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got this today by Landon Lewis @ Black Thorn Gallery

........ @slayer9019 as a Community Leader, stoked! We approached him after watching him join the site awhile ago as someone with no tattoos looking to get tattooed who ended up getting a tattoo he wasn't satisfied with so he took advantage of LST further so he could learn. He has since gotten some great tattoos and continues to work to help other new members and longtime LSTers have a better experience. One of the reasons we started this site was to show tattoo customers some of the best tattooers are approachable and the wait to get tattooed by them may not exist and/or is not that long plus affordable. In the long run it ends up being cheaper actually. Thanks and welcome to the team!!!!

a few new pieces that i'm really proud of! this was done by mario desa about 2 months ago and this was done a week ago by tutti serra.

Finished up the flaming sperm whale on the back of my leg. Survived the knee ditch without magic soap. Jesus. Christ. We have another session left to fill in some of the cracks between the whale, the shark and the octopus on the lower part of the leg. Sea monster leg sleeve hooray! By OllieXXX Schell, Lucky Strike Tattoo Edmonton, Alberta, Canada 2012

@Natveggie45 If you want PM me where you are at and we can talk as I may have some leads for your daughter in your area. Most my colleagues and I work from a Motivational Interviewing and Harm Reduction framework which not only has great research to support change but also change we've seen facilitated by individuals more often than not.

This was done by Vinse One (not on me) while he was still at Liberty in Seattle. He recently moved to Tattoo Paradise.

Does your daughter have a history of mental illness or just the drug addiction? If she does have some form mental illness then she will most likely need to be treated for that before anything can happen with her drug addiction. Is it just cocaine or is it other drugs as well? Does she use needles? If so is she getting tested for HIV and Hepatitis on a regular basis? I think that there has been some great advice given by people with a lot of hands on experience, but without a more complete picture of your daughter's life it makes it hard to know what is the right approach.

Shit, I didn't wanna laugh at that..

Nick Colella's doing.

There was a saying, "marry a fat tattooed lady and you'll have heat in the winter, shade in the summer and moving pictures all year round.". CG

Find an Al-Anon meeting-definitely worth checking out. I'd also make her staying in your house conditional on her attending a twelve step program. Your house, your limits and boundaries. What your daughter is going through sucks, but you have to do what's healthy and sane for yourself and the rest of the people in the house. If she can't do that, tell her she's going to have to figure something else out. As someone with experience in the area, sometimes the only way to find your bottom is when it's sitting on a curb next to all your worldly possessions.

Here's where I get to be the bad guy. If you've got other teenage kids in the house, kick her out. A coke addict isn't any better, and in some ways worse, than a junkie. They will quit when they bottom out and they want to quit. Before that, it's all a fucking game. They may swear they are being clean, this time fir sure, all that, but if they aren't ready to kick yet, they won't. It's nice to be supportive, and to talk about "being there" for someone, but in the end, all you're doing is delaying the inevitable. Kick the props out, let her slide as far as she's going to slide, and then if she really wants, help her to pick up the pieces. If she's chipping because "it was free and it was there", then there ain't no hope, ever, cause I hate to tell you this, but for any halfway decent-looking Lady, it's ALWAYS free and ALWAYS there. Least it's free as far as money goes, the real price is your soul. Don't give up, but don't help her run her shuck. If you want to go all-out, find her a furnished room and pay the rent for a month, then hand her a copy of the want ads. She can make her own choices from there. Eight years of heroin. Five years of cocaine. Ten years of alcohol. I've got a fucking Ph.D. in kicking and relapsing.

You can fix that. I hear pizza and beer are a good combination for it. I would know.

Uh I know several big girls with GREAT tattoos- the key seems to be to get BIG tattoos...Im a fat guy myself and i dont see how it matters- Also I think being fat (5'8" 260) is pretty awesome bc i have enough room on my sides to get like 2 extra backpieces

I would say you are in a similar position as myself. I work a job that does not like tattoos and I have to keep em covered up. Now while I only have my upper arm done, it went past the point of polos/short sleeve buttons-ups to be worn ever again. I also would love to fill my right arm up and have it "complete" but I also greatly enjoy rolling up my sleeves when I get hot (job can send me all around the world). While I really don't worry to much about loosing my job or anything in regards to that, I also am keeping it conservative at the moment. If you are like me you have TONS of room left elsewhere. I am about to start on finishing my left leg in a month. That will fully satisfy my urge to get tattooed for around a year, and I am getting a killer "sleeved limb" tattoo done. (The technical term for this is "squid-pant sleeve"). I say if you got any hesitation about the placement, save it for later. Like I said, having the ability to roll up your sleeves is key to me at least.

