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Two from Dave Gibson aged about 30 years .

Is this possible? I need people to know immediately when I zing them in other threads they might not see.

Those were sweet Shmitty! One hand guitar playing....yikes! Temporary Change of Pace: Edited version for documentary, but wanted to include the interviews to get the whole feel for people who are not familiar with Battle of the Year.

I go in on the 8th of Sept. for my belly. Never been so excited/scared out of my mind.

I have some pretty bad ones I will never mess with ,because of association. one of them is by the late Eric Hogan. he was by no means a great friend , more like someone I knew, But I will always remember him, His mother would probably appreciate this. During these times that seem sometimes like a "cool" race, we need to remember the whys and hows people have always gotten tattooed. As a tattooer/ist we ,especially street shops, face it everyday. those silly reasons mean something to those not in the know. your Moms love, your children's love, you went somewhere, you freed yourself, don't forget. They aren't just cool. Last evening I put stick figures holding balloons on a woman's foot, I tried to put them on with all the professionalism that i could. If those don't meet anyone's ideas about what good art is or what a cool tattoo is,it doesn't matter. she talked about how she went to a different shop and they were rude about it. I did a good job, she was happy, I got to eat dinner doing something I want to do,not something i have to do, Im not cleaning toilets ,Im not a Walmart greeter. not that good hard work isn't respectful , Its that I'm lucky and hopeful today. And yes I will try and give them the best stick figures they need. I do love me some "regular people".

My arms pieced together but full (like impossible to fit another tattoo on them even though i want to) and for me that is the best look. I would also agree that having one tattoo on the hand on bare arms is kind of a weird look especially if the tattoo is colorful new skool piece like the one that started this thread. Even if you are not going to cover your arms at least get something big on your forearm. A grizzled sailor with a couple random military tattoos sporadically on his arm is what I would have envisioned as a tattooed person as a kid. Certainly not the kid with stretched out ears and skinny jeans and one neck tattoo with some noodly script lettering in a banner selling t shirts as Zumiez.

I snatched these awesome pics from Jason Schroder's blog. Amazing shots of Cliff Raven's work circa 1982-86.Do they qualify as old?

I don't think you need to be a comedian in order to 'get a joke.'

just got my "Vader Skull" today by Marcus Maguire pics later .... heres the stencil ...

Yeah, I'm sure that Ed's clients were at the forefront, because he was always pushing boundaries. In my mind--and again, I'd love for someone who knows more than me to weigh in here--it was probably a gradual process that began with some variation of Japanese sleeves.

I like that my terrible drawings have become synonymous with bad tattoo slang....

When in doubt... play a bottle of Jameson.

Very few can pull this off.

I know how awkward it is for some artists to ask a client to undress, so I avoid that awkwardness by undressing completely before all tattoos, regardless of placement. Common courtesy, really.

"inkzilla"....would be a good tattoo...a godzilla shaved like a poodle with tattoos on him/her. Mr. Porter.......a drawing pls?

This is an awesome one that I stumbled across the other day. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x29l5eHHoXo&feature=youtu.be David Ford - Go To Hell - YouTube

Actually I've seen this all too often. I am on the exact same page as about 99% of everybody here when we say hand before sleeve is NAGL. I didn't do that, and tell any client the same. However.... That having been said, I do need to point out that up until a certain point (maybe 25-30 yrs ago? you know, the 'great old time era') a hand tattoo before a sleeve was not uncommon. If anything, a sleeve was what was uncommon. Just for quick example, look at the Marlboro ad Clay posted in the Old Tattoo Photo thread(yeah he has a jacket on but there are a few other Marlboro ads where you can see the rest of the arm). As well as half the pics i've seen of sailors getting tattooed. Tattoo on a hand was much more common that a sleeve. Yes, this is 50 - 60 years later; But as we can all see, almost half the people in our craft seem to think it's still 1940 haha. Not trying to completely derail this thread. Just an observation.

yeah fuck thread hi jack my youngest brother is 19 just got one tattoo a pretty shitty one but could be worse. but was about to get another on some prime real estate half of his arm by some scratcher who worked out of his house as a "hobby" "second job". he was gonna put an octopus on his arm backwards. after arguing with my bro after 30 minutes when i told him it was going to be backwards he finally listened to reason and canceled the appt. we took him to a shop in town and showed him some other guys work and now he has an appt. to get something from a good artist. jesus arguing with him was making me feel sick coz i thought he was gonna get that shitty tattoo. thank god he changed his mind. he said he was glad he listened to us...now he is super stoked. /hijack

I'm just worried that if I dont stay fit and develop a beer belly/man tits, my entire upper body is going to look really, really dumb.

