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Ok, I'm late to the party again, but I'm gonna drag up the Guns vs Machines thing again... It doesn't fucking matter. I used to think it marked a difference between 'them' and 'us' but then I learned it's regional too. So I dropped it. Many older English (or maybe even from elsewhere in the British Isles) tattooers used to call their machines 'guns'. Many still do. It doesn't mean they can't tattoo. That's guys we'd consider 'Old School' or 'Traditional'. Yeah, maybe their equipment didn't shoot anything, maybe they were using equipment with electromagnetic motors rather than a doorbell circuit with just regular coils, but that's what they got called by working professionals. 'Guns'. Get over it. Stop getting high and mighty because you heard some 'insider' terminology at the Tat Spot or the Tattoo Parlour or the upscale Dermagraphic Adornment Boutique, or maybe you read it on the internet. I guess you can be the authority on tattoo terminology now. Good for you. I'm gonna keep slingin' ink on my bitchin' clients with my tatty-zap guns and also I'll be tattooing my regular customers as per usual. They way I say it shouldn't be of much concern. Recently I've heard so many time-wasting, lazy-ass, no-talent-goons tell me how much they 'Respect the Craft', 'Honour Tradition' & put their 'Heart and Soul' into their half-assed doodles while asking for an apprenticeship/job/critique/applause/handout/validation, that the terminology has become meaningless. The end result of the effort should be by what measure they, we and I'm, held accountable. Sorry to be so Off Topic.

Fresh from today :) Steve Boltz

Steve Boltz made this today

One of the things I dig about Bink's work is that it's simple. It's designed to look that way when you're 80. He's not going over every line five times, putting in details that won't hold. Just cuts to the core of the image, filters it through his aesthetic and knocks it out. They're certainly not for everyone, and I hold no ill will to people who don't dig it. But for me- that bold, simple folk style tattooing? No one working does it like he does. (thankfully, they all do it like they do, which is great, too!)

I dig what you're saying- the lines are a little loose here and there. I was talking to a tattooer about it and we agreed that he does POWER tattoos- the images themselves, use of color and even those little imperfections add to the overall tattoo in an artistic way. Thom Devita has that same vibe and when you see it, it comes through true.

@chrisnoluck, something that you have to keep in mind is that tattoos are hand-made and so many variables are put into play. some of the best tattooers, robert ryan included, understand and embrace it. if you want something "perfect" then get a robot to tattoo you, but don't forget to never let yourself get old, to wrinkle, to fade. i fully understand what you're saying, but i personally love seeing the human element in my work.

Went in for outlines. Came out happy. You get more than a tattoo from Robert Ryan, that's for sure.

Here is my Year of the Dragon tattoo! by Scott Rusnak, Lucky Strike Tattoo (Edmonton, AB) 2012

Here is my chest piece, completed in 2009 by Bobby Tripp @ Lucky Strike Tattoo (Edmonton, AB). Enjoy!

i cant believe of all the stuff that passes without comment frickin' RR is the work thats controversial whats this world coming to

-Part 2- Where do I start...? On sunday evening, right after my last post, I went over to The Richardson in Brooklyn to say hello to LST's very own @gougetheeyes (aka Patrick). He was barbacking there that evening and I was thirsty so it seemed like the obvious thing to do. As I expected he was the nicest dude ever, and while he was working I hung out with his lovely wife Brittany the end of the bar. My english got worse for every beer I drank that night, so I'm not sure if she understood half of what I was saying at the end :) Anyway, it was a great night. Unfortunately I forgot to snap a few pictures, but for some reason I took a photo with a homeless heroin-addict named Isaac Hays (or so he claimed) on my journey back home. Monday started with an american breakfast in the form of a bacon/egg/cheese sandwitch before I headed over to Saved for my appointment with Mr.Cleen. The weather here is crazy humid and HOT, so I was pouring with sweat when I finally got there. Fortunately for me they had a kickass aircondition there. I picked out a couple designs from Cris' pre drawn designs book, and we got to it. He wa going to do one design on the top of my forearm and one on the bottom, but after we finished the one on the top we found out that it stretched over a little bit to the bottom, so the next tattoo wouldn't be symmetrick. Instead he drew on a snake to cover the open space, and we did the second design on my leg instead. I even got a free print on high quality wiping-paper, haha. Today I got up early to head over to Smith Street in hopes of getting a walkin appointment to fill the last open space on my right arm. I was really lucky as Steve Boltz's appointment was stuck in traffick, so he drew on a torch design like it was nothing, and got to it. An hour later I finally had my arm completely covered. After that I headed to the Shirts and destroy shop (near Saved) to pick up some shirts. I buy close to all my t-shirts from them online, so it was a real treat to visit the shop. Now I'm thinking of heading down to the times square area just to be able to say that I've been there. Hopefully I can get some shopping done too. If anyone in the area is down for a drink or two tonight give me a holla! :D

I think all the great artists put as much in.

