The Mentor

Chapter 17

When Dave announced that we'd be doing Asian tattoos my heart dropped into my stomach. He then announced that we'd be tattooing a very special group of canvases. I was not prepared for who was going to walk through that door.

It was the remaining crew from season 3.

"Holy shit, this is the crew from a few seasons back!" Halo exclaimed.

Everyone clapped and the group of canvases waved.

"Asian style tattoos must have lots of intricate details and precise linework to prove consistency. Kyle and Jamie, you won the flash challenge so you now have the power to assign the canvases—choose wisely." Dave said, winking at me.

Kyle jumped up out of his seat and I followed. We went down the line and asked everyone about their design ideas. A lot of them were good. I guess since this was a group of tattoo artists as our canvases, no one would have any completely outlandish ideas. Kyle and I unanimously agreed that we'd do the sexy Geisha girl idea presented by Frank McManus.

ES stepped up to talk to us and he said he wanted a realism portrait of a Samurai.

"Give that one to Jime" Kyle whispered.

I giggled and nodded.

We handed out the skulls and the canvases read out everyones names.

Jime looked visibly upset.

"You all will have the rest of the evening to consult with your canvas. Bring your A-game tomorrow. Masters, both you and your apprentice will switch every hour when you're tattooing. The tattoo must look like it was done by one person. Good luck!" Dave announced.

Kyle and I both walked over to Frank and sat down to chat with him about ideas. He had a great large open area on his thigh for us to work with.

"I want her on her knees kind of sitting on her feet, yknow?" He presented.

"I get you dude, totally. We're going to rock this thing for you, I promise!" I said smiling.

He smiled back.

Kyle and I were standing over at the drawing table when Tatu baby came over and started talking to us. She was freaking out a little.

"Okay so my canvas wanted a Geisha and Samurai like, about to kiss, sitting on top of each other. I dont know how to go about this..." she muttered.

"Okay...does he want them straddling each other, how does that work where's that idea?" I asked.

"I think so but I dont know how to go about drawing that. There's not much reference for that out there on google and I dont want to free hand this." She sighed, putting her face in her hands.

"Yeah good idea, don't free hand this shit it's too complicated." Kyle chimed in.

"There's zero photo reference out there for that specific pose and I'm not even 100% on what he really wants me to do..."

"Who do you have?" I asked.

"James—James Danger." She muttered.

"Ah, alright. He said he wanted a Geisha and Samurai, that's why I gave you that one. I didnt realize the pose would be an issue." I stammered.

I pushed past Kyle and looked over at her drawings. The anatomy wasn't matching up. I guess it was hard to find reference for this kind of thing.

"Why not use us as reference?" I proposed.

"You guys aren't Asian." Tatu baby laughed.

"I know that, but we could pose and you could take a photo for reference and then tape the Geisha and Samurai faces on top of it and draw from there?"