#because buddhism has a complicated history with war and warriors

[ebitenpura]

I forgot the exact name or myth this comes from (and google is especially unhelpful when it comes to anything non-western), but there's a layer of hell in Buddhism- Shura-do- where endless war is waged and people sent there fight forever without reason or rhyme, you kill one another for eternity and forget what your purpose was for doing so in the first place.

This inspired a lot of Eight's struggle with finding meaning for himself as a person who can only function as a weapon, and as someone who emerged from a hell where he had to murder both old friends and foe without discrimination, he became desperate to find worth in his killing afterwards by following individuals who could give him clarity of purpose and a cause.

This also influenced a lot of his relationship with the barest commitment to each side/faction because he is only loyal to people, not places. He can be loyal to the place if the person cares about it more than themselves, but not without their influence. It's for this reason that he doesn't see betraying the Empire as betrayal-- his "Empire" was ImpInt, and ImpInt was Keeper and Watcher 2 and those nameless Ciphers he wanted to meet.

There's also a theme in Shura of endless cycles and reincarnation if you do not find a way to break it by ascending to an "emptier" version of yourself by letting go of these mental barriers and connections to the world, your old life, your everything- and that is why Eight continues to suffer in cycles of war because he cannot let go of needing someone to be his purpose and heart in the world. He has no meaning otherwise (from his pov). It ties into why Keeper wished for him to be somebody else, who could fight for themselves instead above all others... but he cannot.

All-in-all, it really is devotion that corrupts. A devotion beyond humanity that ascends to a divine realm. The only time he comes so close to severing what keeps him in this cycle is when he is in that border between life and death-- because the only time he dedicates his full self, his ultimate purpose, when it is not for this ideal person is when he is in battle. The kill.

There's the final idea that if you devote yourself to inhuman levels of conviction all your life to mastery of something- you will ascend, as it is the same as honing yourself. You can see the irony there is in a conviction that reaches divine realms of devotion... but condemns you to an eternal hell of suffering simultaneously. An agent is no one but the carrier of another's will, of singular purpose while being nobody and everyone all at once. The peak of a person-shaped being dedicated to purpose and will.

That, to me, is his struggle; all while searching for what it means for him to be him. Will he still be himself if he stops? Can he ever stop and achieve his utmost desires at the same time? Can a blade so finely honed ever stop cutting?

Can you ever live as a person again?

[justgottafinishthischapter]

An Example in World Building

Not long ago, I put out a post on The Five Visitors, a guide of tricks and tips on world building. However, something I see a lot of writing blogs do that I don’t understand is that they give advice without giving a proper example and showing you how to use the steps they showed you. So, I’m going to take my own advice. I’m going to come up with a loose concept and workshop it into a functioning world using my system.

So the first step is creating an interesting world. I like the Warriors Cats series and I happen to be a cat person, so I think I’d like to try to work with this idea. I want to make a fantasy world inhabited by sentient cats that live together in a society. And a way of making it more interesting, big cats like lions, tigers, and leopards are considered to be the nobility and upper class, while housecats are the common people.

Okay, so now my world has a loose concept. I have sentient cats. The first visitor I’d be welcoming on my fantasy land is The Biologist. He’ll come to me with questions like: Do the cats walk on four legs or two? Do they have opposable thumbs? Where do they fall in terms of anthropomorphism? I think for my setting, I’d like them to be able to walk upright but also on all fours, they have something akin to an opposable thumb, and they’re basically just cats with higher thought and the ability to speak. They still have night vision, are able to squeeze through small openings, use their whiskers to balance, and still have claws. And with cats as sentient animals, are other animals anthropomorphized? I’d say yes. There’s no such thing as “a mindless animal” in my world except possibly humans. But I haven’t decided if they’re included in my world.

Okay, so I just brought in one of the extra people that’s not formally a part of the main Five, but it was relevant to an aspect of the story, understanding the biology of my non-human species. So next I’ll move on to History. The Lions have always been the ruling species of the cat culture from Leonidas the Undaunted to Aleser the Relentless. In the past, they used the cruel act of declawing to mark a cat as property, and many housecats had their claws removed and forced into slavery for the nobility. The practice has since then largely fallen out of style after the housecats revolted in the Kitten’s War of 483 when a battalion of housecat kittens, hidden to be spared the pain of declawing, banded together to revolt against their oppressors. These days, declawing is only used on prisoners whose crimes were violent or heinous in nature.

