Oils by Troy

Along with tattoos (both having them and being an artist), painting motorcycles, a couple of race cars and the this' and thats in life I also paint in oils. No, motorheads, not the kind that we use in our bikes. I'm talking about the pigmented kind - paintbrush and canvas kind.

Recently I entered into a challenge with other artists to see who can reach 100 fans first so I'd like to ask you to join me at my Facebook Fan page Oils by Troy. Sign in and join.

Thanks, peace & ride safe!

Motorcycles, Bikers, Motorcycle Travel

Tattoo Time

After finding out that we were supposed to tip the stripper we decided it was time to move on, time for the tattoo. Across the street we went, all of us had a bit of a light head, filled with enthusiasm, we were going to permanently mark-up our bodies! Woohooo!

How fun was this going to be.

Into the shop we went, looking at all of the different pictures on the wall, watching people getting "work" done and trying to decide which tattoo was the "coolest" one for us.

Hey dude, does it hurt?

Well, it's been nearly 30 years and during that time I've trained as a Tattoo Artist under a guy named "Toomer" and began my tattoo career, ok, not career but my sideline for extra money, after all at that time the military was my "career", and to this day I wear a shirt that I get from my Art Supplier that has a skull in the background (kind of a gray print on a black shirt) and bold white letters that state: "HELL YES, IT HURTS!"

We each picked out out tattoo, each had a reason for what we chose, I went first. Into the chair, the artist shot a template of the design, placed it on my arm (bicep area) and began to work. I sat there sweating for two hours while he put my "leopard perched upon a skull" design on to my arm. I now try to remember what the reason was that I chose a leopard, the skull doesn't surprise me in the least... but the leopard that one baffles me. All that I know for sure is that each of the five of us have a leopard of some type on our left arm.

And the band of brothers is:

Maui
Woody
Wolf
Hillbilly (from someplace called Devo Mountain, TN)
and Moose

We all did our Boot Camp together and later our Advanced.  Maui went on to Military Intelligence School in Southern Arizona, Wolf ended up in Korea, Hillbilly - he had a bit of a tough time and was asked to leave Uncle Sam's party, and Moose, well, Moose was last seen jumping out of a plane someplace over the swamps of Louisiana training for Ranger School - no one really knows what happened to that crazy SOB.

Once the group had all been freshly "Inked" we all headed to the convenience store bought what we thought would be to much beer and went back to the hotel room to drink the night away.

The sun was in mid-sky before we woke from our haze, foggy headed and bandaged arms we grabbed a cab to the bus depot and headed back to the base.



Technorati Tags: tattoo, artist, skull tattoo, Inked, Boot Camp, First Tattoo, Tattoo

Tip the Stripper

1979: Time was marked by constant marching drills, morning PT routines, forced marches led by our CO (Commanding Officer) - who - at the time we swore was a former NAZI, based solely on his desire to march us 20 plus miles at least once a week, it turns out that 1. he wasn't a NAZI after all and 2. He was a Marathon runner so he used the forced marches for his training - nice guy :). One field exercise after another, live fire, night recon, navigation and finally.... our next leave.

Off duty and into our "Civi's", a cab ride down to the bus depot and we were quickly buying our tickets to Augusta, all five of us. The bus arrives at the Augusta bus depot after a couple of hours of travel it's time to catch a cab to the hotel and start seriously looking to get our first tattoo. The cab ride isn't a very long one to the hotel. We get checked in, get settled and we're off. It's time to get a tattoo, but first... you can't get your first tattoo without a drink first. It's going to hurt, right? None of us big, bad, soldiers want to feel that crap. We just came through the lines of deployment shots about a week earlier - that was enough stabbing, jabbing, poking and prodding for any of us, so it's off to find a bar.

This really can't be good - five 18 year boys traveled 200 miles to get tattoos but first are going to have some fun in a bar. Not a single one of us had ever drank in a bar before.

There's a saying, I'm not sure where it comes from but it goes something like this:

When hiring a teenage boy the rule is: 1 boy = a good days work. 2 boys = a 1/2 days work. 3 boys = no work at all.

I think the same applies here just substitute the word "work" for the word "brain" and you can pretty much get a good picture of our mental acumen as a group.

The herd meandered down main street and taking in the sights. We found the tattoo shop, stopped in and looked around. Yep, it was a tattoo shop. We all decided this was going to be FUN, now it's off to find the bar. Much to our delight there was a bar right across the street - imagine that a bar and a tattoo shop next to each other. What a great city!

