NMI tattoo artists win big in Thailand

Local tattoo artist Dragon Edong trumped tattoo artists from around the world when he won the “Best Dragon” design during the World Tattoo Arts Festival & Exhibition held in Bangkok, Thailand, last Feb. 10-12, 2006.

Edong’s win in Thailand is particularly significant in that he was competing against other artists from the United States, Japan, Italy, Russia, Australia, Singapore, Taiwan, New Zealand, China, Austria, The Netherlands, France, Belgium, Malaysia, Finland, Denmark, the Philippines, Germany, and Thailand, among others.

His reputation as a world-class tattoo artist was further cemented when he was also chosen one of the judges in one of the categories, The Best Creation Category.

“It’s an honor to be a judge in this kind of competition and it’s good to see the nice work of many talented tattoo artists,” he said. Edong, who is with the MegaVision El Drako Tattoo, is always invited in tattoo competitions to be one of the judges.

In Thailand, the contest categories were Tattoo of the Day, Best Body Suit, Best Tribal, Best Color, Best Traditional Japanese, Best Traditional Thai, Best Male Tattoo, Best Female Tattoo, Best Dragon, Best Creation, Best Old School and Best Black & Gray Tattoo.

Edong’s “Best Dragon” tattoo was the synergistic creation of Edong and his nephew, Alpog Arao, also of MegaVision El Drako Tattoo. They said they started planning a back-piece one month before the competition.

They toiled for straight five days to finish the magnificent dragon design.

“We had to come to the shop as early as 8am just to start the day with pain. In one day we had two to three sessions and that’s very painful as you have to tattoo the same spot two to three times, but we had to finish it. [It took] exactly 13 hours, when we computed the total hours.

“The next step was to make it heal nicely. My wife was the one who made it happen since I couldn’t reach my back. Three to four times a day, she applied an ointment to make sure it will heal nicely in just one week,” said Edong.

“I didn’t really expected that I’m going to win. The other contestants got nice dragons on their body and some were much bigger. One [had a design] from his shoulder down to his toe; it was really huge and nicely tattooed. Maybe, I’m just lucky or maybe the ‘Dragon’ was really meant for the ‘Dragon,’” he quipped.