Next, I’ll evaluate economy. Because cats have a tendency to live in societies that share resources, it can be assumed that they’d live in something similar to but maybe not exactly a socialist society. I have a feeling cats would live in sort of a bartering type of society where they perform services rather than exchange money. If you want some mice that another cat caught, you might fix their fence, mow their lawn, or trade them something of equivalent value which is controlled by a formal bartering system in place that has clearly laid out the value of equivalent exchange for any two things, thus ensuring that no two people can ask for different amounts of birds as payment for rabbits. Within this society, due to the divide in upper and lower class, food typically eaten by big cats is equivalent to fancy foods in our own world, so for a housecat to eat antelope, wildebeest, or zebra is a high class luxury, while eating mice, squirrels, birds, and rabbits is considered “lower class” food, though rabbits are the best of these lower class meals.

After economics, it’s time to discuss culture. If there were to be a religious figure in their society, it’s not hard to assume that it’d be a lion. However, while cats can be affectionate and care deeply for community and social bonding, cats are also far more independent than dogs. Thus, their faith may more closely resemble Buddhism where the faith is directed inward on making the self better rather than venerating the external outside of the self. Due to the many times the news has covered stories of cats taking in animals of other species, it’s not hard to imagine that within this society, it’s considered the right thing to do to house, shelter, and nurse any child no matter the species for as long as it needs a home regardless of blood relation. Although some cats do, it’s not commonplace for cats to have a single mate for life, and as such, inheritence laws would be nearly non-existent. Due to cats being more focused on the community than the self or the family, when a cat dies, their belongings might not necessarily go to their offspring, but instead to those in the community who may be in need, and these items may or may not be bartered off by the surviving relatives. However, due to big cats being more wealthy than housecats, most housecats cannot afford to barter for more luxurious items when big cats die, making it harder, but not impossible, to gain pricey items. Even something as important as the throne is not passed from father to son necessarily so much as passed from strongest to strongest, placing the best warrior on the throne, rather than the nearest of kin. Big cats are stronger than housecats, and as such, they are more gifted as soldiers, athletes, and builders in general. It’s not common to see a housecat playing at big cat levels on a professional team. Lions tend to dominate sports like football, baseball, and basketball, while Cheetahs dominate in soccer, lacrosse, and track and field. Housecats however are rather equal in terms of intelligence with big cats, and job fields such as teachers, lawyers, and doctors sees a fairly regular mix of the two. Especially in more hostile and eat-or-be-eaten types of work environments like law, it’s very common for race tensions to escalate among co-workers.

If humans came to their world, they would be utterly ineffective as diplomats. Due to cat languages being highly complicated uses of sounds and non-verbal body language, humans would need to be spoken to in the most basic and dumbed down form of communication: meowing. Effectively baby talk, this form of communication is so simple and watered down that it’s the equivalent of speaking pigeon English.

Finally terrain, and since housecats don’t really tend to live in the wild and when they do run away then still tend to live within cities, it can be hard to really peg what type of environment housecats would want to live in. However, given that most big cats have evolved to live in just about every climate, it’s safe to assume that the geography of the world could be as vast and diverse as our own and have cat settlements all over. Still, it’s safe to assume most cities would be well off in a savanna type environment, or something otherwise temperate as that seems to be one of the preferred climate types for cats. Maine Coon cats and other subspecies with equally thick coats get excellent barters for the fur they shed as jackets for shorter haired cats living in cold environments.

While this is in no way a fully finalized draft or fully realized concept, as it didn’t build a plot or story, I do hope that it gave people a good idea of how to take a simple idea and expand upon it to create something. Hopefully this demonstration showed you something useful, and will be helpful as you explore the ideas of your own world.

[we-are-monk]

Warrior Monks

One inspiration for the Monk class outside of Chinese inspired martial arts fiction is the historical idea of the warrior monk. Militant members of religious organizations exist in almost as many places as there are religious organizations, and monastic communities are no exceptions to the call to arms.

The sōhei and yamabushi are two Japanese concepts of the warrior monks. Militant Buddhists existed in Japan though the Heian period (794 to 1185) all the way into the Muromachi (1336–1573, ending with the Tokugawa Shogunate.)  For centuries, they were a force in politics that became famous and at times reviled. [This is mostly written like a research essay, with my editorials in brackets and italicized. I’m going to be drawing comparisons to Western Christianity periodically, because I am specialized in European history and not really a scholar of Buddhism. This is gonna have less sources than I’d usually use too, since it’s a blog post.]

The Buddhist Monk Unlike in the Latin Church, the monk and the priest do not have the delineated differences between their roles. Both monks and priests can be ordained or authorized to perform liturgical rites. Of special importance [to this blog] is the position of women, who were also able to perform rites, despite the role of the nun being problematic at times. Monasteries from the Heian often had sister convents. [Because I organized monasteries by doctrine and downplayed any sexist baggage, I wrote a monastery where the male and female buildings share a campus and a hierarchy. Equality is more fun.] Though some Buddhist scriptures placed nuns in a junior position to monks regardless of seniority, others restricted how able monks were to subordinate nuns. Often, nuns were able to exist, though nominally overseen by a male cleric, in their own physical and discoursive space with the male overseer off-site. Female theological writing tends to downplay sexist rhetoric and has highly sophisticated scholarship not derivative of their male counterparts. Nuns occasionally crossed into the faintly shamanistic territory of spirit channeling, ecstatic religion, and other esotera perhaps cross-pollinated from Shintō practice. [Here’s where monk runs into medium, shaman, or even cleric.] 

