weeks.  Basically, Happy is going to draw the design freehand straight onto my arm.  This means we can make changes, check out the design movement and take some photos.  Once we've made the decision, he will do all the outlines in one hit.  Then it will be a case of going back and getting everything filled in over a period of months.  As I said earlier, I'm really enjoying the process and can hardly wait until the next session.  I think if I had the time (and the money), I'd be on the chair right now.

Anyways, hope you enjoy the photos.

This is of the little nautical star, which represents the epsilon star in the Southern Cross.  I have always liked nautical stars as tattoos as they are part of tattooing history.  I like this one a lot and am thinking of ways I can incorporate more of these style stars into future work.

This is the completed version on a compass rose I had done some time ago.  Happy has done a superb job with this and I'm am very pleased with the look of it.