i apologize for the late notice, but i will be working the silver state tattoo convention in reno, nv this upcoming weekend, may 10-12, with my good friend and cohort brian wilson. i will not be taking appointments for this convention, instead i’ll just be doing walkins, from a little book of line drawings i’ve put together. i’m stoked to do it that way and will probably do that for every convention i ever do again. the lineup for this one looks pretty good…. you can find more info about the convention at http://silverstatetattoo.com/.

come say hi!

see ya there, thanks!

r

so, clearly i haven’t been in the blogging spirit for a while. i’m still not, but there’s something about holidays and the turning of a new year that compels me to try and touch base with the outside world and share a little. that said, i don’t expect to carry this spirit onward into the new year as some sort of half-assed resolution… i don’t think i’ll go back to blogging with the regularity that i used to.  no, i just like to look at  year retrospectively, and remember it was a good one. posting six months worth of tattoo work seem an efficient way to do so.

for those who are wondering, i am booked through march and the next availabilities won’t be until april-ish… for which i won’t start booking until mid-march. if  you are interested in getting tattooed it will be best if you contact me around then. as always, ongoing projects and regulars get first priority in the schedule, and then i will take new clients as time allows. occasionally a short-notice availability will pop-up, and when that happens i will post it on instagram @ryanscapegoat.

again, a heartfelt thanks to all of you for your continued interest and support. have a happy and healthy new year!

THAT POSSUM’S DRUNK

(2 years!)

don’t you hate when things don’t go like you planned? like, you work really hard to figure out something that you’re sure is gonna work out for you and everyone else, and it doesn’t work out, like AT ALL? yeah. sucks.  in a not-so-subtlely-related note, if you’ve sent me an email in the past two months and haven’t gotten a response, it’s because i have an anxiety attack every time i try to write back. trust me, i’ve tried to respond. but i probably just don’t have a good answer for you yet. thanks for your patience, i’ll get back to you when i can write a thorough response without it including several paragraphs of unpronouncable nonsense(ie, the prose of my forehead banging on the keyboard in distress).

at least i have some pictures.

someday i’ll have a real update.

first up… tao came all the way from copenhagen and sat for 12 hours over two consecutive days to get this classic tiger/dragon battle…. for his first tattoo. totally badass. we were originally planning on just getting the lines and black done, but at some point i think i lost my mind and decided we should just go for it. in retrospect i’m glad we did it, but it got pretty gnarly there for a while.  even though it’s only march, we can give tao the 2012 badass award now. also, more tattoos like this, please.

bran’s taken a few trips up to portland from colorado, where she does some lovely tattoos, to piece together this sleeve. so far every critter on this arm has a beverage in hand, but this mayor-owl is the classiest.  i think next time we are gonna wrap it all up with squirrelly, the critter-town drunk, which i’m actually excited for. thanks bran!

ashley came up from phoenix for this lady/mirror/pocketwatch/dead crow. 3 sessions altogether. i really like the lady’s hair, and the upside-down crow. ashley also apparently has an amazing job where she gets to be the flight attendant for nba basketball teams, so i was really happy to hear her talk about how friendly and funny shaq is, and how kevin garnett is a total weirdo. thanks ashley!

skulls and roses will never get old.

neither will owls. especially snowy ones.

more like this please. loren also has the treehouse tattoo i posted some time ago, and i was really happy to do this one all huge on her tiny leg. i don’t think i’ll ever get sick of doing any kind of skull. i will, however, get sick of doing cats. and deer. and foxes(unless it’s a kitsune). thanks loren!

i know i just said i’m sick of foxes, but i like this one. i am going to try really hard to have this one officially be the last fox i’ll do, because i’m not sure i’ll be able to do any better than this. thanks dyanna!

healed photo on sasha’s octopus tattoo i did about a year and a half ago. i like it!

in progress:

i have an interview in this month’s issue of  a german tattoo magazine, Tatowier. it’s all auf deutsch so i can’t read anything the article says, but at least there’s boobs on the cover.

that’s all i got, kids. nothing new to report, for now.

as always, thanks for your interest!

thank you everyone, for your continued interest. i got a lot of emails for a lot of good ideas, and didn’t get nearly as many of them into the schedule a i would have liked to this time around. i hope it’s not too discouraging for any of you who missed out… patience and persistence will eventually work out.

i literally don’t have any photos to share, but i will next time!