Plus Conn is better than pretty much all the others mentioned.. After reading what @MadeIndelible posted from Conn's blog I totally get the $500 an hour thing now. It sounds like he'd putting a fuck of a lot more work, and personal energy and time into each and every person and their tattoo. I still do not plan on buying one for myself, but I have talked to my man about buying him one for a wedding gift. For me personally, there's a tattoo from a specific person in California that I've been wanting for longer than I've known who Chris Conn is, so again for me, getting that will be a better use of tattoo money than getting tattooed by Conn. However, I feel like buying my dude a tattoo from Conn for our wedding is a better deal than spending that money on two plane tickets to say Hawaii, so I can sit around on a beach bored as fuck for a week (which is the only honeymoon type destination i can go to since I'm not allowed to leave the country).

Also @cfgsteak, it's important to have quality time. Go out for a date night, do something together (that's not at a tattoo shop).. your hobbies/obsessions/professions can easily take over that. For me, it was a simple fix to just show her that no, I don't love tattoos more than you and no, I'm happy to spend time with you, too.

i've been in the same dilemna. i now have opted to plan my backpiece to cover my butt. i ended up getting a whale-on-fire up the back of my thigh to tie my the bottom half of my leg sleeve in. i also have kinda-matching peony-weird snake pieces in progress on the fronts of my thigh that cover the knee. here's a pic, i really love the way the placement turned out.

Yeah. And I find it to be mentally better. Im my moms care taker and spent daily, give or take 18-20 hours with her. Still, the weekly (if it isnt rest week, which I also welcome as a part of training) deadlift etc. session is something that I cant wait. It gives me mental strenght by just imagining it. Go in, warm up, lift and leave. If I was doing 8-12 machines I would kill myself :D

Yeah it all goes back to the perfect program stuff you mentioned earlier , simple no smoke and mirrors find what works and destroy yourself with "form" in the words of my man @hogg .

nevermind.

In my opinion, the "misses" aren't so much the overall design or composition or anything like that.. His lines are a little loose for my liking, some of his tattoos turn out pretty clean but others it just looks like he blew through it and didn't take his time. Not talking bad about the guy or his art, just something that I personally wouldn't want tattooed on myself. He did do a pretty crazy torso piece recently that Im quite jealous of though!

Had a nice little fight with the GF this morning about my tattoo session tomorrow. First a little background...she spent the weekend in Red River with a bunch of people she knows for the motorcycle rally there. I wasnt exactly thrilled about watching my GF ride off to another state on the back of some other guys bike (really nice guy, not worried about cheating or anything, just felt...weird). We had a fight about it last month, and I realized I was just being a selfish, jealous whiner. I really didnt want her to go, but we are both adults, I trust her...so..off she goes for the weekend while I had to stay in Denver (previous commitment). Anyhoo...she asks what I am having tattoed tomorrow "Skulls" I reply. She gets PISSED. Leaves the room. Comes back in 10 minutes saying, "I cant believe you are getting a skull (bad time to point out skullS I think). I dont like it at all. I hope you dont expect me to like it or talk about it or ANYTHING". I'm thinking, damn, thats awfully republican of her...and I'm thinking, she didnt give a fuck what I thought about her going on a 4 day weekend with bikers out of state, and now shes bitching about a SKULL tattoo? And really, bottom line is, I dont give a fuck about what anyone thinks about my tattoos except me. I cant wait to get tattooed tomorrow. :cool:

Off topic, but I bet the kids in his elementary school tortured the hell out of him with that last name. They say bullying builds character.

I was going to tell them about the time that Owen Jensen stole all of my flash and put his name on it. Dammit.

My wolf by Dustin Golden

Have you been to Hawaii? I'm here now and it's paradise, doesn't get much better......

