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Shannon, if I understand you correctly which be honest your past few posts is a little bit difficult. We are not judging other people by the places that they have gotten tattooed. We're saying places that we don't want to get tattooed or to get tattooed yet. Not everyone on this board has jobs that take kindly to visable tattoos, or not everyone wants tattoos that are out in the open all the time (neck/face). A cock and balls on the top of the head, yeah it's an odd tattoo, but if that's what the guy wanted alright. If I misunderstood your post forgive me, but it just seems like rantings when your drunk. So take care and have fun.

Animals Being Dicks:

Just a little fluff piece but sweet all the same. nice to see nice stories involving heavily tattooed people for a change rather than the usualy freakshow shit. Jacqui Moore celebrates divorce with full body tattoo by new lover | Metro.co.uk

Dan, I'm having a hard time figuring out the tone of your message. I hope you aren't trying to imply with the last sentence that tattooing is a more special thing than other trades. I can assure you there are people who feel as strongly about their trade or craft as tattooers do about theirs. There's people who put as much hard work, time, money, etc. into their craft as a tattooer or tattoo apprentice does.

Shannon - your replies make zero sense here. Just because I choose not to get my head or soles tattooed doesn't mean I or anyone is judging someone who does. Also, just because a tattooer doesn't want to preform a certain tattoo that doesn't make them any less of a tattooer or person. In fact, I would be inclined to say if you have no problem with doing things like tattooing a 16 year olds hands, that would make you in my eyes less of a tattooer. This is a subject that is very personal and no one should be judging anyone on what part of their body they will or won't tattoo. And for the record, the guy I said I worked with who wouldn't tattoo hands and faces owns his shop and has zero problem making a living without doing tattoos he doesn't feel right about.

Here you go. Tattoo of a kitty. Best of both worlds.

Heres mine by Xam (The Family Business, London)

Okay since it's shark week let's see some shark tattoos. I will start it off with a couple from my friend Ross Carlson of Living Art Tattoo and Artwork Rebels Portland. Ross coined himself the shark guy in town for a minute. The first tattoo is on me and was one of the first sharks he did the second is his latest shark tattoo.

Wow... The first thing anyone wanting to learn tattooing should do is take the machine they got off eBay and throw away the rubberbands. Those are for packing anyway. Then take it apart and sterilize it by boiling it for 4 hours. Then your ready. Just like sewing and making chocolate.

Chris Grosso just mailed me a link to this:

Redneck Shark is incredible! Though he looks more like Old Timer Who Might Also Have a Still in the Shed Shark.

Dressing a deer before the sun comes up, getting attacked by mosquitos and rushing back to the camp to ice the carcass can be unfun. Hunting in Alabama, having a boar in your sights and hearing the rattlesnake thats three feet from your foot start to rattled cause your dumb ass got a little too close can be unfun. But knowing HOW to do it is fun.

Like Stewart, I also learned midwifery by watching Bob Ross VHS tapes.

Man with an unfeasibly huge cock

i think dan's entire post was being sarcastic, no?

Try being a competitive body-builder for dedication ,I don't know of anything else where what you do for 24 hours impacts your craft .Imagine weighing every morsel of food ,eating 5-6 times a day at 2-3 hour intervals ,training twice a day although your eating severely reduced carbs=energy,no late nights ,no alcohol,no restaurants ,zero social life ,no money cause you spent it all on grocerys with no chance of any financial reward ever .

maybe this will be better.

My girlfriend brought that article home :) . I was like "I know who that guy is!" And yeah, it makes a change from the usual sort of tattoo-related stories (The one that sticks in my mind is the girl who claimed she fell asleep during a tattoo session and ended up with a faceful of stars she didn't ask for).

Only 100% tattoos 100% of the time.

I don't think I'm going to get my toe knuckles tattooed, just looks kinda weird to me

a friend of mine has this, by Nikki Balls.

So so awesome. People always talk about how nice and humble and cool the last person who tattooed them is, and half the time I'm thinking "bullshit", but I had the pleasure of being tattooed by Dan last year and he was super fucking cool. Just a genuine nice guy. Afterwards he took my girlfriend and I to his shop and introduced us to his wife, we had coffee and just shot the shit. Never seemed forced or like he was trying to sell me on something. I'm already planning my next trip out east for more. Sorry-this post was more about Daniel Santoro in general and not really about tattoo age, so, uh, tattoo age was pretty sweet so far. Also, one of my buddy's tattoos was in there somewhere-the topless cowgirl.

Also, the journalist is a retard too.. It's not three blondes it's two blonds and a brunette in the back seat. Stupidity and bad driving transcend hair colour and social status hahaha

Seriously, if I ever get a car, I'm getting the shittest car I can justify having- and this is why. If some idiot crashed into me and I had an expensive car like that, I'd cry my eyes out!

Retards who don't know how to drive shouldn't be allowed to have crazy cars no matter how rich they are!

My first tattoos were these: Cracker Jack Tattoos | Blogadilla.com: The Tijuana of the Internet Notice the super-infected real tattoo ship that guy got scratched-yikes.

i think consensus is you better book or get flogged by the masses

i like wilson and stell. wilson did this hardy tiger for me in 2008.

Without fail, the lady head in a rose Scott tattooed on me is the one that always gets the most, "Wait, lemme just.. see it one more time.."

oh, and people have said for decades how h next generation will shun tattoos cuz their parents have them. bullshit. humans tattoo themselves, it's in us. and it's not a matter of "coolness", or rebelling against your parents (at least not forever). we all go through a "i hate my parents" phase, but the smart ones always wise up and realize our parents were right and are the best people ever. our shop is 40 years old, we tattoo kids who's parents got tattooed here back in the 70's and 80's and it's always an honor.