Way it always is...shit, if I had kept all my clothes from the sixties and seventies, I'd be all hip again!

she is 21, maybe treating her like a baby has enabled her to continue her behavior

Hermit crab I got from Deno at Kings Avenue on Thursday!

I would like to associate myself with the remarks made by CultExciter. Good man, Slayer!

I always enjoy the comments and feedback given by @slayer9019. Solid solid solid!

cocaine addiction is rough. i spent 2 solid years using on a daily basis along with other drugs, but the cocaine was always in me. rehab for me was a must and AA meetings daily since. a complete life change was the only way and it has still been very hard. give her a few ultimatums and offer your help (rehab/AA/NA). but allowing her to stay in your house is only hurting her. its enabling her. she will not quit until SHE is ready. no matter what you do.

The warrior Taira Tomomori by Kuniyoshi .

Alright, I don't know how many of you have met my husband but he's a big guy. I'm not going to post his weight because I don't think he'd want me to. I also was at a shop this weekend with a tattooer who's even bigger than my guy, and we were all showing each other out tattoos, so lots of shirts offness. Both of them have amazing tattoos by some of the best tattooers around. Both of them get to have these huge tattoos that I could never because they literally would not fit on my body at that size. And man, I sure am jealous! I don't know how many times I've said the phrase "Sometimes I wish I was fat so I could get more/bigger tattoos". Like some of the other commenters, I also feel like tattooing can help you love the 'ugly' parts of your body. I may not be fat but we've all got parts we don't like on us. Remember even super models are photoshopped. As far as actually putting a tattoo on a bigger person, it seems like it can be in places more difficult and in other places pretty easy. Stretch marks are harder to tattoo, but if you go to someone who's comfortable doing it and has done it before, you should have no issues once the tattoo is healed. They tend to puff up worse than normal skin and the needle can get snagged on the edge of a stretch mark while being tattooed, but like I said, if they know what they're doing, that won't happen and your tattoo will be as nice and on any other person. I know a chick who weighed over 300 lbs at her heaviest. She is very heavily tattooed, I'm talking full solid jap style sleeves, legs pretty much covered and a few things on her torso. Over the course of about a year she lost at least 150 lbs. Her tattoos still look good, you can't really tell that they've shrunk unless you knew her before.

I will try to get an updated photo of them tonight when i get home from work! But here is a photo not too long after they were done for those who haven't seen them!

By Jason McAfee at Temple Tattoo in Oakland, CA.

I forget where I saw it... many years ago. Of course no malice intended against anyone with weight issues. Like I'm a twig myself...

well, what the hell... "Flaming Sperm Whale Barfing Up A Skull" tattoo by OllieXXX, Lucky Strike Tattoo Edmonton, AB Canada 2012

I have a bit of OCD with reading peoples shirts/tattoos/whatever. If it's words I can't help but try to read it.

Excellent choice! Congrats @slayer9019

@bongsau, that is super cool!

This is great news! Congrats @slayer9019

1) no mental illness ( i am no doctor though) 2) sniffing it and smoking it only ( i think it is enough...) 3)had a long talk last night with boyfriend. Really nice guy, clean the last 5 years. She agreed to go in sept. , and they are moving in together. He goes to meeting, and she is going to start going with him. As i am writing this it is 6;45am and i've been up for a while. Both can deal with the fact we asked her to move out. The cruncher for her to accept the meeting last night? Her 15 year old sister was crying non stop...,

@Doozer - "Dance your cares away, Worry's for another day. Let the music play (clap clap) Down at Fraggle Rock." I loved that show when I was a kid haha

I got my very first this past Thursday! I planned it out for a while and finally pulled the trigger. It's a Doozer from the show Fraggle Rock. I got it because that's what all of my family calls me and it's just who I am. I went with the ribs, pretty nice spot to start my tattooed life with! My artist was Josh from Lucky Rabbit (Muncie, IN) and he did a bad ass job!

