Getting Tattooed by Hugo K.

Getting Tattooed by Hugo K.

The Idea

Hugo’s tattoo style is the antithesis of Greem’s, who I talked about in my previous “Getting Tattooed by ___” post. 

His tattoos can be characterized by very round and cute characters adorned with stars, moons, and hearts. His linework is also very thick and he uses gray shading. Though his tattoos are generally blackwork, they’re sometimes accented with a red heart.

I’ve known for years that I wanted to get a tattoo from Hugo, but I could never decide on what. For a while, I thought about getting the bakery sign from Kiki’s Delivery Service, but I also liked the way he designed dinosaurs. Most of all, however, I loved his Final Fantasy tattoos. 

Don’t worry, I didn’t combine all of them. I went for a Final Fantasy tattoo because it was, and still is, my favorite game series growing up. 

I wanted a Chocobo carrying a bottle of phoenix down, a recurring item from the games that revives a fallen character. Before I came to Korea, I tried to sketch it out to envision this design as well.

Final Fantasy Chocobo Tattoo Design Sketch

I liked the idea, but not my execution, so the only thing I sent to Hugo was a picture of the feather to show roughly how I wanted a little red heart incorporated into it.

Getting the Tattoo

The day finally came and I was ecstatic to meet the artist I had been admiring for several years. He was just as nice and friendly as Greem, who was there that day too! 

His English was also perfect since he had lived in America when he was young. Yes, I contacted and communicated with him in English as his website (where I contacted him) and posts were completely written in English.

Hugo added a little Cactuar and a Moogle, recurring characters from the game series, and I absolutely loved the design. It was so much more intricate than I had expected it to be.

Since I was lying on my back for this, I fell asleep again haha… But thankfully I didn’t mess it up in my sleep either. His linework was very clean, like always.

Hugo Final Fantasy Chocobo Tattoo

He desaturated the picture a lot so it’s a little hard to tell, but the heart in the phoenix down is a very bright red color!

As you can see from the final result, it was very different from my expectations – in a good way! My favorite part about getting a tattoo is when I let the artist do their thing and they make the best version of my idea.

I thought about getting another tattoo from Hugo, but I felt like this one was enough for me.

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