Permanent Moko

The Idea

When I booked our trip to New Zealand, I knew I wanted to schedule some time to get some Maori ink. I had done some research and found Otautahi Tattoo in Auckland. They had an artist named Jordan who seemed perfect for what I wanted.

When I walked in, I had the idea to just get a cuff on my right forearm. After we spoke for a little while, he started drawing his thoughts on my arm. 30 minutes later, I had the framing for a pretty amazing design. I figured, if I am going to be halfway around the world, getting an authentic Maori tattoo, I should just go with the flow.

Jordan filled in one area to show me what it would look like

He made sure to work his design in with my current tattoos

The Process

Now, I have a lot of tattoos. I have sat for many hours under the needle. But I was not prepared for this level of intense needle work. Having your whole forearm worked on with a nine-pin needle is very intense. Jordan did a great job of planning it out area by area to keep the focus in a smaller region. At the end of the day, it was a lot of ink.

The Tattoo

As he was tattooing me, Jordan took the time to explain the significance of each symbol. the tattoo has a flow about it that references travel. Of course it has my reference to three… he put three sets of three arrows in the middle. He also added some birds for travel safety. I am very impressed with the whole design. I was worried about appropriating his culture, but he assured me that the way I was going about it, trying to respect the culture and honour it, showed that I was in this for the correct reasons.