Meaning: It takes a long time sitting on a stone before it becomes warm. Expect to work at something for three years before you see results .

Here is some artists/illustrators i think have relevance to tattooing, please post or reply who inspires you as i wasn't sure if this should be a blog or thread.

Ozuma Kaname -Japanese silk painter who mainly uses models tattooed by Horiyoshi III.

Juan "PINT" Gonzalez -Tattooer based in Los Angeles whose pencil drawings and tats borrow from the Jack Rudy black and grey school, some particularly sick skulls .

Shoei- Ball point pen illustrator from Japan, able to create amazing details with the medium. see also Tim Hendricks homeboy Chente 's drawing of Freddy Corbin .

Touko Laaksanen aka Tom of Finland -The homo-erotic drawings may be not be for every one but his over 3500 illustrations spanning 4 decades released gay men from the traditional, restrictive image they had of themselves. Effeminacy ,reserve ,secrecy and guilt was replaced by pride and consciousness and he said F.T.W.

Hiroshi Hirakawa -Modern day interpretations of the famous woodblock prints of Kuniyoshi,Kaname etc by another Japanese artist .

Jim Steranko -Drew in my opinion the most soulfull Marvel character special agent Nick Fury although the most perfect example of comics influencing tattooing is of course Greg Irons who needs no more explanation .

Boris Vallejo-Somewhat kitsch, black velvet extraodinaire who was prodominant in the 80's and 90's for his fantasy art .Popular in the muscle magazines of the period or replicated on the sides of vans. If your interested check the figure in the left hand corner of his POWER print it's none other than the Ice-landic "Viking" Jon Paul Sigmarson,since deceased , World's Strongest man

Dave Mann -This guy and Eazy-rider magazine are synonymous for capturing the biker lifestyle. His iconic images will live on and are simple and plain cool as hell .