My Dear Friends of Inked I was sitting in my mom’s dining room table i went to go see her you know i got this swollen neck you know it’s all black and we’re talking you know we’re just conversing and she’s looking down at my neck and talking back up and looking at i say hey mom i know you don’t like this stuff i know.
You don’t like this stuff but it’s it’s going to be a body suit she’s like you know what i’m going to tell you something she said you do two things you do two things you’re able to be able to support yourself with whatever decision you know you make and decide to do and you stay.
The good person i raise you to be and she said you do those two things i don’t like literally i don’t give a sh what you do after that so i was like cool mom i could do that my name is gundy i’m born and raised in nyc lived in harlem uh east harlem.
Growing up lived in the bronx a bit as an adult queens brooklyn you know if we hit all five no staten island is like the one that nobody really uh sets foot in childhood was uh rough uh you know parents are born and raised in honduras my dad’s african and my mother’s native.
Honduran they came here in 77 and uh had me just started their life here you know hard workers not fond of tattoos it just wasn’t a thing they did you know what i mean it was the furthest thing from their minds you know i always saw him in the neighborhood you know only like street guys you know jail guys.
Some military dudes you know had the old school guys with the tattoos on the farms and things like that always intrigued me one day when i was 14 i saw this movie and the villain in the movie had a mickey mouse tattoo on his arm it was a steamboat willy but he had an angry.
Face you know his lip was out eyebrows down and um i pressed pause on it and i was like wow that’s like the coolest tattoo i’ve ever seen so i drew it off the tv i freehand drew it on a piece of paper cut school the next day jumped on the train and went downtown.
Manhattan west village searching all day long everybody kicked me out of the shop you know get out of here kid you know give me the you know ran me out and uh one crazy bastard did it for me he just told me to sit down snatch the paper out of my hand he’s like 80 bucks and i was like okay cool i just sat down.
And got my steamboat willie tattoo and went to high school the next day and i was like man everybody’s like is that real is that real i’m like yeah it’s real yeah you know so that was my first one and then it continued on 15 16 i got more and more you know.
How was the reaction i didn’t get yelled at i i i hit it for like two days i remember and then finally they just i was like it you know they’re going to see it so i remember my mom was like what is that and i’m like it’s a tattoo like oh what i’m like a tattoo she’s like what’s wrong with you.
I’m like nothing’s wrong with me it’s cool no but what’s really wrong with you you know in spanish you know we spoke spanish only in the house i wasn’t allowed to speak english so they were you know what is what’s wrong with you and i’m just like i like tattoos you know that’s it why i’m like i don’t know it’s cool you.
Know i’m gonna get more and that was it you know as soon as i got my first one i knew it in my heart you know this this is it for me this is what i’m gonna do there’s nothing gonna change nothing’s gonna change that and uh when i turned 27 you know i’ve always.
Worked these uh hard labor jobs my whole life construction no fancy forklifts unless of all manpower and then i realized my back and body just wasn’t going to take that kind of beating forever so i said man i could be a tattoo artist you know i.
Have all these tattoos i can draw and uh that’s what happened uh i got my first uh machine from a guy tattooing out of his apartment you know i kind of asked a guy you know where’d you get your stuff man he wasn’t trying to help me out and i was like all right well he’s like what.
Do you have on you i’m like this ipod color just came out he’s all right i’ll give you a machine power supply that was like size of a lunchbox you know and i went home tattooed my own legs i met my mentor megan hublin at the new york city tattoo convention in.
2006 or seven and i didn’t know she was gonna be there but i used to read her articles on the train every day all of her articles every magazine you know she was in i thought her work was mind-blowing at the new york city tattoo convention i see this blond-haired woman.
You know she’s faced uh to the back and i asked i said hey excuse me you know are you making over and she’s like yep she’s like are you a tattoo artist i’m like no no aspiring one day you know so i started i started hitting her with all these uh.
Questions and about the article you know and she’s like how do i know this and i’m like well you know i do a lot of reading on the train you know i read all your stuff she’s like that’s impressive i mean i don’t even remember that stuff and i’m like uh she’s like go grab a chain get in here i’m like oh i don’t.
