Thank yous

It's the last day of 2010 and we've had quite a year.
Anyone who knows us, or follows our blogs, knows that 2010 was the year that we moved to our new home in Schleppegrellsgade. And although the decision to move to this particular location looked like a terrible idea at first, it actually turned out to be a good one in the end.
We love our new home and couldn't imagine being anywhere else.
But that doesn't mean that it didn't nearly kill at times. It's been a rough path, getting to where we are now, and not just for us.
Without the help and support of our team of carpenters and painters, the shop simply wouldn't have happened. There was only so much we could do ourselves, so if they hadn't decided to go all-in with us, we wouldn't have made it, and the shop wouldn't be the magical place it is today; a place we actually look forward to going to every day.
They basically worked two jobs for months and got even less sleep during that period than we did, and trust me, that wasn't much. Some day oil paintings of their handsome faces will grace the walls of Conspiracy Inc. Or we'll write a nice song about them or something, but for now they just get a blog post dedicated to them.

Our friends and family have also been a huge support throughout the year. Whether they helped us paint our new walls, loaned us money when our most valuable equipment broke down, gave us crap to put in our empty new shop, or loaned us their car so we could go to a million flea markets, it would have been hard to get to where we are now without them.

I know this is turning into a lame blog version of the Queens new years speech, and that really wasn't where i was going with this, but i have to give one last thank you. To our clients.
In the beginning, around March when we first moved, there was no furniture for them to sit on, no real entrance, and in some rooms, no floor. In the winter time there was (or is) very little heating and some days they'd be lying almost naked in a freezing room for hours and hours, and afterwards they'd give us money.
They keep coming up with awesome ideas for the guys to tattoo, and rarely complain when they get something completely different from what they initially asked for. And sometimes they bring us cake too.
Thanks guys, i hope you know that we appreciate the crap out of you!

Last tattoo of 2010; Jon's death metal swallow

We hope you all have a super happy new year, wherever your are, and we hope to see you at the shop or around the globe in 2011!

Not this shit again...

Four weeks. We had out perfect, awesome, beloved kitchen back for four weeks, and now the ceiling is leaking again.
I don't know what kind of retard they got to "fix" the leak, but obviously he didn't do a very good job.
We got people on it already, and luckily it doesn't seem to be dripping constantly, but holy shit was it depressing getting back to work today.
Oh, and Allan had a no-show too.
And it's not even Monday!

Bye bye, perfect white ceiling, it was nice knowing you

I'll be back in a few days with a post that's less of a downer. Maybe i'll even post some tattoo pictures, who knows!?

Guns & ammo

Sunday we had our (first) annual Conspiracy Christmas party.
Or Christmas hangout you might call it, since four people in a kitchen does not a party make... but close enough!
Nick and me made some pretty amazing food while Allan tattooed Martin. Our friend Suzy came by, with Lucifer's best friend Palma, to sew some doggie clothes and i made Christmas presents.
After dinner we listened to jazz and then converted the basement into a shooting range.
That's just how we roll.

Our BFF came by to get his Christmas present (a portrait of his mom)

The Conspiracy library is both educational and entertaining

The tards getting ready for dinner

Beuf Veganoff (Get it? We thought it was hilarious!)

Presents for some, post-it's for others (what? I've been busy and i totally am gonna get them stuff, so back off!)

This is what "WTF?!" looks like

Don't worry, it's not real, we ain't THAT crazy*

One of the perks of having a tattoo shop; easy access to script books and stencil paper

Allans pile

Ready to settle it with the Canadians once and for all?

Lucifer wasn't a fan, but the rest of us had a great time!
The next day, me and the ninja went downstairs again to kill something

Only this time it wasn't innocent plastic bottles, but a terrible beast (possibly from outer space) we had to deal with

We're only gonna be at the shop some days during Christmas, so if you really need to get in touch, don't call or drop by, just send us an email.
But if there's any chance it can wait, please wait to contact us until after new years.

Happy holidays, everyone!


*If anyone should be interested in an explanation, and i'm sure that some of you are; Nick decided to get rid of some of his most priced possessions since he's moving to Hong Kong where everything is dirt cheap, and that's why Eckel is now the lucky owner of a bb gun!

*insert sound of crickets and tumbleweed*

Uhm, so, it's been a while, huh (*stares awkwardly at feet*)... anyone still here?
Lots have happened since we got back from Japan, but the truth is, i've been too busy to blog about it. Sorry about that.
Everyone at the shop is super busy these days, and the upcoming holidays isn't making it any better. But we're good, we're enjoying hanging out again, and returning to Denmark wasn't nearly as bad as i'd feared.
I think one of the main reasons we're actually enjoying being back, is the fact that we finally got our kitchen back.
Yeah, that's right, the water damage, and the mayhem that followed, has been fixed. And it only took them 7 months too!
There are still a ton of things that need fixing, like our heating for example, but there'll always be stuff like that, and for now i am just happy that my favorite room in the shop is back.

Christmas hygge in the front room

We were gonna go to the Swedish embassy today and get a rug to really tie the room together, but Allan is afraid to drive in this weather, so that's gonna have to wait (can't blame him, everything is covered in snow right now)

Present from a Russian client

A pretty bad picture of a pretty great room
What this kitchen really needs is more food related art work (hint hint, guys)

Apparently this is called a colander in English? Blogging is constantly teaching me something new!

Eckel put the photos back up on the photo wall while we were away... that could not have been easy!

