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Tiger tattooed by @Stewart Robson , Frith Street Tattoos, London, UK I love it!

Latest by Sarah Schor. While she was guesting at Frith Street.

Some people are just douche bags. Regardless of any friendship, your tattoo artist should be treated with respect and your appointment should be treated as a business transaction. Try showing up at your dentist, doctor, lawyer, mechanic's with no notice and ask them to drop everything to help you. A lot of professionals charge people who don't show up for appointments, and they should. When you bail on an appointment you are taking money out of the artists pocket and leaving him unemployed unless a walk-in happens to show up. That's not how you treat friends.

That is stunning! Tattoo's not bad either ;)

Thanks everybody for these great suggestions! I have implemented this one so that new users are now forced to check a box at the bottom of the (new) Forum Rules page to indicate that they have actually read them. (you won't see the checkbox unless you are new.) Let me know if the rest of you are also being forced to read the rules - I think I have it set up correctly, but one never knows.. Keep the suggestions coming as always - they are much appreciated!

Call me old fashioned.

Anything that TV didn't teach me I can learn from the internet. Isn't Kat Von D the best in the world???? Now, let me tell you what my tattoo means to me ... my mother died before I was born and my father abandoned me before I was conceived, but this tribal koi riding a skull and fighting a dragon tattoo will make everything all right!

There is this guy who looks to be in middle school covered in some butt ugly tattoos. As bad as the tattoos are, the rapping could be even worse.

Dean Denney, Anonymous Tattoo Savannah, Georgia. Cap Coleman:

I think you need a certain number of posts before making a new thread, but I could be wrong. But, if you have a question about something, trying doing a search for that topic before starting a new thread.

Finally snagged a cancellation with Valerie Vargas for tomorrow, super super stoked. Getting an eagle on my arm (I had kind promised myself no more for a couple of months, but the twitter alert came through and I couldn't resist).

Finally finished my ROA. Sorry I don't have a healed pic yet I did this in 2 months (finished June 5th) so everything is really fresh and now I'm deployed so I cant take photos of it =\.

Almost forgot to post this up! Regino Gonzales Invisible NYC

Please can we have a thread, area, whatever, to move the increasing number of posts asking for free advice from people who are bored, scared to visit a real-world tattoo shop, attention seeking, lonely, stupid or whatever? I'm not adverse to giving free advice, hell, I can even be nice to people sometimes but it's getting a little cluttered in here. The signal/noise ratio is getting harder and harder to manage or respond to without sarcasm. Reading 'Tattoo 101' is getting more and more like hangin' out on the wrong side of the reception desk on a busy saturday afternoon and less like an interesting or stimulating discussion between people who love tattoos and tattooing. Sorry if I'm pissing on anyone's parade.

Maybe he belongs to the tattoo.

there's some amazing lines in this song and i kind of love it hahahahaha for real though, this is amazing. p.s. floating around on the internet there's a rap song about a tattoo shop in jacksonville called cadillac and the hook is about how inksmith and rogers is too expensive

@eisen777, did you see that dragon leg that Chris just posted on Red Megalith's FB? Holy hell.

My first tattoo at a shop, I was 21. I walked near closing time, for a large stomach tattoo. I didn't know any better at the time. So I was quickly informed of my stupidity and quoted a high price. Which I said I would pay. The point I am trying to make, is no body was trying to be my friend, or give me great customer service and they should not have to. All anyone should expect walking in to a tattoo shop is a good clean tattoo. After that tattoo I went back for more, and more. Years later I started tattooing, and I still get tattooed at that shop. I actually may be leaving the shop I am at now because I have a job interview there on Monday. I just feel like a shop should look appealing(good work, clean) but be some what intimidating at the same time. That way people don't ask you if they can do dumb shit while they are getting tattooed. I hate those situations, I always feel awkward being the voice of reason. And I always feel like they can read on my face, me cursing them in my head.

I wouldn't wrap it in Saran Wrap for the race. After the first night, I've been taught never to rewrap your tattoo. The first night you are trying to pull the lymph out and that is why you have vaseline and saran wrap. You should really be asking the person who tattooed you, what they think, after all it's their work in progress. That being said an outline after a week shouldn't be that big of a deal, hell it should be about healed. You really shouldn't even need aquaphor after the first three days. If it was colored and shaded i might give it another week, but again ask your tattooer to look at tattoo and see what they think.

That's the thing. Those occupations are all respected, professional...we're just a bunch of degenerates having fun for money. Hasn't TV taught you anything?

Yeah shop friends are great, self dubbed VIPs I can do without. If an artist or shop wants to bend a little because they know the person well enough that they won't take advantage of a situation -- whether a drink or two, a phone-in when you only book in person -- whatever, that's a bonus but when the clients think they call the shots, not cool. We run our shop in a way that makes it function best, that works for the artists and the greatest number of clients. No amount of familiarity should make a customer think it has to beworked to suit them alone...but damn if people don't still walk through the world thinking it's a set built just for them.

