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We had some jack hole approach us with a "great opportunity" via email. He said we could tattoo him and when his MAA career took off it would be great advertising for us. We replied "sorry but we are declining your offer, as we are seeking paying customers only" he wrote back " kinda rude but ok " wtf?

Is there another thread on the Walking Dead series, and I'm just missing it? Because this show is the best show on TV right now. Clay sucks, but he won't eat your brains. Is anyone else making preparations for a Zombie Apocalypse? (besides Jeff Cribb, I mean.)

Hey everyone, Now I am sure we have all had people come up to us and have some negative comment thrown at us about our tattoos. What have been some actual quick thinking comebacks you have used to sort of defend/make the idiot go away. I'll start it off: My wife and I were in a clothing store and this lady comes up to us and said "Look at that awful tattoo, I don't like to see that on a woman". My wife's zippy comeback was "Ya well I don't like to see a mustache and a beard on a woman either but there is nothing I can do about yours..." We laughed and she walked away all frown faced LOL

http://www.spike.com/full-episodes/mq4guc/auction-hunters-auction-hunters-ink-season-2-ep-224 scroll to 8 minute mark ton finds flash and Bob shaw machines then they go to rick walters(16:30 minute mark) and get history lesson and tattoo

http://tattooroadtrip.com/blog/mike-brown%E2%80%94so-long-and-fare-thee-well/

My personal preference is the more Polynesian influenced designs ,to me they seem more deeper rooted and likely to stand the test of time .Some of the new stuff ,although amazing is a little tripped out for me.Check out Chris Higgins at IN2U also and our fearless leader Scott has a cool pic of a chest piece .

Lot of factors here. Are you paying them minimum wage? How many hours? Are you making it worth their while to stick around for several years? What do you want out of them? If you need someone to just answer phones, sign clients up, and use the register, then look outside of the tattooed-people crowd. Someone who has already had experience in basic customer service. I've seen some very good floorwalkers that are not heavily tattooed. I've worked with a few myself. You could simply put out an ad with a somewhat vague description of type of business, and see who comes in. You never know, you might get a better employee than you might've thought.. If you need someone who knows how to price stuff or more in-depth info to give to clients, then you need the type of people that you have already described that you are unhappy with. Maybe you're just having a bad luck lately with dependable people.

Hey man, I know you spent hours drawing my tattoo up and it's stenciled and ready to go... But.... Could you sneak in my five kids initials? And maybe change the roses to Lillie's and the panther into a portrait of my pug?

Forgot to mention, we were only allowed a 15 min break every 8 hours. Richard Stell also did my back in 13 hours. 9the first day and went back for 4 more hours the following day.

@cfgsteak pic or it didnt happen ;)

I would like your post, but I want to savor this moment a little longer. Just know in your heart that I like it.

I had a scratcher offer to trade tattoos for tattoos. I would have given money to see the look on my own face, I was absolutely baffled.

Dawnii Fantana , amazing , so neat.

Sometimes this is effective without being impolite: say the tattoo is a terrible phoenix or something - say "oh cool, I like phoenixes. I saw an incredible one the other day done by [insert awesome artist here], since you like phoenixes you should check it out!" but, you know, less lame sounding.

Just be polite, if it's not a family member or close friend. Do you think I'm fat? Do you like this hat? What's there to gain by being truthful? If they asked your opinion prior to getting the tattoo , that's another story.

I called some shops in LA,and the guy at Shamrock Social Club said IMG - Dr. Christopher Ho is the best.I called Brother Greg,and he said he uses a place in Costa Mesa called Laser Tattoo Removal & Tattoo Lightening in Southern California by Tat2BeGone

You can also call some shops in LA and ask for a referral.I have heard about Dr. TATTOFF Tattoo Removal & Hair Removal. 100000 Procedures Performed and Skin Laser Center - Los Angeles, CA Tattoo Removal Specialist but don't know anyone who wen't there.

He Ian,from personal experience i would try to find a tattooer that is trained with laser removal,rather then a Doctor.I wen't to a Doctor in MD like 10yrs.ago for my first laser session,and he charged me 450.00 for a piece on the back of my forearm.The clinics wan't you to make like 8 appointments so they can gradually lighten the area.The last two times i wen't to a tattooer to get lasered,and it was a better,more affordable experience. Karl@ Jinx Proof was the last guy i got lasered by.He does travel to conventions.He's a member on this site,so maybe you can get some more info from him.