r

2012, ya’ll. i don’t know about you, but i am STOKED about it. in years past, the calendar change has always come with anxiety and a vague sense of unfulfillment for me… usually related to growing older and weirder or having no idea how i’m ever going to be an adult or if anything i care about will still be around. but, for the first time in maybe ever, i am excited about moving forward and not looking backward. contentment has replaced complacency. no worry, no hurry. everything is going to be awesome.

i found this jellyfish at the coast.

i’ve been really bad at taking tattoo pictures lately…. in addition to taking terrible photos when i get the opportunity, i haven’t finished a whole lot of stuff to get pictures of anyway. but, i’ve started a few projects recently that i’m really excited to work on and are pretty much exactly what i want to be doing more of, so take notes here, kids.

dustin came back to portland to work on his arm a bit more, so i took the chance to get a nice healed photo of his front piece. i love how tattoos look a few months after they’re healed.

finished circus elephant on one of my favorite, best clients. we’re gonna start her back in the next few months and it’s gonna be rad. keep an eye out!

kasey came up from oakland to finish this black and grey peacock(her first tattoo!).  we did the outline and a little black shading a few months back, and finished everything else earlier last month… about 8 hours total i think. kasey sat super well like a champ for this, especially considering the size and painful placement for a first tattoo. her husband brian stayed with us all day both sessions and compiled a nice little mini-movie of the process on his phone:

iphones, man. taking the world by storm.

what’s more remarkable here is that kasey got this peacock shaded the day after we spent four hours tattooing this skull on her arm, too.

tough girl!

owlz on legz

aaaaand, in progress:

more of these^, please!

and this

and this too

finally, for anyone who has been patiently waiting…. i am now taking appointments for february – april 2012. if you would like to get tattooed during that time, email me at ryanscapegoat@gmail.com with your ideas and a list/general idea of dates within those three months that could potentially work for you to get tattooed, and i will get back to you(make sure to read the info page all the way through first, if you haven’t already). it may take a week or two for me to respond, so please be patient… as always, i owe scheduling priority to ongoing tattoo projects and regular customers. from there, it’s first-come, first-serve. i will take the next few weeks to book appointments, close booking when all of feb, march, and april are full, and repeat this process in may (for appointments june-august). i’ll make another blog post when this round of booking closes.

and, of course… thank you, everyone, for the continued interest here. someday i may be able to properly express how grateful i am for all of you, but for now this all i can do. best wishes for the new year, friends. onward!

i am going to have to try really hard to not overload ya’ll with photos, because this month was CRAZY. so much stuff going on. so even though i’m going to try not to, prepare for a monster photo post.

i drew this lil’ thing for my brother’s metal blog, the living doorway…..which you should read. it’s much more interesting than anything you’ll find here anyway.

i sprained my ankle playing basketball and it looked like this for a few days. i’m mostly just bummed about not playing basketball.

i spent a few days in chicago and got tattooed. tim biedron has been a pretty big influence for me and my own work over the years, and it was awesome to finally get something done by him and find him to be such a likeable, down-to-earth dude. i’m stoked to go back and see it progress. check his stuff out… anything i’ve done, he’s probably done better.

oh right, i went to work too. busy month!

i did this violin-fish on my lovely friend and co-worker, silje hagland. it’s for her grandpa and i’m glad i didn’t mess it up because grandpas are cool…. plus i’m going to have to look at it a lot.

sayaka came from LA for this nouveau lady + kitty. stoked on black n grey lately.

owl from a decorative candle she brought in for reference.

we actually finished this a while ago, close to a year now, but just got a chance for healed photos. this snake is one of the largest tattoos i’ve ever completed, and certainly the one that travels the most distance between different body parts. the portrait of the bearded dragon on her thigh is a coverup that i did years ago. mara is a great client and heals so well… i feel compelled to mention that these photos are not manipulated in any way beyond cropping and blurring(i never do that shit anyway), the colors just really are that bright. oh, and  i didn’t do the autumn leaves/flowers on her am, nor the stars on the other side of her back.

lo’s treehouse is done and healed! also, this is my dream home. if i became a weird hermit and only did tattoos out of a treehouse in the middle of the oregon woods and not portland, would you still come get tattooed? please let me know, i need this information to write up a business /retirement plan.

finished carrie’s capricorn/chrysanthemum leg… the flowers and a few spots of grey are fresh but the rest is healed. carrie is my massage therapist and may be single-handedly responsible for keeping me in good working order for tattooing. i’m thankful for her.