Just personal experience here. Clean and sober 5 years earlier this month and 30 years old now. The best thing my mom ever did for me was kick me out. Oddly enough she's a school teacher too. She's been a guidance counselor at an elementary school for almost 20 years now. I spent a day in a homeless shelter and was able to get in to a rehab program the salvation army runs for homeless people. It was a bit religious for my taste, but it was free, and it really helped. If you do some digging there are actually quite a few rehab(ish) places that are basically free of charge. I wouldn't call what happened to me an ultimatum or an intervention. She came home to find me passed out drunk on the couch and when I left she called the police. She came to visit me in jail after that and told me she could get me into this rehab place if I wanted, or I was on my own. She's my biggest supporter today, and we've got a great relationship. I know it's hard, and it's a shit decision to have to make, but I don't know anyone who got clean living with mommy and daddy. It's probably happened a few times, I just don't know of any. Just know there's a world of love out there, and there is help. Welcome to Al-Anon Family Groups

You don't have to give up on her...I've got six kids, and believe me, I've had my moments with them, but NEVER give up on a child. That said, you still need to kick her in the ass. She doesn't need to be on the street. You can do as I suggested and rent her a furnished room for a month. just make sure she damn well understands that that's all she wrote. In a month of being clean, she can get some kind of pinche little job, enough to pay the bills and keep her too tired to party, or she can go all the way down. If you let her trip you with all that "hanging from the beam" crap, then it's on you, completely. I buried my little brother when he was 20, and I've buried more friends along the way than I can count. The girl is 21, she's raised, and she's gon do what she's gon do, period. Now it's time to step back an see what she makes of it. YOU aren't to blame, and YOU aren't responsible for her anymore. Think you see that scenario everyday because you're teachers? HA! Live in "the Life" for a year and come back and tell me about it. I'm sorry, I know I sound harsh, but harsh is the only way to be with a junkie....trust me on this. I've got a letter my Pops wrote to his sister when I was 25, sez he's "just wainting for the call from the hospital or the morgue". Faked him out, and anyone that WANTS to quit will.

I was playing semi-drunk putt putt a few weeks back, and a dude stopped me to ask where I got my tattoos done. He was home on leave from the military, and had been into a few different shops and was put off by how cheaply all these dudes were telling him that they'd do the tattoo he wanted for. He ended up not getting tattooed at any of them because he had heard the old "Cheap tattoos aren't good..." line, and didn't want to settle for a cheap, shitty tattoo. I recommended the one great shop in our town (Front Street Tattoo), showed him the stuff I had gotten there, and mentioned that they had military Mondays where they did 10% off for servicemen. I was stoked on that interaction for the rest of the day because it was so different than the usual "My dude will do that for 40 bucks" shit that I hear from 95% of people. I'm really hoping he went in and got something awesome.

@tika has a beautiful one by Ivan Szazi in the LST Gallery: http://www.lastsparrowtattoo.com/gallery/japanese-and-asian-tattoos/10756-ivan-szazi-jan-2007.html

Posted on Tumblr today. Allegedly, this is Ben Corday's wife (and the "Corday" on her breast would seem to indicate that):

TIM LEHI The same girl has the backpiece on this page of Lehi's blog. She is definitely not afraid of images that are not generally thought of as feminine. I love it.

Of course, as soon as I go to Europe, Deno goes to the states, and is far away when I get back. grumblegrumble.

A little cuticle action by Dave Kruseman as he touched up my thumb sleeves yesterday! The tattoos are holding up amazingly well!

You will look no more "ridiculous" with tattoos than anyone else! Get tattooed, get what you want, fuck the world. I don't tattoo so I can't answer your questions about working with skin and placement but I can't imagine it's that much of an obstacle. @Shawn Porter posted a video a while back on his OV blog, an awesome awesome Dave Lum video, where his shop helper -- a woman -- was talking about how she hated her legs and her butt. How she was self conscious and never thought she'd get tattooed there, but once she did get some coverage on those areas, she loved them. Maybe the only big folks you're seeing with a significant amount of work have some not-so-great tattoos.. or maybe you're just freaking out cause you've only got one so far. But if you've got the itch, you've gotta scratch it, and everyone else can go to hell. Truly. Apologies if this was too strongly worded.. I had the night off, some beers were consumed. The only people I don't like with a lot of tattoos are dickheads regardless of their tattoos.

Timothy Hoyer...KILLING IT!

Just came across this one by Max Kuhn, had to share.

I photographed my wifes neck tattoo healing from 24th December to 8th January. The photos are in date order from the 24th December - 31st December. The last one is 8th January. Well on the way to healing now.

Chad Koeplinger - Done at the Cleveland Convention

Mine here, done by Stevie Edge at kaleidoscope tattoo in Sydney.

Thanks! I was trying to post the picture from my iPad. Here is the pic:

i have a local dude that does rad stuff and i can always get something within a week or two... so the wait for me is waiting for the right time financially...probably a good thing though, that way i won't get a bunch of work too fast...