New Pulse Shirt Is On

The new Pulse T is on the site and available in Small to XXX Large. Pulse"Machine"T-shirt. Thanks to our friend F. Sean Martin for the modeling. Yes that F.SeanMartin

Fine Sketch Friday

Interspersed with our fine collection of paintings is some really great original sketches. My favorite is from comic artist J. Scott Campbell. He had created this Princess from G-Force drawing for a "Battle Of The Planets" trading card set. Campbell's art is traditionally colored on the computer (sidebar: isn't it funny to hear the word traditional with the word computer) so with him this is as close as you get to his original art. Most comic artists are really sketch artist because they will turn over their pencils to be outlined and colored by someone else.For my money Campbell draws just about the best girls in comics, hands down. I only wished he did a monthly title like he did with Gen13 or Danger Girl. Never lose sight of the fact comics are great place to look to be inspired. They always have inventive ideas for layouts and creating action with a flat picture. I love em. (I think I just outed myself as a geek). http://www.myspace.com/j_scott_campbell

Another great sketch we have is from artist Andrew Bawidamann. Andrew does those really graphic Pin-Ups you see on shirts and poster. He actually does some tattoo shows with his art. He mostly creates in 1-Shot auto paint, even though his stuff looks like he did it in Illustrator, he still keeps it old school. Great web store - http://www.bawidamann.com/home.html BONUS -The bonus sketch this week comes from comic artist Joe Linsner. Linsner is the creator of the infamous "Cry For Dawn" comics. Joe's Dawn character has taken on a life of her own and has the merchandising pedigree to prove it from calendars to statues to contests of look a like Dawns. She's big time. Joe Linsner wrote the foreword to Joe Capo's art book. They grew up together airbrushing in Long Island. What's in the water out there? http://www.linsner.com/

Jime Litwalk Strikes Again

Our good friend Jime Litwalk was just in town for the Paradise Tattoo Gathering (coverage coming soon) and he hung out with us here at Pulse for a couple days. Our own Katie got herself all kind of tattooed up by Jime. The piece was based on Tim Burton Poem called "Voodoo Girl", and I think they cooked up a great interpretation.

"Her skin is white cloth,

and she's all sewn apart

and she has many colored pins

sticking out of her heart.
She has many different zombies

who are deeply in her trance.

She even has a zombie

who was originally from France.

But she knows she has a curse on her,

a curse she cannot win.

For if someone gets

too close to her,
the pins stick farther in."

Easy Glow, Now in 4 Ounce.

It is finally here, it is in stock and ready to ship. We have every color ready to go in 4 ounce bottles. ( We still don't have Flesh) But we do have all the other great colors. If you have tried the 1 oz and like the colors now is a good time to splurge on 4oz. It is also great to break up some 4oz grab a white and yellow and mix up some of your own tints. Give us a call or check out the site. If you have been waiting for us to stock we will be calling everyone tomorrow and the next day, thanks for your patience.

Fine Art Returns

We were away last Friday at the Paradise Tattoo Gathering and missed the update, but we are back. Josh Hoffman did this awesome "Rock of Ages" painting for us. He substituted the traditional stone cross for our gear logo. Josh's work has a special touch to it, he is a great composer and constructor of both paintings and tattoos. Clean lines and great layouts!

Over the years I had built three or four machines for Josh, but they never seemed to hit hard enough for him. I did just about everything I could think of to make a hard hitting machine, in fact the last rig I did hurt my thumb as I tested it without a needle set up. Trust me it hit, but I still don't think it was hard enough. I guess Josh Hoffman is like L.L. Cool J "Hard as hell".

The piece also made it's way to a Pulse T. We are very happy with it.

We are also the proud owners of Josh Hoffman's Abrasions skate deck. Josh painted the piece on paper then cut it out and shellacked it to the board. That is some serious scissor control. JoshHoffman

Back to School Books

Just in is the new issue of Tattoo Artist Magazine with some great articles. We are also stocking a new book from Incognito Press entitled Lost Art that features some vintage flash. Both are available now. TAM 16 & LostArt . Get ready because this is just the start of a great fall season of books. In the next couple weeks we expect new books from Joe Capobianco, Bloodworks (Sleeve Book) from adrian lee and company, as well as the new book from Martin LaCasse.