carousel horse, also done! mostly healed but there’s some fresh black and grey in the background so it looks a little red. i really like this one.

geisha rat/ninja otter… fresh color on the rat and kimono, the rest is healed. more like this please!

coyote head on edwin…. no, it’s not a fox. sorry edwin, idiot people will probably be saying “i like your fox” to you for the rest of your life.

baku (nightmare-eater) on cody. i love all the crazy mythical japanese creatures like this. i even have one of these on me. more like this please!

oh, and THEN, there was halloween. for those of you who are unfamiliar, every year at scapegoat we draw sheets of little halloween tattoos and do them for $31, walk-in style, all day. and every year, it ends up being an absolute madhouse all day and we all work our asses off and then go home and think that we’ll be better prepared the next year. but we never are. this year we had 7 tattooers smushed into 5 stations, three assistants, and we all tattooed until midnight or later, and still fell short and didn’t get nearly close to tattooing everyone we wanted to. maybe next year?

i’ve made no secret of my inability/unwillingness to paint, especially for tattoo designs, and every year i’ve been a total jerk about it and refused to draw anything for our halloween day. but i actually broke down this year and drew and painted my first flash sheet, of which i would proud except that no one actually got count chocula, frankenberry, OR “kenny rogers, the retarded inbred tiger,” tattooed on them. therefore, it was a monumental disappointment and i now consider my efforts a total failure. THANKS A LOT, HALLOWEENIES.

that said, i almost- almost- enjoyed the painting process and may be more inclined to do it again in the future. well, at least as long as the nba lockout continues. when will it end?

see ya next month!

i’m back from europe, and happy to be home. i had a good time (copenhagen was especially fun),  and big thanks to allan and amalie for accomodating me so well, i loved it there. but i still like home best.

as usual, i’m feeling a refreshed perspective from my travels, and am happy to announce a few changes around here. it’s a new era, change is good!

-first off, i won’t be carrying a waitlist anymore…. it’s become far too stressful for me to manage. there are still some folks on it who are awaiting appointments and they will be scheduled as originally planned, but beyond that, i will simply book 3 months at a time, 4 times a year. once those months are full, booking will closed until the next booking period, which i will announce here on the blog. because i’m still booked for the rest of 2011, the next booking period will start january 1st, 2012, for appointments in feb, march, and april. so if you’re looking to get tattooed, email me in january and no earlier (unless you are a traveling client from far away and need to make travel plans). it will be first-come, first serve. if you miss out, you’ll have to wait until the next booking period.

i also will no longer have a set schedule of days at scapegoat, and will now operate solely by appointment only. this doesn’t make me any more or less available than before, as i’ll still be at the shop more often than not. it was just inevitable. for those of you looking to track me down… email is still best, but you can also call the shop 503.232.4628 and check to see when i’ll be around. i’ve revamped and updated my info page to explain the scheduling changes and included some more relevant information to my current workload. have a look through and maybe let me know if anything seems unclear or if i forgot anything.

this is all in effort to reduce stress on me, to help me focus more on the quality(not quantity) of the tattoos and client experience, and not spend every day dealing with scheduling, constant emails, and other crap that bogs me down and turns me into a jerk every day.

-our crew here at scapegoat is turning over a new leaf as well. henry rodriguez and dylan fram are both leaving scapegoat this month on to bigger and better things. with some sadness, i wish both them and their respective families the best of luck on their new endeavors. that said, there’s always a silver lining, and i’m happy to announce the new arrival of allyson bennet to the scapegoat crew. we think she’ll fit in nicely.

SO, after all that, my trip to europe seems a little mundane. good thing i have pictures.

hey. this was amber’s FIRST tattoo. seven hours of work in london. fucking badass.

bear done at the convention. dan got the back of his forearm done by chad koeplinger the next day, poor guy. must’ve felt terrible on all that swelling.

kittyyyyyyyy

i was stoked to get a healed photo of this strongman i did in london last year, on faridah. looks an awful lot more like freddie mercury than i remember.

this was also laura’s first tattoo, done in copenhagen. i think it’s cute.

rebecka got her whole lower arm done in one session, all the way around with a fox and a hare, in 6 hours. i didn’t get very good pictures so this is all i have to show, but i’m pretty happy with it.