Allan has been tattooing pretty much non-stop since we came back, but i haven't even really had time to beg him for blog photos.
But last night I did manage to snap a few pictures of this black and gray beauty he started last week, and continued on yesterday (that's why the angel is still a little scabby looking).

One more session and some touch up and this should be done
As you can see, Rasmus is now the proud (i assume) owner of two rare b&g Uncle Allan tattoos!

I promise (sort of) to post a little more regularly... or at least more than once a month, as soon as things start to slow down.
In the meantime, i suggest you go check out this sweet feature Marisa did about our beloved shop over on Needles and Sins.
And while you're there, do yourself a favor and browse the archives too, i guarantee you'll love it.

Revelations from the Forum Roleplay

Been reading the roleplay going on over at the Forum and was delighted to find Wolf Blood's out-of-character comment as the story being told unfolded:

"(My mistake has turned into a plot element :D)"

I had to laugh in happy sympathy here, Welcome to my world! I could not help but thinking.

Such accidents are the stuff of writing.

Oh, and yes, I have a new poll - rather pertinent as momentum slowly gathers in me to begin a new text in the new year.

Out there some where...

Below is the prepared speech I readied as a member of the Negative for a debate recently, arguing - for the positive - that career success was entirely up to chance. In the end I delivered my part off the cuff and did not use this speech at all. Therefore, I thought I would share it with someone so as to put the work to some kind of use...

I appear before you in the role of writer, the creator of the Monster-Blood Tattoo series, three books – or roughly 350,000 words – published in 18 countries and 13 languages, with hopes and plans to write further stories in a similar vein and a of long career ahead.

Yet I trained as an illustrator – not a writer – at the now vanished Underdale campus of the UniSA.

How on earth did I get here?

By sheer fluke it seems: for after a somewhat successful 9 years in Sydney as an illustrator, when of a sudden, I quit my job, where I lived, upped sticks and with a Great Plan burning in my soul went on an adventure across the seas, New York, London, Paris. Only The Great Plan failed. I found myself crashed landed, broke and broken hearted back here in my old town, Adelaide, without a job and my old bedroom as my only bunk. Gathering myself up from the dust I put folio under arm and went out to rebuild my illustration career. With help from a fellow illustrator friend, I managed to get my work seen by Dyan Blacklock, the publisher of Omnibus Books, and they were impressed enough to give me first a book cover then a picture book.

Now, I need to tell you that ever since my uni days – and after discovering the works of the great Mervyn Peake – I had been filling notebook upon notebook with ideas about a pretend world and just how it worked. So it was that in one of many long conversations with Dyan as we worked together on various illustration projects, she happened quite accidentally upon one of these notebooks (# 23 to be precise). Puzzled at the scratchings and scrawlings it contained, she asked me what it was, and I told her: notes for an entire made up world. She asked me if I written any stories, and somewhat embarrassedly – to me it was very private stuff – I told her, “Not really, some starts but nothing much…”

“Who are some of the characters in this world?” she persisted.

Still feeling awkward, I listed off a couple, finally saying, “And there’s Rossamünd; he’s a boy with a girl’s name…”

To which she promptly ordered, “I want you to put him down in this pretend world and tell us what happens to him.”

And so – a thousand words at a time – I did just that, until, satisfied I could actually write too, Dyan offered me a contract for a 3 book deal.

So here surely we see that by these collection of flukes I was in the right place at the right time and got the right result. Call it chance, fate, destiny – I am myself convinced it is God’s work in my life – whatever you name it, without this great “chance” I would not be here talking as I am.

And so here I am! I have turned coat and seem to be arguing the case of our colleagues opposite for them, yet wait! Hold up! Let us consider a moment. Let us go a little deeper. What looks like blind do-dah happenstance – a lucky break, “ooh, isn’t he lucky…” – is in fact a long string of consequences born of preparation.

If it was not for a certain assignment in the second year of my illustration course, I would have never discovered a certain author who by their inspiration set me off the long and now habitual practice of writing in notebooks, without which – as I have elaborated – I would have had nothing for my publisher to discover. More so, without the preparation of my illustration degree and the preparation of 9 years as practicing illustrator in Sydney-town I would not even have the opportunity to be in that right place, for it was as an experienced illustrator that I gained close access to the Publisher of Omnibus Books. And without all that mass of back material, the writing of the Monster-Blood Tattoo books would have been very hard, indeed may not have even happened.

So here we are, I am no blackguard after all: though my preparations might not have been directly for writing as a career they were preparations none-the-less, and the “lucky break” now is shown to not be quite so “lucky”.

The Roman philosopher Seneca is said to have said that luck – or chance – is when opportunity meets preparation, and I – who once thought himself the least preparatory (indeed I collected my thoughts for this debate in the very last minute) – turned out to be very well prepared indeed for the opportunity presented to me 7 years ago in the publishers office at Omnibus Books, and so for my career.

You may not end up where you intend, but you will get wherever you go on the back of or the lack of your preparations; for fate or destiny or chance will avail you little if you are not prepared for the opportunities it offers.

And surely, in the sum of it all – whatever our “job” might happen to be, our best career will always be to live as a half-decent person and this is something I hope we would not want to leave to chance.

So, this might have been my required response, but I could help but wonder afterwards: is life all about chance or preparation?

GOD HATES DENMARK !

There's just no other explanation, really!

-4 million celsius, 5000 km winds and they predict it to get much worst gradually until the end of time itself!






All we can hope for now, is that the people who predict this unnatural weather are the same that usually have a hard time predicting what the weather will be like tomorrow!