"My birthday is March 29 and she says if i go with her she'll fuck me on my birthday" Best breakup note ever! The diving guys are fucking amazing!!!!!!! p.s.

I had a guy come in a few months ago asking for snowflakes on his nose. After about 20 minutes of me asking "are you sure? thats your NOSE man." (the guy only had one other tattoo, a tiger on his forearm) He seemed perfectly sober and willing to commit to his nose tattoo, so I finally said fuck it and got set up. I decided to just draw em on with sharpie, so i drew actual snowflake shapes from the bridge of his nose to his nostrils and he didnt like it, he wanted them smaller so i wound up just doing the traditional stars and dots all over his nose. He took a break about every 3 stars and kept saying "next time i need a drink before this shit! damn!" After about an hour of "add one more here, make this one bigger" I was finally done with this guy, took his money, the end? Nope! The guy comes in WASTED 2 weeks later wanting a touch up, I told him he was too drunk and to come back when he was sober. So he comes back a couple weeks later, seemed a little tipsy but coherent enough. This time he wants his snowflakes covered up, because he was getting funny looks. He wanted me to put brown over it to match his skin color. i told him it wouldnt work but he insisted and had cash, so i get set up again and packed brown into this guys nose. Bridge to nostrils. He must've slammed a 5th of something while i was setting up because he wound up passing out drunk in the chair, we had to throw his ass out of the shop, he winds up passing out while leaning on one of those smokers pole things we have outside the shop, its snowing outside, he's in a t-shirt, puking all over the sidewalk. We're yelling at him to leave. Eventually the cops came and apparently he assaulted the cops and had to be taken away in an ambulance. So now this guy is walking around with snowflakes on his nose thats a shade browner than the rest of his face. That was the most ridiculous walk in I've had so far. Because of that I dont tattoo faces anymore. Unless its another tattooer.

I have no real plans to tattoo my neck or, aside from the few tiny things on them already, my hands. When I was first introduced to tattooing, hand and neck tattoos were the exclusive provenance of bikers, junkies and lifers, it was scary shit. Most tattooers didn't even have their necks or hands tattooed, and if they did they had earned it by running out of space elsewhere. It used to make you look fucking TOUGH, but these days (no offense to those with neck and hand tattoos) every suburban 18 year old with a screamo band has their hands and throat tattooed. (and often nothing else. the "warped tour body-suit" as I like to call it.) it's just not a club I'm interested in joining. Probably not going to tattoo my feet either. I'd tattoo my weiner though. If Pat would agree to do it ;)

I'm not going to get on here and scream about how you shouldn't be a tattooer, even though that's a preset gut reaction nowadays and it's totally valid. After all, I'm a fairly new tattooer in the game and why should I be telling people what they should or shouldn't do. However, what I will bring up is something that continues to plague me at every turn, and it's something that I struggle with every day. Think and consider a few things most people don't before they just "decide they want to be a tattooer". Such as the effect you have on the craft and it's craftsmen/women. Specifically in your area. With every new tattooer the pieces of the "tattoo pie" get smaller and smaller. The pie being the personal benefits of tattooing. Not just financial, but all the benefits. The more tattooers, the smaller the pieces of the pie. Less money, more people doing desperate things to try to grind more loot out of tattooing, especially in the slower seasons, like tons of random discount days, undercutting the previously established shops prices to steal clients, etc. Think about what you're doing to the people who've already been there, who've already worked their asses off to establish a clientele, and a relationship with their neighborhood. Think about the taking you will be doing. That's not to say that you should not become a tattooer. What I'm trying to say is this: before you start on your journey to take from this craft and the people who held it on their shoulders through all it's iterations and think about how you're going to justify your actions and their consequences. How do you justify making everyone's pie smaller? How about by becoming lots more pie to those people. Get tattooed by righteous tattooers. A LOT. Blow loads of money on them. If your sitting here reading this thinking that " I can't do that because tattoos are too much money and I'm broke, which is why I want to be a tattooer in the first place dudes!" then you probably shouldn't be considering becoming a tattooer. On the other hand, if you are thinking "well, shit I'm broke, but if I get this second job and stop dropping a bunch of money on sneakers and beer then I could afford lots more tattoos, so now let's look and see who is good and figure out how I can throw bunches of money at them frequently", well then maybe you might be an asset to tattooing. I won't give anyone any advice beyond that. Tattooing is a career and if you become a tattooer that's a lifetime of taking. Maybe start evening the score early by giving back to it first. If there is any hesitation in your mind about that at all, don't even try. Save us all the next money sucking middle achiever. We already have enough of those. I'm not saying any of these things to be harsh. My mind is heavy with these thoughts all day long. I spend hours working my ass off, trying to make my clients as happy as possible but that's no where near enough. I spend all my money on tattooing. I buy tattoos, machines, pigments, supplies, flash, prints, paintings, books etc from righteous tattooers. I owe heavy debts to the guys that brought me up and I will never be able to repay it. Anytime I get a compliment from anyone on my tattoos I let them know who taught me. It's important to pay to your lineage no matter who it was. I spend time conversing with as many tattooers as I can that I admire just to hear what they have to say. I have a list of tattooers in every state and I frequently refer people to places to get the work they desire. Al that and I still feel like I owe tattooing everything. I expect I will always feel the need to justify my existence here among the people that I respect and admire by paying them heed in any way that I can. They do deserve it after all.

thought these were all fab -