Been reading some Pavel Tsatsouline stuff on kettlebells. I think it's his original book in fact - 'Russian Kettlebell Challenge' (I also have 'Enter the kettlebell' which, incidentally, is the better of the two). Pavel writes (at least, I assume it's really Pavel) in an entertaining way but I can't help but roll my eyes every third line. It's the needless hyberbole he resorts to. Everything is either for mewling girly men or it's a badass russian-approved method that will take the injured and weak and turn them into men hewn of pure iron with eyes that shoot bullets and hands that have AK-47s for fingers. He's advocating some proven and well-regarded training protocols and movements (grease-the-groove, ladders, a lot of well-chosen exercises etc) - why all the spetsnaz-related B.S? Well, I guess it's both entertaining and has been proven to work for him, so it's a moot point. Anyway. Seems to me there has been a gradual change in some RKC technique over the years. in the book I was looking at today it seems to me that Pavel is photographed at the bottom of the swing with his 'head up' (his word) and looking directly ahead. He references not looking 'down' because this can lead to the rounding of the back and injury. Nowadays it seems like many are aware of the need to 'pack the neck' to avoid shear force on the neck and more and more I see RKC guys and others trying to maintain a more neutral neck position on their swings - that is, they're not quite looking down but they're not breaking the alignment of the lumbar / thoracic spine and cervical spine the way Pavel seems to in these early photographs. I guess stylistic changes do come in, taking account of current best practice, in RKC, which is commendable. Anyway, inspired by all this I did a KB conditioning session at lunchtime for some variety. Warm-up -Some super light high volume one-arm swinging to warm-up (12kg KB) -Halos around the head with the 12kg to warm up the shoulders a little more -Some wall slides, again for the shoulders -Scap push-ups, as above -Some light snatching For the workout I did a few blocks of seperate 'work'- -12 minutes of one-arm swings with the heaviest KB in the gym... A 16kg. Simply not heavy enough, but basically I just tried not to stop and make the 'pop' up from the bottom extra explosive. The few times I did put the bell down I jogged for active recovery. A 24kg would have worked better for this but it still got my heart going. Then rested two minutes and -Another 12 minutes of single arm snatches with the 16kg. This annoyed me because the limiting factor was simply my palm getting shreddded. An element is possibly slightly dodgy technique on the downward swing, but it's also simply because I'm not doing any snatching anymore and my hands are soft in the wrong places now. Some more rest and then -5 sets of 10/10 walking lunges with a 12kg in each hand, superset with single leg RDLs with the 12's. Still too light but screw it. Finished off 5 minutes of non-stop turkish get-ups with the 16kg, focusing on form and alternating hands. Felt like this was OK weight-wise. I've done TGUs with the 32kg in the past but I think my shoulders would need to work up to that these days. Some core work to finish- planks.

Because they want a piece from HIM. I personally wouldn't pay $500 for a Chris Conn tattoo, but I probably wouldn't get tattooed by him if he were $150/hour. Just not a style I'm into.

I went to law school and during my time there, I was one of 3 people at the law school with a ton of tattoos. Most people I end up dating are pretty clean-cut, especially since my social circle tends to be lawyers. I think I only ever dated one person ever with any tattoos, and he only had one. One of my thigh pieces has a contingent of military men and a nurse all wearing gas masks. I told my tattoo artist that I think I had significantly reduced my dating pool. He told me that I probably didn't want to be dating anyone who didn't like my tattoos anyway. Probably true. I'd like to agree that skulls don't have to be evil looking.

Killer article by Paul Carter! Just Train – by Paul Carter - JimWendler.com

Oh no, I completely understand that. I've got quite a bit of tattoos and none of them are "perfect". I wasnt implying that I wanted a "perfect" tattoo or whatever, just giving my opinion.

My wife got totally weird about me getting other ladies tattooed on me once she got pregnant. At first it bothered me, but I realize when we first got together she was the type of girl who would drag me to a strip club even when I didn't particularly want to go. At some point she must have decided she actually likes me and doesn't want to share me, I know it's a little weird and it bugs me at times, but on the other side of the coin, she is really patient of my long hours at the shop and impromptu tattoo appointments. In fact last night I went down to Atlas to chat with Dan Gilsdorf while he was in town to see if he could squeeze me the next time he comes back to portland for a couple of days. We figured it out, but he shared with me the fact that he was only this busy in Portland and if I came down to Oakland he could tattoo me this week. I wish I could be that spontaneous, but I need a little more time to plan. But anyway just mentioned how crazy the idea would be and not only wasn't she mad, she was looking up air fare. She knows I have been putting off my bay area trip to get tattooed to buy this house, so that is appreciated. I can't say she has never flicked me shit about a tattoo, but I think she has learned to pick her battles as well.

How 'bout them Cubs?!

yep. that about sums it up. as i was flipping thru the guide, i saw it. reluctantly pressed enter and watched about 15 seconds of the show. abruptly turned off the TV, went on a short rant to my wife about how horrible it is, then put on some music and drew. shoulda been doing that in the first place.

your Issac hayes looks like a young fidel castro

That Rob Ryan piece is pretty wild. I love his paintings but his tattoos are pretty hit or miss to me.. You got a good one

New York is so damn close to Philly.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised that he isn't booked up. I have been to Myrtle Beach and good taste is not in abundance there.