kasper’s magpie. i did this is copenhagen with uncle allan and eckel looking on. those guys pretty much wrote the book on tattoos with this subject matter so it was little nervewracking, but i think it came out nice.

matthias came from germany to get this hourglass done in copenhagen. nice guy, fun tattoo.

fox neck in london on a lovely italian lady.

more like this please

it’s funny to do adorable tattoos on necks. like, it looks all badass to have your neck tattooed until you realize it’s some cute little tanuki daruma, and your only reaction is “awwwwwww…”

finished sam’s peacock. the tail feathers are the only part that’fs fresh in this photo, but i’d really like to get a healed one to see how everything levels out. otherwise i’m happy with it and hope to experiment with this kind of rib/thigh placement on other tattoos.

this elephant was actually finished in one session way back in june, but i just got a healed photo. iiii like it!

ok, i don’t really have anything else for ya’ll. i’ll be working my ass off this next month, so check out tumblr if you wanna see more in-progress stuff. thanks for checking in!

i usually get sick with a sorethoat/stuffy nose/upper respiratory bullshit when i’m exhausted and stressed out, and this time i’m blaming it on scheduling and traveling plans…london and copenhagen are coming up real soon, so i’m scrambling a bit to finish things up and/or clear some workload before i leave, in 12 days. aaaaand i still had no idea i was leaving that soon until i just typed that. wow.

k, fun’s over. work time. lots of stuff happened this month.

four half-sleeves, in various states of completion, on girls wearing tank tops. must be summertime.

them kids on tumblr are gonna love this one.

no elbows on the dinner table, because it will fucking hurt until these heal.

that snake on the right plays for the lakers

pretty stoked on how this one came out.

healed, and upside-down, kinda. this is on a wonderful longtime client of mine who is moving to alaska… hopefully temporarily, but i will miss working on her just the same. good luck megan!

done on a really nice tattooer from hawaii… eventually we’re gonna do a white horse on the other side when we can get her back out here.

i owed this lovely italian lady a tattoo for some trade work a few years back, and she finally visited portland again so i made good on it with this conch shell. and i also got a chance to photograph her arm, which we completeed over about 6 weeks, start to finish, in summer 2009. design-wise it’s pretty different from how i would handle a similar request nowadays, but i love the way the greys and  rich colors have all settled in together and really become part of her arm. i think it looks great on her and for that i’m really happy with it.

thanks everyone, for your continued interest. the rest of this year will be very busy for me, and if you are looking to get tattooed i’d suggest getting back to me in december or january, as i think i’ll be changing my booking system a bit to manage demand a little better. let’s hope that works out. thanks, ya’ll… see ya when i’m back from europa!

i’ll keep this one short… everything is busy busy and i’m mostly having fun with it.

-i’m booking appointments for london (sep 19-25) and copenhagen (sept 27-30) now. if you’re interested in getting tattooed in either city, send me an email at ryanscapegoat@gmail.com, including a good idea of what you want for a tattoo and what days are best for you.

-it’s probably safe to say at this point that i am waitlisted/booked out for the rest of 2011. i will probably be re-doing a lot of my scheduling/waitlist stuff in the coming months to accomodate for the higher demand, hopefully for a fresh start in winter. in the meantime, thank you, everyone, for you continued interest and patience.

-i don’t know if ya’ll knew this already, but i have shirts for sale here. i’ll have some in london, too, though in years past they’ve sold out quick so it might be easier to buy online!

carl sagan as holy man? now that’s a tattoo idea.

dustin still has an arm to finish, but we decided to just knock this thing out while we had the chance. i’m pretty stoked on it, and the whole thing only took about 7-8 hours. that said, i think this will be the last deer/elk tattoo i do(with the exception of completing a few that i’ve already started).

carrot-man playing a concertina. from an awesome old german postcard.

picture sucks, but you get the idea?

matt moreno was in town doing tattoos at scapegoat this month, , and he had me tattoo this snail-helmet battle-lady on his hand. i thought it was a cool idea. looks like mr. moreno will be in town for a while, so hopefully we can get a healed picture at some point. thanks matt!

and theeeen, there’s all the ongoing stuff… if you like seeing the in-progress work you might like my tumblr page, which i’ve devoted solely to documenting the process of larger-scale tattoos.

oh, and then i had fun. also, i’m 28 now… you can tell because my office is full of balloons and a lovely lady made me an excellent cake.

good job.