If a distinction could be made between the monk and the priest, (especially in the context of those words and how they’re borrowed from Christian practice), we can say that a priest was situated amongst layfolk and a monk was in a monastic community. Not that monks didn’t have contact with the secular world; monks and nuns often came from the nobility and in the Heian period monks served certain administrative as well as spiritual roles. It was not until later that reforms, taken in part from certain China-trained individuals, who sought to return the monks to a “purer” form of Buddhism from the continent.

Buddhism was introduced into Japan as early as the sixth century and in the seventh, laws from the Imperial court “prohibited monks and nuns from stealing, killing, keeping or reading military manuals, forming rambunctious bands,and receiving donations of serfs, oxen, horses or weapons.” [I’ve done most of those, but at least nobody ever donated me a serf.] 

  The yamabushi comes from the tradition of Shugendō, a syncretic religion containing elements of esoteric Buddhism, Shintō, and Daoism. The shugenja, or yamabushi is a mystic. [Shugenja in the Legend of the Five Rings setting is a type of caster, I believe, but let’s ignore that for now.] Interestingly, the “bushi” is not written with the character for warrior but instead means “to prostrate one’s self.” Through asceticism, the human, who already contains “beast” or “doglike” aspects, can ascend to a more Buddhalike state. Socially, they existed both high and low in the spiritual hierarchy. This association with the holy places of mountains is key, as is the idea of being both sub- and super- human. They performed ascetic practices like meditating under waterfalls, hanging over cliffs, and firewalking. Climbing the mountain allows absolute focus on the laws and practices.

Yamabushi have power attributed to them even while thy suffer from contempt and distrust from the less esoteric community. They are associated thus with the tengu, a type of spirit creature. “Tengu” is written with the characters for “heaven” and “dog”; the crowlike yōkai carry the same power, demihumanity, and the sinister, protective, and at times comical reputation of the yamabushi. Becoming tengu is a punishment for evil monks, or a task undertaken by monks who wish to protect their temples. This reflects the frequent need for yamabushi to become warriors.

Becoming militant

At first, the rise of sōhei were attributed both to “deformed” Buddhism and to “privately ordained” monks, i.e. monks and nuns who declared themselves ascetics instead of being part of a religious or secular hierarchy. [Compare this to western Beguines, perhaps, who also declared themselves lay nuns in the absence of a hierarchy willing to take them?] They didn’t have the best reputation, as both secular sources and more established monastics condemned them in writing. 

Warrior monks rose as either an increase in secular, former martially trained individuals entering the monastic community or the arming of layfolk associated with temples in order to resolve disputes (temple workers, bureaucrats). There are disputes by scholars as to why, but these theories state that monasteries had become militarized by the tenth century, in the late Heian period. Two more theories place the change as later, into the Kamakura period (1185–1333)   , mostly by more strictly defining a sōhei as a monk who is trained in combat (rather than a warrior who takes vows or an armed monastic novice.) 

It’s worth noting that despite many stereotypes and some scriptures against armed Buddhists the Chinese monasteries were armed as early as 446 CE and the Shaolin [maybe you’ve heard of these guys] became warriors in the early 7th century, fighting against the Sui. Korean Buddhists protected the Koryŏ dynasty. Buddhism has warrior deities and a concept of defending the faith against evil that seems to bleed from the deities to the clergy. Some of the most important defenses for the Korean Chosŏn dynasty against pirates in the fifteenth and sixteenth century, and against the sixteenth century invasion of Korea by the Hideyoshi armies, were the Korean warrior monks, sŭnggun. It's possible the Japanese sōhei comes directly from that word.

[You could, if you wanted, make a Buddhist-coded warrior on the paladin class if you liked. I find the overlap between the “divine” classes, (paladin, cleric, warpriest, inquisitor, shaman) and the monk to be interesting because logically speaking a monastery should have some of those thematically but not mechanically similar classes; people whose profession is ‘monk’ in addition to people whose character class is monk.]

Disputes over what makes a sōhei and whether individual or mass combats are needed to qualify are disputed by scholars [not that this blog finds it super important to understanding what sōhei are like.] More important is the assertion that the same factors that brought about a caste of secular bushi , the samurai,[maybe you’ve heard of those guys?] over the Insei period (1086-1185) brought us warrior monks. 