Think of what the poor guy-or girl-at the front desk has to deal with, each and every day! The artists get, usually, a good amount of respect, but the guy at the front desk? That geek that hassles you for money, and makes you fill out forms n shit? Fuck him, right?! I've never had a bad experience with a front-end type. Even tho' I limit my actual tattooing to Chicago Tattooing Co., I visit parlors wherever I travel, and I travel a lot. What I have found is that when I go in, as long as I am up-front about not being there to be tattooed, but just checking it out, I am treated pretty well. Most often, I end up talking with whoever the artist running the shop is and so forth. I guess it's the same old same old, you get the respect you give.

Is that the one with all the trolls or are you the only one? Seriously, when is it enough? You kick up a bunch of dust, make all kinds of noise about sticking to your views and then when you've derailed a perfectly viable thread, you say, "Ok, it's cool. I don't care anymore". Why act like you care at all? Just skip it or at least take it elsewhere. Here's a tip. Don't worry about Tom Gabel's gender unless you're dating him and don't worry about what we call our equipment unless you're spending any time at either end of the machine. These are our words for our things. They have nothing to do with you. Even if it started with a misstep, this thread could've been a good example of what not to ask here and why...instead it became another episode of the Hunter Morrow Show...but I guess I'm just feeding the trolls now. --end rant.

Yes. July 7th. Baltimore first week of September.

heres my Gadsden by dave bruehl redletter 1 tampa bay fl

Patrick, read the thread, you will find some common names, I don't know of starter kits, but it's always fun to grab the cheap shit on sale and play with it you can grow your supply set as you do as well... "There is also books, and other paintings, and prints, look at stuff, don't just start tracing, and thinking it's as easy as replication, see the images, draw..." and he muttered some other shit before walking out to smoke... , Richard had to add...

You'll go straight to hell, though, drinking it out of the wrong glass.

i've had comments like this get back to me concerning the desk guys at my shop and they only make me wonder about the customer. i highly respect our staff at frith st and like them very much as friends, they are trustworthy and take care of me and my appts and if they were useless, they wouldnt be employed for sure. I could easily say this applies to most good tattoo shops. i'm not sure how well your encounter went, just saying be careful what you call people online, it can come across much more harshly :) good luck with your tattoo :)

This. I've got a bunch of flicks I've been swiping from the interwebs, I just am currently on a really crappy internet connection so once I've got that sorted it's on.

Ed Hardy on Richard Stell.... I begged for a picture. Worth it.

I recently had a young lady make fun of the awesome eagle on my chest. She also said that people with tattoos just get them to make up for their lack of personality. I told her to get the fuck out of my apartment.

Richard and Clay Decker are who I have to thank for what I know so far... And Bob Roberts, "it's not painting if it's not outlined with a brush", he told Richard when he was using a marker to use for some fine outlining stuff... We no longer use sharpies for paintings... Um...and I have been using Oil Colors and doing landscape paintings since I was 8 years old... My Uncle taught me he was amazing... I just recently started learning to use Water Color... Transferring images some use: graphite, others colored paper, I won't say what we have found to work best b/c that's us, everyone is different: graphite is harder to erase from paper, and you only have to lightly trace over with a ball point pen, but once it's down, it's down... I like colored tranfers, easier to correct, and they don't bleed...Saral Wax Free Transfer Paper - BLICK art materials As far as laying down outlines: some like speedballs, nibs, or quills, but we use brushes, and it's a learning process. Paints, try EVERYTHING it's fun, and no pressure like skin... but tubes are the way to go as you aren't writing down paint recipes for drops of dr.martins, or other liquids, they may dry out but you still have that one color you need to finish an old project you left on the table 4 months ago, and can't remember what you used to mix it... I can't get the knack of liquids still... I am a "watch your dap" and make sure your brush is lubed type, so water into liquid freaks me out... (still learning). Blick is the best for finding paper... Rolls are awesome, but we have been finding good deals on big sheets, and as far as blocks are concerned, I always keep a block around for Richard, Arches... Usually Clay has a dude that comes by the shop selling blocks at like 20.00 instead of the 60.oo they run at a chain store... So he's been stocking up and I buy em off him. We travel so much, guerilla paint sessions usually happen on a block. The last time I painted anything seriously it was helping out Richard with the signs at Spotlight... We painted until 30 mins prior to getting in a cab and heading to LAX to catch a flight, Steve stayed all nite to lend a hand too... It's still not done but attached are pics. Being around the Man, and Decker are really huge gifts, they have soo much talent, and know soo much, I'd be using tempera and being lame if it weren't for them.