Lady Heads

[Bart Bingham]

the people i draw the most influence from when doing Ladies are Chris Conn and the best of all time in my opinion Bob Wicks.

outside of tattooing I go to paper fairs and buy lots of vintage prints of lady illustrations ie post cards, posters, magazine etc etc.

[The Hyena]

I second Bob Wicks. Also my favorite of all time. I only have small pics of his shit, but I have seen a few originals in person and I'll say this, if those things were released tomorrow they would still be ahead of their time. Seriously good.

[Avery Taylor]

I really love the Bob Wicks ladies as well. Recently I was looking at a piece of Mike Malone flash titled "American Girls" which I really liked.

[Petri Aspvik]

I really like Stoney St. Clairs ladies. The hair looks like out of a 50' rockabilly hand book and I havent really seen anyone (or at least can remember) who does them like him. Only one I found online.

Stoney St. Clair Ladies Flash

Then Theo Mindell is someone I second, and also would like to ad Marco Cerretelli.

But Theo is maybe my all time favorite in any type of style

Theo Mindell tattoo pictures

He is THE MAN.

[sboyer]

lately i have been really into how owen jensen, joe lieber, bert grimm ect. used to draw women. chubby and sort of off. it has a stripped down visceral quality to it. i really like the more fancy stuff everyone above has been doing as well but for some reason the older style stuff really speaks to me.

[sboyer]

obvious lieber influenced some pretty heavy hitters after him but it seems his name is often left out. one of the greats in my opinion.

[Paul Shachtman]

Boyer's photos make a strong argument. Guy named Jim LaPorte sold his extensive Lieber collection a couple years ago, and the pin-up sheet two photos above was $1600. A chunk of dough, yes, but a very fair price, considering the obvious influence Lieber had on Jerry, who's sheets go for three times as much. If anyone's interested in LaPorte's high-quality book of his collection, I can pass on his email. It goes for $250, I think, but it's sizeable, and fucking dope. Brooks turned my bud Kyle on to it, and we swooped on what we could and couldn't afford. Brooks got a couple great sheets. The Scott Harrison fish girl tattoo above is on SBoyer, and is flash from the Lieber sheet I went into more dumb debt for. My bud Kyle saw a picture of that Harrison/Lieber piece and said "That tattoo is perfect." Fucking strong.

Back to girls: There's tons of good girl head stuff that leans more towards the realistic, too. Sboyer just turned me on to Jose Lopez. Very impressive. My blind ass was also just made aware of how good Lenherr's girl busts are, as well. Jason Brooks does excellent girl/rose heads. I fully agree that Uzi's a very good tattooer, too.

Conn is obviously outstanding. I slid ass first into a pile of sugar when I got that Rock of Ages (pictured under the ROA thread) from him on my thigh in 2003. I was just getting my feet wet as a collector, and luckily picked up on how good he was when I flipped through his book at Temple the previous year. One thing that's impressive about his art is that it appeals to people who're new to looking at tattoo art (like me in 2002), but continues to reveal deeper layers when viewed by a more experienced eye. That's when tattooing truly becomes "art", in my opinion. The apex of this dynamic is reached when staring at a Van Gogh, Kawanabe Kyosai, Soga Shohaku, or Kano Hogai painting or print. Fuck, every time I look at the Van Gogh print on my wall at home I get tractor-beamed into some aspect of his holistic vision that I never noticed before. Hokusai, too. Hell, I can ogle Mike Malone's shit all day, as well. He was real into Soga Shohaku and Kano Hogai. Go figure.

Speaking of traditional tattooing that is true art, look at Richard Stell's tattooing. I was beyond dumb-lucky enough to get a couple tattoos from Mike Malone when he was around, and wish I had done the same with Ed Hardy and Higgs when they were tattooing. To people who dig my Malone tattoos (and covet the experience of getting tattooed by a dude like that), I say get tattooed by Stell. Eddy Deutsche is tattooing in L.A, too. He's another one who's tattooing is true art.

[Paul Shachtman]

Those Lieber sailor girl acetates are damn good.

On another note about the source of references and influences, last time Lehi tattooed me I asked him if he liked Wido de Marval's tattooing (he works with Leu in Switzerland). Lehi said he'd never heard of him. I asked him whose Japanese-derivative tattooing he paid attention to. He said "No one's, really, I just look at the old Japanese stuff. That's what all these tattooers are trying to do, anyway." Reminds me of the Mike Malone letter to Keith Underwood that was published in TAM a few months ago. Malone adminished Underwood to "Look Look Look" at how Jerry executed his flash. He emphasized Jerry's formulaic approach to drawing archetypal images. Same thing as Lehi looking at Yoshitoshi, Kuniyoshi, or Horiyoshi II. I'd guess that Chris Conn's work, as distinct from someone like Jerry's as it might seem, relies on a very similar formula.

