When I first started getting tattoos, I had the intention of only getting one, at most two, tattoos per artist and they were all going to be black and gray with some red accents. However, I ended up getting three tattoos from Yoon over the span of seven months, all with color: a tiger with magpies, a No Face norigae (I’ll explain later), and Princess Mononoke.
The Tiger Tattoo
The Idea
I’ll start with my tiger. I wanted to get a tiger because it’s the national animal of Korea and I wanted to pay homage to my heritage as well as the time I spent here but I couldn’t decide on who I wanted to get it from. I had initially planned on getting a huge tiger thigh piece from Arang Eleven, another very skilled blackwork artist based in Seoul, but then I decided I wanted something smaller so I never reached out.
I found Yoon’s account also through Hugo because he got this really cute tattoo of his cats from her:
Her tattoo style is cartoony, almost like her work is from an anime or Webtoon, and they often have bright colors. A lot of people seek her for her cute cats and colorful renditions of Studio Ghibli characters – especially Haku in dragon form. A quick glance at her profile is all you need to see that she is actually a very versatile artist stylistically and subject-wise. She can do other animals, swords, girls, traditional Asian dragons, realistic butterflies, and more.
I particularly liked her tigers because sometimes the way she did them made them look like they came out of minhwa (민화), or Korean folk art, so I decided to get a minhwa tiger from her. I asked for a white tiger with Korean-style clouds and this was the first design she sent me:
She added the magpies because they are often associated with tigers in minhwa! I loved everything about the design, especially the dancheong clouds (단청, Korean traditional decorative colors).
However, I was worried about how the tattoo’s colors would age and how it would go with my future tattoos, which I still to this day want to be solely black and red. I originally wanted the clouds to be just red, but she urged me away from that because it’d be too heavy. As a compromise, she recolored it with a combination of orange and red clouds. It reminded me of fire!
Getting the Tattoo
For the record, all of our exchanges were in English and through Kakao Talk, a Korean messaging app. Yoon would often post Instagram stories in English, and not just a sentence or two, it would be paragraphs, so I figured it was safe to assume that I could just reach out in English. She’s totally fluent and she told me that most of her customers are actually foreigners. We talked for the whole six or seven hours that she tattooed me (by the way, I did not fall asleep this time). Not to brag, but after she finished, her boss bought me a burger from No Brand Burger.
I’m really happy with how it came out!
Sometimes I wonder if I made the wrong decision to change the color scheme, but I’m still happy with my tattoo in the end. My gut says I made the right call for my future black and red tattoos.
While we were talking, I asked her for ideas to fill the space on my left arm. I had Hugo and Greem’s tattoos on my inner bicep and tricep, so I had a lot of empty space in my outer upper arm that was screaming to be filled in.
She first suggested a norigae (노리개, literally “play thing”), which is a decorative accessory that can also function as a good luck charm. Her second suggestion was an eunjangdo (은장도), which is a Korean silver knife that women historically carried in self-defense (though some men used it as well).
The No Face Tattoo
The Idea
Keeping Yoon’s ideas in mind, I was randomly struck with inspiration months later during a class and wanted to draw a norigae with No Face from Spirited Away.
I sat on the idea for a few weeks before I messaged Yoon. I told her she could change the norigae however she wanted, I just wanted No Face’s mask and a bath token on it. This was her design:
I really liked the little jade accent that complemented the red, so I didn’t ask for any changes.
Getting Tattooed: Mistakes Were Made (By Me)
Okay, this is going to make me look bad, but not going to lie, I drank the night before getting my tattoo because I forgot about my appointment. I didn’t drink that much! I had maybe two drinks. And I went to my appointment on time and everything. I was well-rested and drank water before the appointment but Yoon still knew something was up. Maybe like fifteen minutes in she casually asked me if I slept well. I said, “Yeah, why?”
“Your skin is rejecting the ink. It’s a bit swollen and keeps pushing the ink out.”
I didn’t understand why it was doing that at first, but then I made the connection and I sheepishly confessed that I had drunk alcohol the night before.
She didn’t get mad at me (I think), she just nicely explained to me how lack of sleep, not drinking enough water, drinking alcohol, diet, etc. can affect your skin’s condition significantly.
It makes sense that she would be able to notice that something was off, but I still found it very fascinating that she can tell so much just from tattooing someone. Apparently, she can tell if someone is a vegan because their skin is usually more difficult to tattoo as well.
Anyway, the tattoo turned out great still, luckily.
When it healed, some of the colors faded more than it was supposed to, so I had to go in for a retouch, which she graciously did very thoroughly and for free. That time I made sure to avoid any alcohol, slept at least eight hours, and drank a lot of water. Lesson learned.
The Princess Mononoke Tattoo
The last tattoo I got from Yoon was another Studio Ghibli character: San from Princess Mononoke. This was a tattoo I’ve wanted ever since I was in high school, but I couldn’t decide on a style, artist, or location. Initially, I didn’t really want an anime style but I really liked the way Yoon drew girls and I was really happy with the work she did so far, so I went to her again for this tattoo. This was her first sketch:
I really liked how it was coming along, I just wanted her arm to look buffer, so she changed the pose. This was the final product:
The arm looks a little warped because of the curve of my shoulder, but everything is in proportion, I swear. I love how dynamic her pose is and I couldn’t be happier!
I actually thought about getting another Studio Ghibli tattoo from her, but I figured that three from one artist was enough for me. Also, I wanted to save money because I wasn’t getting that hagwon income anymore – I was just working part-time at this point – so I told myself that I would get my next tattoo in America after I got a job.
Spoiler alert, I got it in Korea.
