from: Joseph B.to: tiangotlost@gmail.comdate: Wed, May 13, 2009 at 10:45 PMsubject: Does this tat really mean this?Love your website and had to ask you.The owner of this tat claims it says "Only god will judge me", is this true? I have heard it means something about being a slave??Thanks for your help!!!!JB
The top character may intended to be
大 (large or great), however it is the wrong character,
丈.
In Japanese,
大帝 refers to a "great emperor", which does not mean Christian God.
神様 is used when referring to the Christian God. Other words for God are
主 (literally "the Lord") and
天主 ("the Lord in Heaven").
上帝 is used in Chinese when referring to Christian God.
真主 and
阿拉 typically used for Allah, the Islamic name for God. Funny thing is that
阿拉 means "we" or "I" in
Shanghai dialect.
大帝,
玉帝, and
玉皇 are variants of
玉皇大帝,
Jade Emperor, from Chinese Taoism mythology. The
Goa'uld System Lord Yu from
Stargate SG-1 is based on this. Ironically the production company did not cast a Chinese actor for this role, rather Vincent Crestejo.
The verb
裁く [sabaku] does mean "to judge" and
僕 [boku] is a common word that Japanese males refer to themselves, meaning "me" or "I".
裁 means "to cut" in Chinese and sometimes it is associated with tailoring. 僕 means only "servant" in Chinese.
But unfortunately, the grammar and word order of the sentence
大帝裁僕 is not proper for Japanese, so it looks sort of "Chinese" to a Japanese person. A Japanese person could possibly try to read it in
漢文 style, giving the sentence:
大帝は僕を裁く [Taitei ha boku wo sabaku.]
The character
僕 is also read "shimobe" meaning manservant, so the phrase could also mean:
"The great emperor judges the manservant"
or
"The great emperor's tailor"
It doesn't really mean what it is supposed to mean, in either Japanese or Chinese.
This photo is of a Navigator I painted about 5 years ago. The owner told me to go crazy with the paint work and that he wanted it to turn heads and win awards. I painted blue real fire coming off the front, lowrider tape fades on the upper half, beveled metal tribal with rivets, woodgrain, granite, and checkers. The best part is that there are 36 pinup girls ghosted in the red, most of them naked. 
These are some graphics for motorcycles done completely with 1 Shot and brushes. This is the type of custom paint I commonly do at bike rallies. I really enjoy these types of projects because they are relatively fast, simple, and fun to do.
Tramp Warner, who is one of my good friends, and artistic influences, asked me to design him a graffiti/lowrider style lettering logo. This is the inked sketch I did. Tramp is one of my favorite pinstripers and custom painters, as well as a good guy who I always look forward to hanging out with. It was an honor to be asked to create some art for him.
I painted this Honda Civic that's owned by my good friend and base coat/clear coat guy back east. It received a lot of attention and was featured in this magazine ad for a wheel company. It was also featured at the Hot Import Nights and SEMA shows the same year. Whoever created the ad did some poor photoshopping because the reflection of the model is of her back, not her front which would be correct...who cares.
I painted this sign for a friend who owns a tattoo shop back east. It's difficult to see in the photo, but the outline of the letters spelling "deposits" are engine turned silver leaf.
...the basic mural work is done at the new shop, but I'm sure they will have me do some airbrush work in the front offices as soon as the renovating is finished...
Above and below are before-and-after photos of another huge wall...
...and below is part of another mural. I painted the headlights of the Merc and the lighted windows of the buildings with glow in the dark paint. Also, check out the ghost skulls in the clouds...
...my friends at Black Widow Customs are moving their shop to a new and larger location. But before they move in to the new garage, they had me paint some graffiti murals on the walls to add some style to the joint. Above is a photo of the new Montana paint cans I used for the first time, I will never use anything else again! Below are two before-and-after pics of the main wall. It's so big that I couldn't fit it all in the shot, but I will be posting many more photos of the walls in the following days...
My friend wanted the hood of his Audi painted with a biomechanical style, so I based it in silver, airbrushed the graphics in black, then sprayed it with rootbeer candy to match other sections of the car. He liked it very much.
...the studio...
...winged cross on a wrist...
...nautical star on arm...
...name on ankle
Here's a portion of the wall graffiti I did a while ago at the Infamous Choppers garage. My favorite part is the little hot rod in the lower left hand corner. It was all done with spray paint
I have always had a interest in photography, but never pursued it seriously. I enjoy taking photos when the opportunity arrises, and for now it will remain just a hobby. 
