Brisbane Tattoo Artist Blogs // Life, Love & Dying Fetus

Hello! Thanks for dropping in to have a read, do a catch up, suss the tea and check in. This isn't necessarily an end of year wrap up, more of a catch up since the last blogpost in which was pretty entirely Grinch related, as well as a run down on processes (mainly on my upskilling as an illustrative artist and garment merchandiser)

I'm going through my camera roll currently as I type this, to kind of have a catch up on the events in my life since my last blogpost. There's a fair few tattoos (of which I've fallen behind & need to post) which reminds me how things ramped up in busy recently, as well that I haven't taken like, any photos since those Grinch shirts otherwise.

One reason for this could be; I've just gone through a breakup (we'll just keep that at that on this public domain out of respect to the both of us involved). I moved out pretty quick after this, so my life has recently just been an immense workload (brought on by myself) and a hard reset on life, in which I've had to in between, move places and then setup a new life somewhat.

As I write this, I'm also about to begin 2 weeks straight of work, including Christmas & New Years holidays, which is a bit controversial to some, but such a relief for me this year. Honestly, I do not have it in my capacity to have too much of a Xmas spirit, but maybe that was the whole point of my recent Grinch shirt, I'm feeling super myopic but it's out of circumstance & that was some relatable expression.

Xmas aside, I can't believe I pulled this off, but I moved, paid for everything to be ahead in life & have landed on my feet, in the space of a fortnight since this all eventuated. It's a massive relief, however like in any breakup, there's a lot of complicated emotions involved, a lot of which are sad & difficult, but important to face so there can be a healthy parting of ways. In saying all that, this work approaching is financially catching me up & allowing me to have a full week off all work in early January.

I am living for that at the moment, if any of my Townsville squad reading this, our Jono bud & Emily are returning from Netherlands to visit (so f***ing excited for that) as well my family is all visiting, nephews/ratbags included, so I'm predicting a full heart and a wounded liver by end of January. With all that said;

I'll post my 2026 tattoo availability, I'm booking up til March from mid January onwards at Tattoo home/sanctuary, Old Soul Tattoo in West End. I'm currently the most excited I've potentially ever been with my journey ahead tattooing and  as an illustrative artist. I'm more secure & dead set on my path forward in terms of process', disciplines, goals and threshold. I'm currently moving very slowly through designs I'm working on, but things are just all spread thin until January

For those who ever were tapped in to my band, Chief Irons. We kinda went silent a year ago and as of recent will have some pretty exciting news to share. It's ironic for a local band to say 'BIG THINGS COMING' so I will never, but whomever saw Lee  & Sean on our story before recording drums together for Chief Irons, all I can say is, we are stoked beyond words to have this situation eventuate. It's a bittersweet situation, but for anyone who knows Chief Irons, Josh as a drummer, what a gifted musician hey, whom wrote some of the coolest song structures I got to witness in our time jamming together as Chiefs. There is no one else who could have pulled this off for us.

It's been & still is such a wild journey progressing and learning what it's like collaborating with musicians and friends, I wouldn't change it for the world. Approaching 2026 everything feels in the best harmony that it's been in years through the chaos of the past

I don't wanna tempt fate or call '2026 my year', but I will hit the website with another one of these blogposts before the years clock strikes done, in the meantime I'd love to make up a shortlist of highlights, like gigs and stuff.

Off the top of my head, the two best performances I saw this year were Chelsea Grin (hearing Crewcabanger, Sonnet & Recreant live, OOOOFT ❤️‍🔥) & Hatebreed playing Perseverance in full, so sick. Also, speaking of so sick, Dying Fetus played recently (which was so sick), FINALLY seeing Dying Fetus live was so immensely huge (definitely got way too drunk, huge shameover). Hangover aside, I got REALLY sick after that.

I had a lot on, a breakup, moving, work (& also being hungover) but yeah, I got REALLY sick. Then I got to thinking, I heard a few homies saying how they got Down with the Sickness (flu ridden, not smash hit single by Disturbed) from Good Things music festival this year. Dying Fetus & that festival were very close together so I feel like the gig flu went from Good Things to Dying Fetus, but this could also be a crackpot theory, just thought it was worth mentioning

Thanks for getting this far, I always say, if no one was reading these things, I still would be writing them. So to have people still be checking in to catch up & touch base via these blogs is really cool.

Catch up before the end of year!

Yew 🙏🏻