Even know where i got the chair from but i did and i went to her booth and i just sat there you know tweeting my thumbs and uh she was like you know how to draw i’m like yeah i know how to draw she’s like no no do you know how to draw i’m like i know how to draw very well and she says uh.
Go grab a paper and a pencil and i want you to draw this bouquet of flowers and she’s like i want you to draw this 70 smaller don’t go photocopy it and shrink it down minimize it uh 70 smallish like you free android i’m like can you do that i’m like yeah i can do this took me about an hour to drew it.
She comes by she looks at it she’s like perfect now go make me a stencil i have to tattoo this i was like man if i would have messed that up you know i’d have been in trouble but you know that was my first test uh after that i sat and watched her.
For that day and um the following day she’s like what are you doing tomorrow and i’m like well whatever you doing and she’s like all right i’ll see you here tomorrow i’m like okay i’ll be here and she did that this following day as a three-day convention um we did that every year for the consecutive six seven years until i.
Worked the tattoo convention myself all this stuff that i collected in my youth i had removed laser with laser for about i would say two solid years everything on my legs chest had a big throat piece all black and gray stuff sleeves fingers you know.
Everything i lasered off once i lasered everything off i realized you know this is like i’m like a newborn right now you know what am i really going to do with myself what do i what do i want to do not what i think i should do what do you really want to do and i thought about getting blacked out probably two.
2000 when no one was even thinking of tattooing yet like like that you know and i’m like man i just i just wanted just want black stuff that’s it a suit ah i started moving on to the face.
A few years ago i started off with this uh chin actually that’s not that’s not true i i brought up this uh slope i had coming from my lip onto the side of my ear and that was the first time i leveled up a bit on my face uh.
Following that was the chin piece and then i uh went back in and brought it into the lips on myself i made my mind up that i wanted my eyes done probably like 2015 when it wasn’t still so you know popular.
And it took me five years to get it done yeah i had an opportunity to get them done by uh luna cobra the guy who uh created the eyeball tattoo and he ended up coming to new york one day.
One of my buddies told me he was in town i’m like one of my one of my body my guys and i was like this is it you know today’s the day you know so i reached out and he squeezed me in and we just got got it done about five years ago the only concern.
I i remember having is uh when the needle was in my eye vision goes things get dark and they close up and i remember that was uh that was scary you know but after that i had no real concerns uh i remember one time.
I woke up maybe the second night into having them done the room was black of course and i remember opening my eyes and it was pitch black and my heart just jumped out of the socket and i’m like oh sh this is it you know and uh.
It’s it it you know obviously i realized a few minutes that it was just the room was just dark so well as of now i think i’m 50 done yeah you know i have a few body modifications that’s going to continue um nothing uh too drastic but you know let’s just say what drastic is you know i have two cropped ears.
You know i have a corduroy branding on the side of my face i’ve already started blacking my gums out skin peel on the chest you know little things here and there eyes that’s a modification and i’m just going to continue with that as well as the tattooing.
I feel like i’m becoming myself more and more every time i do something all these decisions are you know carefully thought out and and you know thought out in advance and like this it’s exactly what i want to do so it just helped me be who i want to be were there any doubts as you started on the black earth journey none i was a.
Thousand percent sure this was it this is what i’m doing this is how i’m gonna die you
Gunny’s tattoo journey started in the way so many others have—he saw someone with a tattoo on TV and thought it was completely badass. From that point on Gunny knew tattoos were for him, but it took him a while to figure out the exact path he wanted to follow. We spoke with him about his journey through body modification, becoming a tattoo artist and the blackwork bodysuit he has envisioned for himself.
Welcome to Heavily Inked. In our newest series, we’re going to speak one-on-one with tattoo collectors and artists about what it means to be a heavily inked person. We’ll get deep as we go through the motivations behind their tattoo choices, the way they’ve been treated in society and much more.
Presented by Mad Rabbit: https://www.youtube.com/c/madrabbitta…
https://www.madrabbit.com/
Gunny: https://www.instagram.com/blackironmonk/
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