I've been really into the geometry/3 dimensional tattoos lately. Though I'm running very low on space I'd love to be tattooed by Thomas Thomas and/or Xed Le Head. Sometimes I wonder if the more 3D ones will become the 'tribal of the 90's', I'm still diggin' it :D Unfortunately for those of us in the States, Thomas Hooper seems to be the only guy known to do it here. Here's some cool ones.... Thomas Thomas Chisaki's back done by Tomas Tomas Foot done by Chasaki Joe Munroe Cammy Stewart done by Xed Le Head Tattoos by Cammy Stewart

Javier Rodriguez, LTW Tattoo, ES- powerful stuff; guest spot at NYAdorned 11/13-17:

Happens to me all the time as people are always mistaking me for Justn Timberlake.

While I can relate to being pissed off about general rudeness, I feel some things tattooists need to lighten up on. Basically being unknowledgable about tattoos in general, asking questions we have heard a million times before, bringing references on phones, wanting stuff that is too detailed or won't work. A gentle approach goes a long way. The way I look at it, I patronize a lot of business where I don't know jack, and I don't appreciate being treated like an idiot for not being in the know. A good example is when I went back to my local print shop. I was asking why I couldn't open a certain file which was a flash sheet I had scanned to a tiff file. The print shop guy snapped at me "ITS A MULTI PAGE TIFF FILE!! YOU CAN'T OPEN IT UNLESS YOU HAVE PHOTOSHOP!!" I am like ok, can you change it to a file that I can open? Again snappage "I CAN'T DO THAT! YOU HAVE TO HAVE THE ORIGINAL IMAGE!" I am like "ok, I have that, could you please scan it again?". I also had them saved as PDFs for easy printing. So he was like "I am just going to change these PDFs into JPEGS". I said I would prefer to have both, as the PDFs print original size and all. Even more snappage " UNLESS YOU ARE GOING TO PRINT THEM OUT, THERE IS NO USE". I calmly explain to him that they are commercial art, of course I am going to print them out. Then I ask if I have the jpegs and alter them, they can be saved into PDFs again, right? More snappage "ONLY IF YOU HAVE PHOTOSHOP!" The guy was literally yelling at me. Needless to say, I won't be doing business there again. Think about that the next time a customer says asks about things that seem readily apparent to you. A lot of times people are not trying to be difficult. You are the expert, not them. Try and take this into consideration.

I just wanna say that I love the term "courtesy margin." I've never heard it, but I'll be sure to use it! On that note, I've had artists go right up (almost touching) another artist's work, and I've had artists go partially OVER another artist's work. Didn't bother me, though, because it was obvious that they were trying to make it all work together. As one artist said, "You should see it as one tattoo. That's the goal."

People that want to put their life story and a shout out to everyone they've ever met, loved, or encountered in their life into a tattoo the size of a quarter.

Ok, so lets set this straight "it's the indian not the arrow" stands pretty true in tattooing to a certain point. Some great tattooers tattoo with pretty crappy machines. i use a kaplan pretty regularly. i did rebuild it but the thing is so crappy they should just be disposable. secondly, spaulding and Rogers sucks.....really they do. all the previous defense is half true, paul Rogers designed the frame and ordered 250 to re-drill the geometry and only used the frame. old spaulding coils were great, the ones with fiber washers were good, the ones now would work great for a fishing weight. my first machines were a cut back supreme, which was the second machine aaron cain made, and my shader was a puma frame, both of which are the thicker older castings. i have every casting and they get cheaper and cheaper. as for the part where they sell to everyone this was true about waters, moskowitz, jenson and so on. The difference is that unlike today, where every dude that can ride a fix gear or grow a beard is a tattooer, back then the market was much smaller. they also sold veterinarian set ups. i haven't seen the work horse iron vet set yet but if there was a market they would be leading it. ha ha. In reality, there is no way i could go to college and apprentice at the same for the simple fact that when i should've been studying i would've been drawing...all night. but with todays line drawing books and the current folk revival technique, artistic fortitude can be waved as the bar is now easier to jump. sounds bitter but its true. in reality if your gonna be a tattooer your degree wont mean shit when your whip shading a jenson design. You're lucky if you've found a decent tattooer to apprentice with, and the longer you've been putting the effort, the more the tattoo community will open up to you. To me, that's always been one of the most important things about tattooing, the more you put in, the more you will get out of it. Oh, and Nick, if you've got so much free time, shouldn't you be doing some laundry or changing a diaper or something? At least go get your poor wife a cup of coffee.