Also, the term sōhei, though cool, is a derogatory and a little ahistorical; a contemporary term used was akusō, or evil monks. [Which is a cool term for, you know, villainous monks. Might use that for a dark monastery one day.] The term ransō, rowdy monk, is applied to monks who are either militant or simply unmonklike, though monks that take up arms in support of nobles were often conveniently forgotten instead of branded with that [awesome sounding] label. They were upbraided for being tonsured, evading taxes, and then continuing to eat meat, have children, and engage in riots. 

The cowls worn by monks who wished to remain unknown (for sneaking around their own grounds for minor mischief, or even for lay nobles wanting to view exclusive ceremonies) became associated with monks who wore them to cause trouble. These cowls became a symbol of the armed monk in artist depictions. [They don’t seen historically common in battle for practical reasons but I’d recommend them on a fantasy character, since they’re, historically, visual shorthand for “this monk fights.”]

History of monastic warfare

By the tenth century monks from different lineages were hostile enough to one another to begin using swords and staves for protection (or attacks on one another.) Monks began to brawl over control of key temples. By the twelfth century, monks were beginning to solve factional differences not by skirmishes but by larger battles and by the thirteenth monks could be considered forces of professional warriors. Interference in monastic disputes by secular armies helped to blur the lines between disputes. Rebellions over nobles keeping control of the upper ranks of monasteries from the monks of lower-class origin were also common. [Like western monasteries, these temples controlled territories and relied on the support of those regions.] Thus, battles over land with other temples or with Shintō shrines were common. Some Shintō shrines were instead allied with temples, contributing to the factionalism.

The Hōgen Incident marked an increase from about 1180 on (the Genpei war) of monks aiding secular warrior factions. The infamous akusō Shinjitsu staged a coup against the Emperor Go-Shirakawa in favor of Retired Emperor Sutoku. Attempts were made, in between enlisting temple forces for power struggles, to ban armed clergy. Since by the Kamakura monks were largely subject to their own rules, this relied heavily on temples pledging to enforce disarmament on themselves. Complicating the matter was a confusion between workers who had Buddhist vows, tonsures and robes, but lead secular lives, and monks who were also scholars and priests. The term bōjin, worker, refers to the individuals, some with vows, but not full-fledged clerics, who performed tasks about temple grounds. Usually opposed to monastic violence were gakushō, educated monks, usually of higher class origin and more associated with the conservative traditions of the temples. Hosshi, cleric, is used to refer to any monk ordained enough to perform rituals, contrasting with the bōjin.  [A player character might be the very cool term kyakusō, meaning itinerant monk.]  Many of these people would take Buddhist names, but also wives. It’s possible the term yama hosshi refers to the shugenja.

So we have unordained vs. ordained, lower class vs. upper class, and other terms representing different categories of monks. The confusion between different types of person who, to the layfolk, are all just monks, contributes to the stereotype of all monks as martial warriors. To a random scholar or samurai, a monk who was formerly a samurai, a monk who learned the sword to fight other monks over which sutra to chant, and a warrior who was hired by monks all look the same.

The rise of the bakufu, the military government and the ascendancy of the shōgun in the fourteenth century increased the amount of lower class people who would bear arms. New sects of populist bands uniting under Buddhist teachings formed. By the Sengoku period (The famed age of warfare and samurai from 1467 to c.1603)  there was little restrictions on who could be armed and more incentive for monks to be so. Sōhei fought much like samurai did, albeit sometimes in robes and cowl. They wore armor and were associated with the naginata (though they used the same broad range of weapons as secular warriors.) They built barricades and used shield walls. Some were even skilled at horseback archery.

 [There is an archetype in Pathfinder for the monk that gives you exactly this. In another edition, if you want to play a more historical monk I would dip into fighter.] 

The Ikki and the Sengoku Jidai

An ikki or "league" was a sworn group of like-minded individuals, usually warriors. Some formed between low-status samurai who needed the backup, or the tokusei ikki who formed to attack debt collectors and burn ledgers [anyone up to form one of those?]

One of the most famous sects of warrior monks, especially into the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries was the Ikkō ikki of Hongan-ji. They believed in a populist movement of Buddhism, called Jōdo Shinshū, or Pure Land. They believed in redemption through worship of the Amida Buddha and followed the teachings of their patriarch Shinran (1173-1262) and his successors. They were by the fourteenth century a collection of loose lineages of practices. The sect managed to acquire power using a tactic usually only available to samurai and nobles: marriage alliances. Members of this sect encouraged marriage rather than enforcing typical Buddhist celibacy.  More importantly, they encouraged the chanting of their chief mantra/prayer to the exclusion of more expensive rituals.  Women within Shinran's line served both to secure marriage alliances and to help guard orthodoxy as administrators in their own right.

Amida Buddhism was more accessible to common folk. This caused conflicts with more traditional sects like Enryaku-ji who objected to the exclusion, their loss of followers, or what they perceived as heresy; they sent their own warrior monks to attack Hongan-ji in 1465. Even after winning the war and making the Hongan-ji a branch temple they still came into military conflict with them over territorial, secular reasons. The defense against attacks lead to the formation of the first Ikkō ikki.