[kylegrey]

Someone who i feel deserves recognition in this thread as his lady heads really define a generation is black and grey virtuoso Jack Rudy.His pretty doll-faced girls are so sweet yet savage at the same time upholding Tattoolands mantra "often imitated never duplicated " Particulary i love his big haired 80's girls which considing the period can hardly be remembered for it's style ,look better to this day .

[The Hyena]

This thread is awesome.

[Paul Shachtman]

Those Rudy girls are excellent. I like the "Mooneyes" Rat Fink on the girl third from the right. Dope.

[gougetheeyes]

This thread is awesome.

Hhahaa was just about to post this exact same thing. Need to take some notes here..

[sboyer]

Someone who i feel deserves recognition in this thread as his lady heads really define a generation is black and grey virtuoso Jack Rudy.His pretty doll-faced girls are so sweet yet savage at the same time upholding Tattoolands mantra "often imitated never duplicated " Particulary i love his big haired 80's girls which considing the period can hardly be remembered for it's style ,look better to this day .

man that 1st and 2nd sheet are great! the lady with the skulls in the hair is killer. i would love to have rudy tattoo something like that on me. i really like the lady with the big hair on the far right on the 2nd sheet as well.

[kylegrey]

man that 1st and 2nd sheet are great! the lady with the skulls in the hair is killer. i would love to have rudy tattoo something like that on me. i really like the lady with the big hair on the far right on the 2nd sheet as well.

Love that skull haired lady kinda reminds me of a peacock also with the shape of the hair .I just bought that flash from someone in New Zealand ,go figure ;guess they must have lost all their L.A. privileges .

[Paul Shachtman]

Go under "tattoos" and check out the ROA (photo #1) and girl head rose (photo #8), among others:

Jason Brooks Tattoo - Austin, Texas

The way Brooks does girly eyes is what compelled me to get this:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?id=578681696&aid=177091#!/photo.php?fbid=400781836696&set=a.400181946696.177091.578681696&theater

(Rose of No Man's Land 5th from the end amidst Brooks' photos is very strong, too.)

[Avery Taylor]

Pretty much everything that Jason does is killer. On your facebook you have a photo of Carlos Truan's back. Carlos is a friend of mine, and the first time he showed me that tattoo I almost shit.

[WeRnDoG]

Rose Hardy does some nice girls. She tattoos out of Chapel Tattoo in Melbourne,Australia. Check her blog out ROSE HARDY

[Paul Shachtman]

Truan's back may be the best traditional backpiece I've seen.

[ShawnPorter]

My buddy David Bruehl- who works out of Oklahoma, does really amazing Ladies. I scoured his blog and couldn't find a few pieces that I love, but I pulled up this piece that I watched him put on in Wisconsin a few years back.

I love the way he does noses; that's always a dealbreaker for me on lady head tattoos. Bad noses.

[Lochlan]

I was looking around Sarah Schor's (New York Adorned) blog tonight and saw these ladyhead tattoos that grabbed my eyes so thought I'd share. I really like the one with the hijab as it is a first for me to see this kind of girl tattoo.

[Romance & Worship]

i too like a lady head to be real dark around the eyes with a good amount of color/make-up to contrast on the face and eyelids. i like 'em too look real old and even withered. more black in the hair the better. and if you want to through in some sort of exotic nose or something like that, i'm way down. with that being said, i also really like bailey hunter robinson's girls, especially when he puts a rose in there. cris cleen also does some very original girl heads that i think are very cool. i am a big fan of everybody at spider murphy's but i really like paul dobleman and stuart cripwell's lady heads, and i wear one by matt howse. grez and eric jones(goldrush) also do awesome lady heads! for something a lil' different i love bart bingham's girls.

[Romance & Worship]

that first sarah schor tattoo lochlan posted above is one of my faves!!!

[Valerie Vargas]

Someone who i feel deserves recognition in this thread as his lady heads really define a generation is black and grey virtuoso Jack Rudy.His pretty doll-faced girls are so sweet yet savage at the same time upholding Tattoolands mantra "often imitated never duplicated " Particulary i love his big haired 80's girls which considing the period can hardly be remembered for it's style ,look better to this day .

i finally got a big boobied girl from jack at milan and i couldnt be happier with it, i love his stuff, his girls and skulls best though

[sarah schor]

i can vouch for that valerie as i was lucky enough to see it in the flesh....i love it. jack rudy is amazing. not to mention your good self. i love that black and gray lady you posted on your blog recently. beautiful work.

...and thank you for your kind words lochlan and romance & worship....

[Romance & Worship]

that's one of the coolest tattoos i've seen recently. i love your work and hope to visit you in NYC in september, for my first trip to the big city.