I really like that Lenhard article because I can almost guess some of the sources he has drawn his conclusions from, but he has applied it beautifully to the specifics of his own situation. I'm interested in how the ergonomics of your work set-up can affect your health (I spend 60+ hours a week either driving a car or sitting in a chair mostly), but I'm wary of trying to stick my oar in here because - as the Lenhard article points out - tattooing has its own specific characteristics as a practice, and maybe it's not such a good idea to try and shoehorn in ideas about posture etc. which are more relevant to other professions... ...That said, I think there are some universals that come into play. After all, we're all people, we've all got spines, and none of those spines like compression, shear forces or torsion... With that in mind, one line in the Lenhard article caught my eye:- What he is alluding to here is very much in line with the work of Stuart McGill and others in the physiotheraphy and sports performance community who have been arguing in recent years that the answer to back and neck pain is to pursue a strong, supportive musculature around the spine. McGill calls this concept 'superstiffness' and it is also variously referred to as 'bracing'. A lot of people actually have bulging discs or even partial herniations but are asymptiomatic in the sense that they have no pain. It's though that this may be because if your back musculature is sufficiently developed it alleviates the symptoms. I'm a layman but my thinking is that also that a stronger back is one better able to handle the shear, compression and torsion that poor posture or awkward positions puts the back in. As a result, McGill and others will promote an approach to addressing back (and, insofar as it relates to the cervical spine, neck) pain which is based on (1) correct posture but also (2) building a strong core and back through spine-friendly exercises such as the plank, 'bird-dog', curl-up etc. In a general sense something else I'd venture to suggest may be of interest to anyone who is experiencing aches and pains, whether muscular or joint-related, is that they consider looking at some of the various 'active mobility' programmes out there which are used by some athletes as "dynamic warm-ups" these days. If you're going to be hunched over a desk or sitting in a chair for hours on end then the odd five to ten minutes spent on these movements could be well worth your while. Some examples- The Essential 8 Mobility Drills everyone should do Mark's Daily Apple on joint mobility drills One last thing, I guess... I have a bulging disc in my neck (discovered it before Christmas). Partially it likely came about as a result of trauma - getting my neck cranked - but there's no doubt that poor posture was also a factor. I developed a very 'forward head' posture over the past few years, where my head would sit slightly out in front of my shoulders. If you look around you a lot of people have this, and there are a variety of likely causes. Either way, it's a recipe for disaster, in that there are a lot of shear forces applied to the c-spine. Now I make an effort to 'pack' my neck backwards - basically correctly aligning the cervical spine. This is sometimes called 'neck retrusion' and that, coupled with a lot of neck strengthening exercises, means I'm pain free. I think even if you are in a profession where you need to hunch or bend over it's worth noting that you can still practice this 'neck packing'. Although it is not a very intuitive movement I think it is an important one to get the hang of.

Got this torch from Eli at Smith St the other night. Looks so rad with the dagger he did on my other forearm. Way stoked right now!

@jade1955 - I see what you did there ;)

I was watching the Andrew Zimmerman episode with the Puffin hunting and I decided that I want to get a Puffin tattoo. I fucking hate that guy but I want a Puffin tattoo so much from that episode. This is after about 6 budweisers and a few glasses of cheap wine also...

I agree with @bulldog Because it is just the outline less surface area of your skin is affected so it should be healed well enough. However I would stay away from sarin wrap as it will trap sweat & bacteria. Your new tattoo needs the air to get to it to heal. So I wouldn't worry too much. Just out of interest, why do they have to throw coloured corn starch powder over you? For future reference pre-planning your tattoo sessions to fit in with other activities is allways a good idea if you can. We've all been there. Last year I booked two lower leg tattoos a couple of days before the London Tattoo Convention. After walking around all day my legs swelled up so much I had to take two days off work.

@Iwar If you've already read some Hitchens and are looking for more of the same then maybe try Sam Harris' 'The End of Faith'. Dawkins possibly lays out his reasoning a little more neatly ('The God Delusion' could be on a reading list for undergraduate philosophy of religion) but Harris is the better polemicist. I can understand why people sometimes feel alienated by so-called 'militant' atheists like Dawkins and Harris, although it sometimes seems to me that people usually dislike their tone , which can feel a little mean-spirited, as opposed to being able to point to flaws in their arguments. Personally I think some of the best writing on this topic was by Carl Sagan (RIP). His 'The demon-haunted world: Science as a candle in the dark' is one of the best books I've ever read, and many of the essays it contains have a bearing on some of the topics discussed in this thread.

I got the fifth tattoo, and the first Lady head since his return to tattooing. It's inspired by a couple of his more recent paintings.

best of craigslist: 1995 Pontiac Grand AM le bump

There's a place in SF called Balboa Cafe... It's a joint known for its Cougars....

I got this snake and rose from Frank Carter at Frith Street Tattoo. The photo is from Frank's instagram.

Oh yeah, just toss a Hoyer tattoo in there, no big deal. [MENTION=2772]deadmeadow88[/MENTION], high-five for going big!

Cree McCahill

i don't know if this counts, but i got this tattoo last month. it was done by zach nelligan from triple crown tattoo parlour in austin, tx. he did it at the roc city tattoo expo.

My right foot done by Frank Carter at Frith Street Tattoo last night. Photo taken from Frank's instagram feed

I'm going with American traditional; if I was doing Japanese, I'd fill out everything. I think these fit fine (reposts from various threads in the forum): BHR Grime Stell Peck

His tattoos are so badass they have a personality that match. Hence he was saying this.... Tattoo's | | v v (shitty tattoos) = shit Translation: (his) tattoo's are shit

Maybe it was really... A dress Ed? To the tattoo artists out there.

haha. a duffle bag, but not in a "Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer" way.

Adressed to forum people: Please learn how to spell Addressed.

Beef Kabobs Roasted potatoes w/ garlic and sautéed onion toppings grilled white KoЯn hella wine.

I always like the rappers no one has ever heard of that talk about all their money and bitches.... cause we all know that rappers with no record deal are super rich. Funny stuff though. Certainly brightened my day.

Stuart Cripwell appointment booked today.

I am so excited to blow the pants off this thread. Stell next weekend! Although, that chest eagle is so awesome. Glad to see you finally got it finished!

@gaugetheeyes he was both. Really good time. Did you get anything while you were down in jersey?

Maaaaaaaaaaaaaan... I really, really do need to make a trip to the states. And sooner rather than later at that.