Buddhists, like those from Hongan-ji and other temples treasured their tax exemption status, called shugo funyū or “warlord exception.” This could range from “right to collect taxes instead of the local lord”, to “right to bar all samurai from your territory.” Understandably, this was a cause of tension between monks and secular authorities. Villages called jinaichō, temple towns formed, some with the authorization of the temples and the nobles, and others on their own simply for tax evasion purposes (the theme of “pretending to be a monk to avoid taxes” reaches an entire town.) 

An Ikkō ikki formed in 1475 to back a shugo candidate; post Ōnin war they happened more and more to aid secular warriors, with sometimes a flimsy rationale like "the enemy is affiliated with a rival Amida branch."  These ikki began to fall under the authority of the patriarch, until by 1525 it was possible for an Ikkō ikki to be called and the patriarch to command his monks like.a daimyō might his soldiers.

Sectarian violence and secular violence often intertwined. The Nichiren sect, who followed the Lotus sutra and were opposed to the Amida, formed ikki for similar reasons to the Hongan-ji. In 1532 the deputy shōgun asked Hongan-ji to aid in a battle against his secular rivals, beginning the Tenbun war. During the campaign, they attacked the Kōfuku-ji, a traditional temple who more conservative secular military supported. So the Nichiren ikki was called to help put down the rampaging Ikkō ikki. Now, the Nichiren administrated much of Kyōto for a time until deputy shōgun convinced Enryaku-ji to attack them. There is a real sense of attempts by the secular lords to play these rival schools against one another, and occasional moments where that fails utterly and causes something like the Tenbun war, which didn’t end until 1535.

As the Sengoku period came to a close, some of the era’s most famous samurai began some of the most famous campaigns against the warrior monks. Tokugawa Ieyasu, before he even had that name, was at war with the Hongan-ji in Mikawa in 1563. Like Nobunaga after him, his goal was unification and consolidation. To that end, he needed money, and so attempted to tax four Hongan-ji temples that were previously immune. This would not be the first not the last time war began due to a samurai ignoring funyū rights. Ieyasu faced both monks and retainers, secular samurai and jizamurai, (warriors of a lower class than samurai,) who used the opportunity to oppose him. Ieyasu was able to force a surrender, under the conditions that the temples “remain as they were.” He wanted them to convert to another sect, but they refused. So he destroyed the temples, claiming, “originally they were fields, so let them be fields as they were before.” [This blog does not approve of the destruction of temples, even if you have a line that coldblooded to mic-drop with.] He was less vicious towards the sects that supported him, like the Nichiren.

Oda Nobunaga’s war against the Ikkō Ikki began much the same way, in 1569-70, he entered Kyōto in triumph and began to tax the Hongan-ji, who were by then widespread, powerful, and not a thing Nobunaga could tolerate. He wanted sole control, after all. His tax on Ōsaka forced them into action. An advantage the Hongan-ji had over a daimyō was that their ikki were drawn from temples in multiple locations and across multiple social classes(not just monks.) So it was difficult to crush them in one go. The Patriarch justified this by noting that Nobunaga’s ambitions threatened not just the privilege of the temples and their leadership but the hope for rebirth in the Pure Land of every temple member killed, as well as that of the entire sect should a victorious Nobunaga force them to convert. “Advance and be reborn in paradise. Retreat and fall immediately into hell.”

Even with support from anti-Nobunaga daimyō and the nobles from court that the Hongan-ji sect had intermarried with, their defeat came in 1580. Oda Nobunaga was unable to assimilate the ikki, not while they clearly had greater loyalty to their sect over their lords; Ieyasu’s battle at Mikawa had shown that. [It’s possible that this was the reason for the post-unification ban on Christianity; fear that Christians would be more loyal to an invading Christian force than a daimyō, just as the Hongan-ji and Nichiren placed religious loyalty first.] The men who unified Japan went out of their way to end the age of militant Buddhism.

In the late sixteenth century at and after the end of the Sengoku period, the temple of Hōzōin at Kōfuku-ji took up the spear as its martial art much like the secular schools of combat that arose in the era. This is an example of the legacy of the warrior monk being tamed for a more modern Japan.

Abe, Yasurō, 阿部泰郎, and Nobuko Toyosawa. "THE BOOK OF "TENGU": GOBLINS, DEVILS, AND BUDDHAS IN MEDIEVAL JAPAN." Cahiers D'Extrême-Asie 13 (2002): 211-26.