Friday, Art Time

Yet another great painting from Shawn Barber. I have been a fan since Shawn begin using the art of tattooing as his subject matter. The energy and point of view that he captures is truly unique. No one has ever put this particular spin on the process. He also has a great way with portraits. He grasps something that no one else does, I love his art and hope he keeps creating painting using tattooing as his subject matter. Always eye opening http://www.sdbarber.com/

This piece comes from an unknown artist and was a gift from my good friend Thug Josh. He was recently in Vietnam and bought this piece for me outside of a temple. It is silk screened on a burbur type of fabric. I think they silk screened right there while he waited. No big machine or special printer. BY HAND! Each screen.

Check out the details, just incredible. Craftsmanship comes in all mediums, I think here in the U.S. we take silkscreening for granted. It is how they make concert T-shirts and posters, but it can be elevated to a great artform. I am going to keep my eye out to add some more quality silk screen pieces to our collection here at Pulse.

You Must Represent. If you want.

Our new Pulse Machine T shirts are in and they came out sweet. The shirts are black with black and grey art and the sizes range from Small to 2XX. They drop next weekend at the Paradise Tattoo Gathering and should be up on the site right after. We will be sure to clue you in. I also did the photo setup in sepia the way I usually do and now that I see the shirt in sepia we might just mix up a batch in sepia on brown shirts perhaps. Perhaps.

The actual art looks like this.

Oh Joe. Brand New BOOK!

It's already at the printers. Presto Art and Joe Capobianco are set to do it again, a brand new sketchbook entitled "Knock Yerself Out"! Packed front to back with brand new Capo Babes that Joe created just for this brand new hardcover volume. We should have more details in the next two weeks. Stay tuned.

Specialist Re Work Update

Here is the next iteration of the Specialist frame. You can see we have changed the angle where we are cutting through to make the tab. I think the arc's are nicer. It's coming along.

New Flash September

We have just added some great new flash to the site from the likes of Pat Murdough, Gunnar, Bud Garo and Davey A. Check it out in living color. PatMurdough Set 4Gunnar Set 8BudGaro Set 3
Davey A set 5

Fine Art Friday

Back again, the great Jime Litwalk. Jime created this painting for us when we had the idea of using a lunchbox for a machine package. We thought it would be great to have our own Pulse hot rod rat fink style guy. Jime just did the perfect thing, it was better than we imagined it could be.

Another great thing about Jime's paintings are many of them are done in 1 shot automotive enamel. It really has a great quality in real life. For a piece like this it also adds a bit more of an authentic feel. We also lost the source for these lunchboxes and replaced them with a simple tin. So if you own one of these they are now a true Pulse collectible, so stop pack'in your lunch in it. http://www.jimelitwalk.com/

Oh another great skateboard from our original "Abrasions" collection. This deck is from the tremendous mind of Rodney Raines. I was fascinated by this deck because of the way it told the story. It really used some great comic book type pacing. I thought it would really make a great production deck for some skate company. It was easily my favorite deck from the show/book and I am very happy it lives here at Pulse.

Check him www.acecustomtattoo.com/rodney.htm

Just A Squirrel Trying To Get A Nut

I caught our Katie the other day wearing this really cool necklace. It was a birthday gift from Jessica and was designed by tattoo artist Hanna Aitchison. Hannah has designed a bunch of cool jewelry.

You can check out her new line of jewelry here http://stores.shop.ebay.com/Righteous-Swag__W0QQ_armrsZ1. Hannah has also been doing some great work and has other merch available at her site http://www.hannahaitchison.com/

Interesting foot note, Katie has a squirrel phobia. Nothing like a talisman to ward off the bad Peter Brady Hu-Du, good thinking.

In Re Development

As we go through the process of reworking each of our frames to integrate our new vise, we really examined some of the design details of each machine. Since the first frame we designed was the Specialist, we felt it could use a bit of refreshing. We have decided to loose the tab in the back with the sneaky cut out for the rear solder lug. It made it easy to plumb the machine but didn't really make sense. We are now pursuing the idea of a new tab and then cutting in a window in the rear deck stay ala the Corsair. We have also thinned down the side post a bit and played with the arches. Here is first look, we hope to have another proto next week.

Fine, Fine Art.

This weeks featured painting from our collection here at Pulse, is from none other than the queen of pin-up art -Olivia! I have owned this piece for years and not a day goes by that it doesn't get looked at. I love how soft the features of her face are. I have been of fan of Olivia's since "Let them eat cheesecake" first came out, so it is a genuine treat to be able to own an original. It does not disappoint!

