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I'm still partial to my Chest eagle from Bailey Hunter Robinson I get stopped on the street about this one I have from Scott Campbell all the time though But my current favorite is my ribs just finished by Chuck Daly

I was working with a visiting Kaizen (it's a method of continuous improvement started by Toyota) trainer from Japan, and he kept staring at my arms/hands/throat when we were trying to work. I was starting to get annoyed because the entire point of Kaizen is lean management. No wasted efforts, no straying off task, etc. Finally, he tried to roll up my sleeve without permission and I told his translator that he had crossed a line of politeness and that it wasn't acceptable. He was terribly embarrassed and excused himself. Before he left, he asked to see me again, and showed me his AMAZING tattoos that he keeps hidden. The translator had a WTF moment since he didn't know his boss was tattooed and my crew kept razzing me that I managed to get a guy who gets paid 20K a week to train people to keep on task (which is an oversimplification of the kaizen process) to be distracted while working. For the most part, I think I'm heavily tattooed (to untattooed people) enough that it's "safe" to approach me. That any stigmas or stereotypes of someone with tattoos ceases applying to me in the minds of the people I have to deal with- that I'm a "tattoo guy" not a "guy with tattoos". Does that make any sense? I've found when I'm with people with just a few visible tattoos, I'm the person that gets approached the most often. Could be a coincidence. Personally, I find that it's rarely an issue. The places I'd work that would have too big of an issue with visible tattoos are places I'd likely not be working at. At my previous job my tattoos made senior corporate management more likely to remember me and gave them something to talk about to me (despite me hating talking about tattoos at work) that put me in their heads when it came to special projects et all.

and here we go....

At 20 yrs old i had NO IDEA what good tattoos were and had this weird assumption that anyone who knew how to tattoo (actually employed at a shop, had worked a number years, etc) could do whatever you asked for. Actually, scratch that-- i got tattooed in people's houses too so basically, as long as you had a machine id sit in the chair. I don't think I even looked at portfolios, but i did flip through flash when i was waiting around. I also used to live in a small city with just a few shops -- if 90% of people you know with tattoos all have mediocre crap then you start grading your own on curve. I think seeing really good tattoos on other people made a big difference in how i judged quality. Years and some regrets later and i finally stopped going where my friends worked/ got their stuff done at and starting looking at portfolios with a discerning eye. Now when i look for someone im usually looking for a portfolio of custom work that mirrors what im into. i dont want to ask someone to do a horror portrait if their portfolio is mostly traditional stuff. and i dont want to ask for traditional stuff from someone whos portfolio is a lot of graffiti looking stuff. I like seeing bright vivid colors... smooth lines... im attracted to nice shading and shadowing... i always focus on birds and roses for some reason. they can win me over. And placement-- if it looks good on the body its on. I always browse through portfolios online though and almost never in the shop. By the time i walk in im pretty sure of what i want and who im there for, not really a walk-in customer. I guess i feel weird looking through things and judging when people are around, like if i walked out i would feel bad and want to make 100 excuses akin to "its not you, its me. im sorry... please dont hate me."

i'll be working it with dan smith. nick colella will be there in the blackheart booth!! i'm going to have popular designs to choose from for walk-ups. no appointments.

Sorry for the heavy posting in this thread lately. I'll give it a rest after this. Finally finished. Only had an iPhone as a camera, so excuse the mediocre quality. (for some reason I'm unable to upload pictures to my gallery at the moment...)

I just really like this picture...

I trimmed three inches or so off today. It's getting warmer and my beard going down past my collar was making my neck sweaty. No one needs that. It's still a nice proper beard though.

You're kinda right. We cover some of this kind of thing with EMT training. Basically your body is reacting as if you have an infection. White blood cells primarily try to kill infections in the lymph nodes due to the amount of proteins, antigens, and other things that come in handy. It's just like if you have a sinus infection and the glands in your throat swell. Some people it will be the lymph nodes closest to the tattooed area, other's it can be random. Most people don't have this reaction. Most bodies will just kick in with the reaction to try and blocking your pain receptors mostly by burning up your sugar supply. When this happens of course your blood sugar level goes down, and if you've been around a shop long enough or a convention, you see people pass out. Signs of your sugar being too low can include feeling shakey, sweaty, feeling hot, nausea or vomiting, "knot in your throat", dry mouth, and vision problems. I always take a big coke and a bag of candy when I get work done.

Just shaved for first time in about two months. I am now an 8 year old boy.

guy comes in a few years back, part of a construction crew. smelled like weed and beer first thing in the morning. the tattoos on his face let me know he was serious when he asked for a " hood spongebob". best ever.

This definitely sucks for you and your husband. However, this is the reality of the tattoo business, today. What can we do? You guys just need to keep doing solid work and your reputation will hopefully carry you through. Good luck and keep your head up. Ultimately, it doesn't change what you and your husband have to do.

summer of '93. i was 12 or 13 years old, my buddy darren and i used to aimlessly ride our skateboards up and down pch all day long in laguna beach, only to stop by the local punk record store underdog, candy stealing missions at circle k, and we would occasionally try to sneak in the door at laguna tattoo and hide behind all the adults until someone noticed we were snooping around and kicked us out. the second time i ever stopped by, i actually walked in, instead of standing outside with my curious head noodled into the shop. laguna tattoo always got really busy in the summer, it probably still does, so there was a lot of interesting folks and plenty of cool stuff for me to look at. this particular time, darren and i stood in the back of the tiny lil' shop trying not to be noticed and totally dumb-founded by what we were seeing. there was a huge shirtless biker dude in the chair getting his head tattooed and reading a magazine. he didn't move or make a sound. we were completely awestruck! i think this was by far the coolest, toughest, scarriest thing i had ever seen in my life up to that point. it was then that a rather large, ringed hand appeared on my shoulder, as if to say; "you're in trouble kiddo." i looked up to see another shirtless biker-looking dude guiding me out the door. "stay outta here kid." he muttered. he grabbed darren, who at this point was boldly standing up front, hit him over the head with a rolled up magazine and sent him on his way out the door. it wasn't until a couple years later that i found out by hanging out at the record store that the tattooed man was gg allin who was getting the murder junkies logo tattooed on his head! i'm not quite old enough to have any more biker/tattoo stories. but that experience and other stories i heard growing up single handedly changed the way i saw tattoo shops, and it may be the reason still get that sinking feeling in my gut sometimes when i walk into a shop, an unexplained feeling of fear, like someones going to pull out a knife any second and kick me out. i guess i caught the tail end for that age of tattoo shops. i later returned to laguna tattoo 3 days after my eighteenth birthday for my first tattoo done by lindsey carmicheal. 5 years after gg allin, the shop seemed so different to me. it was so obvious, even to me as a youngster who didn't know anything about tattoo culture yet, that there was a huge shift in the demand for tattoos by popular culture. after some looking i discovered this.... enjoy!

maybe it doesnt have ANY meaning. keys are cool, owls are cool. on the other hand...... owls are seen as "wise" creatures. keys are used to open doors. wise one holds keys to open doors? doors that are either literal or figureative. is that stretching it too far? im sticking with my first theory.

the third one. four roses is too much, everything looks better in three's. the second one has an unnatural kind of rythm.

i hate it when the client rings up on the day of his appt and says " sorry i can't come in , i got called into work" really motherfucker so did i , two months ago when you booked in