 Adolphson, Mikael S. 2007. The teeth and claws of the Buddha : monastic warriors and sōhei in Japanese history. n.p.: Honolulu : University of Hawai'i Press, 2007

Rambelli, Fabio. "’Dog-men,’ Craftspeople, or Living Buddhas? The Status of Yamabushi in Pre-modern Japanese Society." Cahiers D'Extrême-Asie 18 2009: 123-37.     

Swanson, Paul L. "Shugendo and the Yoshino-Kumano Pilgrimage: An Example of Mountain Pilgrimage." Monumenta Nipponica 36, no. 1 (1981): 55-84

Tsang, Carol Richmond. War and faith: ikkō ikki in late Muromachi Japan. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007

Meeks, Lori Rachelle. Hokkeji and the reemergence of female monastic orders in premodern Japan. n.p.: Honolulu : University of Hawai'i Press, 2010.

[vanpapiernaarhuid]

Styles

TRADITIONAL TATTOO Traditional tattoos are characterised by thick black or blue outlines and solid bright colors (red, yellow, green, blue). The result is a bold, big design that can sometimes look "rude" if compared with more advanced tattoo styles. Traditional tattoo style was done by sailors, inmates and people without a tattoo artist diploma, and with a primitive tattoo equipment. Today we have materials and tools, but the old school style is inspired by this traditional tattoos so it "traces" the same features. http://www.rebelcircus.com/blog/tattoo-styles-guide-old-school/

BLACK WORK All the variants of Black are here: bold or fine line, dot work and whip shade allow talented artists to create mystical patterns with supernatural effects.

The designs asked for are mostly tribal or neo-tribal inspired however the possibilities are endless. The Blackwork tattoo style is not a new tattoo style even if it seems to benefit from a large media coverage recently. Black is the first color that appears in tattoos and has been used by artist since the creation of tattooing in the ancestral tribes. Blackwork tattoos are much more than a recent trend as it is completely connected to the origin of tattooing.

We are pleased to see that the artist redefined the art of Blackwork tattoos by bringing new ideas with their techniques and skills. Some of them specialize only in this timeless tattoo style and contribute to the evolution of our art. Black is a powerful and symbolic color that looks stunning on any skin type.

Blackwork tattoo allow you to choose from a lot of designs or create your own with an artist here in The Black Hat Tattoo as there is always new ideas coming to the minds of our amazing talented artists. https://www.theblackhattattoo.com/tattoo/gallery/black-work-tattoo/

DOTWORK Dotwork tattoos are one of the most intricate styles.  Complicated geometric images are created with nothing but dots. The tattoo artist must be very patient and very talented because he has to place every dot in the right place. Many dotwork artists have also abandoned the tattoo machine and are performing handpoked tattoos. Dotwork tattoos are a style on their own, and the shading you get through dots is almost 3D. You can't get that kind of shading with any other method. The dotwork technique is used especially for geometric tattoos, religious and spiritual tattoos. The dot tattoo is usually done with black ink, or grey ink. Sometimes red is used, but only because red creates a beautiful contrast effect on geometric tattoos. There are some remarkable artists that specialise in the stippling method. We have featured one on Rebel Circus some time ago.  Check out Kenji Alucky. He's a Japanese tattoo artist who creates awesome intricate designs and is really talented. We can also mention other tattoo artists like Thomas Hooper and Jondix. We've mentioned that the stippling method is used for religious tattoos. Tattoos have always had a religious and spiritual connotation in many cultures (especially Asian or in tribes like Maori). A tattoo artist is often also a shaman, a healer. Tattoos have an energy on their own and when you get specific symbols tattooed, you need to know that those symbols can be very powerful. The dots technique is often used for mandala tattoos, and more often than not those tattoos are hand poked. A tattoo gun is not the best tool when it comes to dots. Hand poking requires a lot of patience, but it's the best method for getting all the details right. Some of the recurring subjects for dotwork tattoos are mandalas, symbols like the Hamsa hand, the Eye of God, lace, decorative patterns like filigree, animal portraits (especially wolves, cats, foxes, snakes, butterflies,) animal and human skulls.

Getting a dotwork tattoo usually takes more time than a regular color filled tattoo. If you go to an artist who only uses the hand poking technique, it will take even longer. But the results will be so good that you won't regret it! http://www.rebelcircus.com/blog/dotwork-tattoos/

WATERCOLOUR Watercolor tattoos make use of splotches of color without outlines to imitate watercolor paint. This style has exploded in popularity in the past few years! While it is a really interesting and beautiful new style, it is difficult to tell how it will age without the use of strong black outlines. https://www.theodysseyonline.com/tattoo-style-guide

Blurs, bleeds, splatters, runs, fades & shades – turn your body into a canvas. With watercolor tattoos, the normal rules of tattooing do not apply. While some watercolor tattoos still feature black outlines, the tattoo artist will deliberately bleed color outside of these lines to create a beautiful watercolor effect.