In to the bar we went, dark and smokey with the music blaring we stood just beyond the closed door waiting for our eyes to adjust while we scanned the room for a place to sit. Before we could find a table, the bar erupted with applause, a light came on above the stage in the center of the room and "Bambi" appeared from behind the curtain. This was all the motivation we needed to sit front and center at the empty chairs around the stage. I and to this day would bet the group as a whole had never been to a strip club. The music started and "Bambi" began the grind, cat-calls and whistles went around the bar and my eyes became twice the size they normally are, although I tried to play it cool like I was born in a strip club. You know, arm back across the chair, making small talk, hey - this wasn't my first pair of real live breasts or anything, I've seen girls dance before - where do you think I'm from anyway?!

Drinks were ordered, clothing kept coming off - hers not ours - "Bambi" danced her dance in front of us for what seemed like a life time. She played the group, obviously knowing that we were young servicemen and that we were putty in her hands. She took hold of my buddies ears and pulled his face into what he later described as heaven, my hat was taken from my head and "Bambi" promptly put it on hers and wore it around the stage using it as a ... prop... while she danced - I kept that hat for years after it had lost any of it's usefulness - we were beside ourselves with all of this attention from a beautiful young lady who was willing to take her clothes off. What a great bar! All of this attention - just because we were servicemen. What a great country. What a great city. What a... ohhhhhh - I see, as we were enjoying the show a rather large gentlemen came up to the group and told us we were supposed to TIP when we received that much attention from "the lady". Damn-it. Time to go.


Boys plan - God laughs - the Stripper gets stiffed.

Technorati Tags: first tattoo, tattoo shop first tattoo tattoo shop, First Tattoo, Tattoo, stripper, Strip Club, Strip Bar

The First Tattoo

I started playing with art when I was a very young child. One Christmas my Grandmother gave me a book on how-to-draw horses and I was hooked. I'm not even sure if I was five or six at the time. I started drawing and I drew day and night. I worked on comics and characters and I kept drawing. I drew anything in site, my grandfathers pipe, my fathers pack of Marlboro's, mean pictures of my step-sisters, it didn't matter I just drew. Over the years, like most things in life, my taste matured from stick-men to super-hero's to cartoon art to realism, landscape, fantasy and on and on. Somewhere along the road of growing up I found motorcycles and then the biker culture. I did this at a relatively young age - around 13 or 14. This led me and my art down a completely different path and along this path I found Tattoo's.

In the town I lived in there used to be an old artist that went by the name of Swede. I found his shop at 15 and hung out there trying to convince him that I needed a tattoo up until the time I was 18 and joined the service. When I got that first leave and was able to come back home for a week one of the first things I did was go to his shop. I stood in front, staring through the windows, not believing my eyes. The man I had hung out with for so long, the guy who and turned me on to my first ride on a chopper (old triumph 650) and the one artist that I wanted to do my first tattoo - had sold his shop and moved away. I searched the entire time I was on leave. I knew if I kept looking I would find him, unfortunately time ran out and I had to head back to the other side of the country and back to training. No Swede, no tattoo, no luck. Damn Swede you couldn't have waited a few months before you sold your place to that dress shop!

Arriving back at base and still wanting to get my first tattoo I looked forward to my next leave. I'd find a place - there had to be one around, my God I was in a military town after all, don't all service guy's get tattoos? I talked with everyone who I thought might know and then one day sitting around at the park on base, drinking a beer and playing guitar, the son of one of the ranking officers on our Base came and sat down, started showing me some things on the guitar and just generally passing the day away. As we continued to hang out just BS'ing I started talking about wanting to get a tattoo and how my attempts to get one from "The Best Artist in the World", who just happened to have a shop in my little home town (exaggeration is an art form at 18), were all for naught. The artist had moved and now I was stuck. As luck would have it the kid had just gotten a tattoo a couple of months ago and knew of a good place with artist who had been tat'ing people for years........... a place about 200 miles away!

I was a kid, 18 at the time, thought I knew everything like most 18 year boy's I've ever met, I was going, didn't care what the military thought, didn't care about anything, I wanted a tattoo and that was that. I got a group of my buddies together and we planned it all out. We'd ride the bus down to Augusta, spend the weekend, get a tattoo or two and just have a good ole time and be back for duty on Monday morning.

Boy plans - God laughs - the Military frowns.


Technorati Tags: first tattoo military, triumph 650, motorcycles, biker culture first tattoo, motorcycles, biker culture