Also the piece looks at first glance to be watercolor, but I believe most of her stuff like this is done in gouache. It also adds to the depth of the piece. http://www.eolivia.com/

Also this week from kick ass artist Tom Strom. An amazing rendition of the "The Virgin of Guadalupe" but with a Pulse twist. You want to know a secret about this painting? It wasn't painted at all - it's all alcohol markers. Damn how fast do you have to work when doing a piece like this in marker. Have you ever tried to use them? Once you run over the same spot again it instantly gets darker, they are tough to control, but not for Tom. Our kudos to him, he has done some great art since his days knocking out this kind of stuff. http://www.thestromrefinery.com/artists/Tom_Strom/

Big Projects

The idea for doing a large Mag, tip & tube combo has been kicking with us for a bit. We have finally got around to prototyping a setup. This has been milled out of one piece of stainless stock. I would love to take the credit, but it's our machinist Mac who has worked out nearly all the bugs and created this one piece beauty! Nice work. We are almost there we need some retooling on the actually shovel numbers, but should be into a Beta version by the end of Sept, with a roll out by end of 09 early 10.
The grip will come in two sizes along with two maybe three tip sizes. Our plan right now is 25 and 35 mag. We will also be stocking the needles as well. We are still up in the air about 45 mag, that's a lot of needles. As soon as we see a Beta version we will give a try in the skin and post our results.

Detroit Art Friday

This week brings the real deal from Detroit, Bob Tyrrell. If Bob isn't on the top of your list of people to get tattooed from -check your list. The nicest guy in tattooing has been on the top of my Best black and grey artists for years. I was blown away when Bob drew this skull up especially for us.
His work is so detailed and soft. It's that same technique that Bob uses to create his feathery soft portrait work, building up light layers to create the great tones. Bob did this skull with just 1 pencil. ONE. Very impressive.
The T-shirt was also a great reproduction of the original and it's now a classic. Bob travels a ton, check his schedule and go get tattooed from him when he rolls through your area. You can thank me later. http://www.bobtyrrell.com/
I couldn't have a Detroit Friday without the favorite son of the big D -Jime Litwalk. I was looking for a Hula girl from Jime for a sticker. Somewhere along the way she lost her grass skirt and coconut bra. I wonder if the Tiki had anything to do with it? Jime rules, http://www.jimelitwalk.com/

Steadfast Is Holdin It Down.

The good people at Steadfast just dropped this all new Joe Capobianco "Bunny Girl" T. Wait till you see it in full color, it's a knockout. You are going to want to pick this up. www.steadfastbrand.com

The Poison Notebook

The sketchbook that never was. I had seen people on the Internet who created these great looking moleskin notebooks on their lasers and thought, "Hey that would be great for our new catalog". I had ordered up a bunch of notebooks and lasered a few. I than saw a posting that said moleskin notebooks were made of PVC and by burning the covers in the laser I was producing the highly poisonous gas hydrochloric acid. Since I wanted to keep living, alas we never had cool Pulse sketchbooks. See not all good ideas are good. Now that's one to grow on.

Friday...the Art is Fine.

Welcome, the spotlight this week is a piece from artist Eric Merrill. I have known Eric for many years. We started in this business together and Eric was very instrumental in Pulse's early success. He would always take out a dozen machines for us and sell when he was traveling. He hooked us up with many of the great customers and friends we have today. He also has done a fair job of hooking us up with some great pieces of art. Power thru Technology is an awesome painting. I love the golden age comic book feel.

The beam was the best detail, that and the coil set inside the robot. Back in the day I always wanted this to be a T-shirt but it would have been so many screens it would have been like having a bullet proof plate on you shirt, but printing techniques have come so far that we could print this up and you wouldn't ever feel it. This would be a great 10th anniversary shirt for next year. Maybe. http://www.hopegallerytattoo.com/ Check out Hope Gallery -they just moved to an all new location.

This piece is also connected to my past. It is a blue stone carving from tattooist Peter Coinin Sr. When he is not tattooing he carves all this amazing stone Celtic knot work by hand! People just don't do work like this anymore. The great thing about this carving is that Peter was the first person to tattoo me. He did my first three tattoos, back in the days when I would scrape together a couple hundred dollars and race to see him. Now 20 years later he stops in and hangs out at Pulse, he started me off and now created this great hand carved sign for me. Great guy -thanks Pete. http://www.thebeautymarktattooing.com/default.html