This type of inkwork is modelled on watercolour canvas paintings which have a long tradition in western art and is best exemplified in the mindblowing art of J.M.W. Turner. These tattoos don’t actually use water of course, but rather they reflect the aqua-based paint of such iconic watercolour painters. All the same tools as conventional tattoos are used in the process, but the technique differs quite dramatically in order to achieve this unique effect on the skin.

The idea is for these tattoos to look like a painting, and in this sense they are the logical advancement of tattooing as it comes to be recognised more and more as a legitimate and indeed cutting edge art form. They’re perhaps the truest expression of considering one’s body a canvas. Watercolour tattoos are centred on a hazy effect as colours bleed into another to mimic the appearance of painterly works. A splatter effect is also an interesting option, as is a running ink effect. These are playful ways of deepening the reference to fine art. These can make the tattoo appear ‘messy’ but is in fact the result of very precise needlework by the tattoo artist. In terms of subject matter, animals are often depicted. Animals are known for freedom and closeness to nature; they’re often evoked as romantic subjects in art. Fast-moving creatures such as foxes can create especially spellbinding watercolour tattoos. Fans of abstract art are also drawn to watercolour tattoos, as they allow for a huge degree of experimentation and expression. The bright colours of this type of inkwork is additionally a natural fit for someone looking to profess support for LGBT+ causes, https://www.theinkfactory.ie/welcome-watercolour-tattoos/

MANDALA Mandala Tattoos are Indian spiritual and ritual symbols which are symbolic of the grandeur of the universe. These designs come in many shapes, circular or floral, a mandala can be made in any shape of your choosing.

These designs are heavily used both in Buddhism and Hinduism and have recently become a very popular work of art globally in the tattoo industry. Many artists pride themselves on their ability to Tattoo these intricate pieces and here at Image & ink our super spiritual artist “Om Nama Shivaya” has great knowledge in the art of mandala tattoos and other spiritual symbolism.

You don’t necessarily have to study the practice of meditation for six years, then sit fasting underneath the Bodhi tree for 7 days in an attempt to reach full enlightenment to have a mandala tattoo. A lot of these designs are beautifully decorative and result in a wonderful tattoo. The mandala is a Buddhist and Hindu spiritual symbol that represents the universe in a microcosm. The circular shape denotes balance, perfection, eternity and the never-ending cycle of life. For individuals, a mandala can symbolise one’s journey through life and the many elements that make it. A mandala can be executed using simple linework or dotwork, or a mix of both.Sacred geometry has been for a long time a wonderful and beautiful form of tattooing and can be customised in any way, shape or form. A lot of mandalas can be incorporated into a sleeve, starting from the wrist, flowing up the arm. Also very popular to be added to a thigh, back or shoulder. https://www.theinkfactory.ie/tattooing/tattoos/mandala/

IREZUMI/TRADITIONAL JAPANESE Asian themed tattoos frequently using Koi fish, cherry blossoms, Buddha, lotus, dragon’s, war dogs, samurai’s or geisha’s.  Many of these are used in combination to tell a story as well as create a piece of timeless art. This type of tattoo is usually very detailed. This is basically a tattoo that will cover the whole body. The work is carefully planned out ahead of time before the work on any part of the body begins.  This style seems to be more  2 dimensional or flat, almost like print on fabric. http://www.sinonskin.ca/tattoo-styles.html

Japanese tattoo style is probably one of the most influential styles on modern tattooing and it has a very long history. Tattooing in Japan extends back to the Yayoi period (c. 300 BC–300 AD): tattoos had a spiritual meaning and they also functioned as status symbol. In the Kofun period (300–600 AD) they started to be used as marks for criminals, therefore with a negative connotation. We should also mention the Ainu, the indigenous population of Japan, they used to have tattoos on their arms, mouth and sometimes forehead. They have lived in Japan for thousand of years and they've also been integrated with the more modern civilization; there's no doubt they have somehow influenced the art of Japanese tattooing. Although, what really influenced Japan tattoo style are the "pictures of the floating world" (called ukiyo-e in Japanese) which are essentially wood-block prints. One of the most influential ukiyoe artists was Kuniyoshi, who illustrated the Suikoden. This story featured 108 Chinese corrupt rulers, who were all tattooed: these images of tattooed warriors still have major influence on tattooing today. This kind of traditional tattoos were associated with the yakuza (Japanese's mafia) for many years. In Japan tattoos are ironically not so common as in the Western world because they're still strongly associated with criminals. Some fitness centers and hot baths still ban customers with tattoos for this very reason. Yakuza's members are some of the few people to have bodysuits in Japan (with bodysuit we refer to having your body covered with tattoos).