Wellllll. Since you said to be honest I will. Like the other I agree it looks stupid to have hand tattoos and not have the rest of your arms and actually the rest of your body done. It makes me wonder why you chose to get your hand tattooed before doing the rest. As far as the actual tattoo, it's by far not the worst I've seen. It's not something I would ever get and I wouldn't go to the artists. The reason is not the quality of the actual tattooing, it's the drawing. I'm not into new school or whatever people would call that style. Just isn't my thing. Having said all that, if you like the drawing then there's no problem at all as it's your tattoo. If I was you I'd wait until I you have a lot more tattoos on your arm and then see how you feel about it. I have a couple tattoos that are actually really fucking awful, like I mean horrible. It used to bother me soooo much, I wouldn't wear short sleeves because I was so embarrassed by them. Then I started getting good tattoos and lots of them and now the bad ones aren't so embarrassing. It all just kind of blends in. A good friend of mine who is also a great tattooer once told me that he likes it when someone has a couple bad ones in there with the good ones because it shows that you love tattoos and wanted them before you knew about 'cool rockstar hipster shit' like a lot of the kids today who are just getting tattooed because it's the cool trendy thing to do.

These two where on a guy who came in the shop who was pretty wasted. He said he got the dagger in Lake Geneva at Greg May's first spot "you know by the train tracks before he moved upstairs" that had to be in the late 60s, he said it like it was common knowledge.. not sure about the Playboy bunny

So heres 3 tattoos by Ralph Johnstone done at what i figured was the 400 S State Street shop that he and Tatts worked until they changed the law to 21 in 1963 and everyone closed shop.. This guy said he was pretty young when he got tattooed by Johnstone but said he was always very nice to him despite the super scary guys that hung out there. He said Johnstone introduced him to some mob guys that used to hang out in the shop when he was there claiming that one of them was Capones brother.

I keep forgetting to ask what magazine this fashion shoot was in. "fine, funky tradition of needle-and-skin trade" hahaha

A bunch of tattooers went shark diving for 5 days 2 years ago. Oliver brought some tattoo equiptment, and we all tattooed sharks on each other while the boat was rocking all over the place, and then we all got in wet suits the next day and soaked them in the ocean. The one I did on Oliver got so infected that it's no longer recognizable as a shark. I'll try to find a picture of it.

i don't know if she did the right thing, all i know is that there is no crying in tattooing.

Casper is currently living with me. Sleep mode.. Took this one while he was yawning. Kinda scary looking..

This tattoo was done on my boss Ross Ferrie by Pinky Yun in 1982. Ross always tells this story of getting this dragon along with many others of Pinky. Pinky basically dipped a toothipick in some black ink gave himself a few reference points and just started tattooing on his arm. Ross admits he wasn't so sure at the time but the end result turned out. The other photo is Ross and Pinky in 1982 and a painting our friend Ashley did for Ross shortly after Pinky's death. Note Ashley painted this while in New Zealand only from what he remembered it looking like.

your an ass to give it away and a bigger ass thinking you deserve it, stewert is right we are just borrowing it. and that painting sucks, as it should its your second one. by the 250th one you will have somthing to hold up for public opinion. not trying to be dick just love where this thread has gone.

I agree with Mario (again) but I'm trying to ignore most of the back-and-forth boring shit about encouraging beginners like it was some kindergarten project and just say: Price is dictated by demand. That's it. If people want your stuff they will pay whatever you ask. Regardless of quality. But you did lay out your work before some of the best in the world (I don't mean me, btw) and expect it to be well received. Even after you declared it your first attempt. Sell something when you've learned to do it properly, not the first few clunky attempts. I went to art school and worked as a professional designer/illustrator/etc for almost a decade. I don't think it helped my tattooing too much. I learned how to take a brief from a client as a professional. I learned a bit of art history at university. Those were plus points. For me the worst influence art school has on potential tattooers is the sense of entitlement that it fosters. Art school 'kids' are taught that they have a special vision or gift. Taught that hey have a duty to broadcast their vision to the world and the world should think itself lucky to feel the rays of brilliance from a living genius. Tattooing and drawing tattoo designs teaches you (if you are lucky) that you are the current incarnation of an artistic lineage and that you are borrowing everything, attempting to take care of it for a while, to pass it on to a later generation. It also teaches you humility and the value of hard work, in spades. If smiling.politely had wanted advice, they would have asked how to improve the drawing before painting it. Instead they chose to seek acceptance and a confirmation of the 'special vision' probably with the hope of an offer of a tattoo apprenticeship. Genuinely, I wish you good luck with all those things but if you expect people to pay you money for something, it better be the best you can do. Especially in a saturated market. Be that tattoo style 'art' or whatever you choose to pursue.

fake tattoo flash by parasites...you went to college, get a job, leave us alone.

i'm currently scouring through photos to find new shots of my dad's oldest tattoos, but he got a boatload done over a 10 day span at End of the Trails when Goodtime Charlie was in Wichita in the early '80s. this would be within a few years of getting them...

my horror story is that i never apprenticed or tattooed out of my house. i lied about having years of experience and got hired at a shop and started tattooing the general public for money in a shop my very first day. it was awful, i couldn't ask for help because i didnt want to give away that i didnt know what to do. i didnt use rubber bands for my first couple of tattoos and even when i started using them i didnt know why i just saw that everyone else was using them. my first tattoo was "ranch industry" written in 1 inch old english and it took me almost 5 hours. every tattoo i did was lined with a 3 but looked like it had been tripled lined with a 14 round because i kept going over the lines thickining them in an attempt to "clean" them up. when asked why i was doing the outlines so thick i claimed that i was also a graff artist and that that was the style.