So what brought Japanese tattoo style to the Western world? Sailors, who else? Western tattoo artists copied these intricated designs; dragons and koi fish or had them tattooed while in the Navy. The result is that we have a lot of Western tattoo artists working with Japanese traditional tattoo art, which is today very popular. Japanese Tattoo Style Motifs

Mythological monsters such as dragons, animals like birds, koi fish, tigers and snakes are exceedingly popular. Flowers like cherry blossoms, lotuses and chrysanthemums as well. Characters from traditional folklore and literature, such as the Suikoden  (geisha, samurai, criminals) Buddhas and Buddhist deities such as Fudō Myō-ō and Kannon and Shinto kami deities such as tengu are also remarkable. In all Japanese tattoos there is always some kind of background; they look very "full" and 2D, almost like a textile and the backgrounds are clouds, waves and wind bars. Did you know that there are very firm rules about the location of tattoos on the body? For example clouds should be used above the waist (because they represent the sky) and waves below the waist. It is not allowed to tattoo Buddha below the waist because it would be disrespectful. Flowers should also be coordinated with the animal of choice: if you want to get a koi fish swimming upstream you should pair it with maples or chrysanthemums, because the koi fish only swims upstream during the fall. http://www.rebelcircus.com/blog/japanese-tattoo-style/

TRIBAL Tribal tattoos have been in vogue for quite a while now (since the early 1990s), and while their popularity is diminishing, they are still going strong.

These are the Advantages of getting a tribal tattoo:

There's a lot of black ink in tribal tattoos, which has the advantage that it holds up well, black tattoo ink doesn't fade as fast as other colors. Tribal tattoo designs are extremely popular, so as long as you don't want a specific or traditional tribal, you shouldn't have a hard time finding a reputable tattoo artist that can design your custom tattoo. It's easier to design your own tattoo or at least a mockup of your own tribal than it is with other tattoo designs. Tribal tattoos have a bold visual appeal: their thick, black curving lines and interlocking patterns lend themselves well to many of the standard tattoo locations, such as the upper arm (in the form of a tribal armband, for example), the back or the lower back.

The tribal styles we see today originate from various old tribes like those from Borneo, the Haida, the Native Americans, the Celtic tribes, the Maori and other Polynesian tribes.

The shapes and motifs of these tribal tattoos are deeply rooted in the tribe's mythology and view of the world. The traditional tattoo artist aims to reflect the social and religious values of the tribe in his tattoo designs. Recurring themes are the rituals of the tribe, the ancestors, the origins of the world and the relationship with the gods.

Modern tribal tattoos are not strongly associated with any particular tribe and are usually stripped of their social meaning. The designs we see in the Western world today are often based on:

   Polynesian tattoo designs.    The tattoo designs of the tribes of Borneo, namely the Iban and Kayan (Sarawak) and the Kenyah (Kalimantan). http://www.freetattoodesigns.org/tribal-tattoos.html

SACRED GEOMETRY Since dotwork tattoos have been having their peak in popularity, another style has also become very popular: sacred geometry tattoos. Most of the times the two styles go together, geometric tattoos are often performed using the dotwork technique (as are animals, occult symbols and engraving inspired tattoos). With sacred geometry we refer to those shapes and patterns that are found in nature and that are perfect, such as the spiral of the golden section (we're sure you've seen the nautilus shell in many tattoos), and other designs such as the flower of life or the Gordian knot. Most of the times these designs and patterns are perfectly symmetrical, and generally include circle shapes. One of the most common designs are mandalas, generally squares containing a circle and many other geometric shapes, forming a whole with a radial balance. Platonic solids like the dodecahedron and the icosahedron are common as well, as are all the shapes that recall the idea of oneness and connection with the natural world that surrounds us. Sacred geometry tattoos are very spiritual tattoos. Many people who choose to get sacred geometry tattoos often do it for the meaning of the design, not for the "shallow" beauty. For example, the platonic solids we mentioned above have precise meanings. The cube represents earth, while the tetrahedron symbolizes fire. The octahedron symbolizes air, the dodecahedron spirit or ether and the icosahedron refers to water. Some people believe that positioning these shapes over a particular part of the body will affect their spirituality or health in a positive way. If you think about it, tattoos have always been used as amulets, talismans and for protection.  This was even common among sailors back in the 40s and 50s. Ancient cultures believed that tattoos had to be performed by shamans (like Polynesian tribes) and they symbolized their position in the society, while also having magical qualities.

Today, many of these sacred geometries can be found blended with other tattoos, included in other designs just as decorations. Or they can be used as a holistic practice. These symbols are meant to make your energies and vibrations higher, and even if you think that it's a placebo effect, we think that it's worth trying. Today tattooing has developed a lot as art, we have electric machines and we can use very vivid colours and alongside this process, sacred geometry tattoos has also been rediscovered. Pain is almost no longer part of the "ritual" but sacred geometry patterns and designs still hold their fascinating and magical allure to us. http://www.rebelcircus.com/blog/sacred-geometry-tattoos/