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A few more... - - - Updated - - -

Might get a minor chuckle out of this one...

Caught this on the B9 board tonight. @Valerie Vargas was given proper credit for this beauty. Based off of Tom Waits lyrics per poster. Good lord this is pretty.

When I think of classic tattoo design this pic comes to mind. I have a web on my arm, but have not done any jail time in my adult life. But if someone was thinking about starting shit with me and didn't because of my tattoo I wouldn't be offended.

Side by side, a week after the first session and today...

I would like to point out that exactly 7 months later, I now have a chest tattoo. Never say never ;)

Heres a good shot of Les Skuse's work. - - - Updated - - - It seems Rusty was tattooed by Bill and Les Skuse , Ron Ackers ,Chris Connett, Lyle Tuttle, George Bone , Cash Cooper , Dennis Cockell and Bob Maddison amongst others . - - - Updated - - - Ron Ackers 1950's

I prefer the pea-cocking aspect of visible tattoos. Attract mates and deter foes.

Funny a couple of years ago a client and friend of the shop was dating this girl who was starting tattoo school. It was her birthday so he bought her a tattoo, but was at work so she came in to get it alone. She brought a bunch of Milton Zeis reference and a Stoney St Clair Sheet repainted by Danny Reed that is in the revisited book. She wanted a crawling panther type design like on those sheets, but with leopard spots. Pretty straightforward design, piece of cake. She must have made one of the guys draw it like eight times. First it was too simple, then he drew a better cat and it wasn't enough like the flash, there was a bunch of nonsense about the claws and putting eyelashes on it, but this went on for like an hour, the whole time she was trying to ask a bunch of questions about being a tattooer. So the last time we just handed her a piece of paper and a pencil and told her to draw what she wanted. She claimed she didn't work well with pencil and paper and did all her drawings on computer. At that point my boss got up from the back and asked her point blank "You actually think you are going to become a tattooer? I can't wait to see how you deal with a customer like you. " At that point she was instructed that these were not the droids she was looking for and decided to leave before she was asked to.

I think if I was moving to my elbows (or knees) I'd have my upper arms or legs covered ie use the web as filler. I'd also put a big freaking spider or girl head in it, but that's me. I don't get this "tattoo the most awkward spot" thing when people have large swaths of empty space that could be easily tattooed.

This was kind of funny... I'm on vacation visiting family. My mom thought she saw a tag sticking out the back of my shirt, reached out to fix it and discovered it was a tattoo she didn't know about. @DJDeepFried was taking pictures and documented it. Pretty soon that left arm won't be so blank any more.

I'm a pastor, so my tattoos get stares quite often. I'm a talker and my profession also demands that I be one, so typically when I see the stares I say hello and hope that a little dialog ensues. If the outcome is that their outlook on life broadens a bit; great. If they get super offended; I say a prayer that God show them the error in their judgmental ways and that they come to the realization that my tattoos are awesome.

good looking out, maybe we need a subsection or thread with cancellations

my tattoo by Ross Nagle.

that. is. golden. my friend. that might be what I end up getting steve tiberi to do

I drove all the way from Toronto, Canada to Oakland and back to get tattooed by Freddy Corbin at Temple.

Half of the whole tattoo experience is GETTING TATTOOED! If you leave that out you will never understand. Most of my best tattoo experiences were on the customer side of things. I wouldnt trade those times or tattoos for anything regardless of whether or not those tattoos are dated now. Thats what made me the tattooer and person I am today. Not an abstract "love" of tattooing but actually taking part in it for the last 20 years. Its fine with me if you do not love tattooing enough to get tattooed, just dont expect any respect from those of us who do.

What do you think the modern day stigma for these on the elbows are these days? Jailhouse/racist or classic tattoo design?

Amazing, indeed! At least she gave you $20 for your trouble (as well as a funny story to tell). I can only hope that her clients are as big a pain in the ass as she is.

i was tattooing at the long island convention this past weekend. and some chick wanted a lightening bolt on her arm. she said she was a tattooer and had been at it 18 years. she had no visible tattoos. so i drew the lightening bolt on her three times and everytime she looked at it she kept saying to her friend " you know how i am" eventually she said sorry nevermind gave me 20 bucks and said "im gonna get it at my shop." lmfao. amazing!

Bob Shaw is the man.

@Kev I got my knee done because I know what I want on them and want to fit stuff around them rather than leaving them and being influenced by what fits at the time. I feel a bit differently about elbows, they're just a bit of a shit spot for anything I think - that skin's all shit and wrinkly anyway, at least with a knee there's some proper flat-ish surface area.

It always just struck me as the obvious/classic thing to get on an elbow - long before I knew anything about tattooing really :confused: I've seen a fair few people getting roses recently, but it's a pretty awkward spot to place things really, isn't it?

Rusty Skuse .

That it is, and I have even seen it happen...but no one complained. 1994, late, maybe like November, and I'm on a flight from Frankfurt to O'Scare. They call the flight, weather is shitty, pretty borderline, and as we all sit down-I'm like 3 or 4 rows into economy-this freaking stench pervades the air. I don't mean it smelled, I mean stench. LEt's see...I don't know how many of y'all are old enuf to have participated in any of the various hot-weather hot-spots, but if you cover carbon-based life forms with debris and silt and let them sit in the sun, or bake in a basement for a few months, then you know the smell I'm talking about. You taste it in the back of your throat. Anyhow, they had just boarded a group of Croatians on their way out of Bosnia-Herzegovina, and apparently they had been hiding-out in a group of basements under a shopping district, and had come with basically the clothes they had on. Poor bastards smelled so bad the flies were trying to get away from them. Flight attendants did what they could, people were taking clothes out of carry-on bags and giving them to them...and ya know, these people sat in an isolation waiting point in Stuttgart for however long, so that they didn't get away and become a burden on the locals...andcouldn't even get access to a showqer-point.

that banner is totally gonna catch on fire

Yeah, we did the Telluride Blues & Brews festival 2 Septembers ago, and spent a couple of days in Denver, too. I think Denver has the highest concentration of craft breweries per capita in the nation, right? Nothin' beats options and variety.

whaT you really want is a banner around a sun that spells "REJOICE!"

love the black/red style tattoos and Ross seems like a cool as irishman hope to get some time in his chair someday

What about a radiating skull-n-cross bones? That could be epic.

Well I am slightly nervous about putting up a pic of my tattoo for some reason, anyway it is only part of the tattoo and I feel it is ok to post it as the tattoo artist doing the work posted this pic on his instagram page. Artist is Tristan Bentley works at Ocean Ink in Miranda Sydney Australia and yes the octopus is smiling :D, the photo was about 2 minutes after we were finished for the day.

I think one of the beautiful things about tattooing is that you basically are this jack of many trades, as in you have to be a pretty well rounded individual.. You can build your own machines and needles, make ink, make the flash for the tattoo, then make that into a tattoo, make the customer enjoy the experience, and then make your station ready for the next one.. There's a lot of different types of character building and sense of self in that whole deal, and when you start bringing other people into it to take care of the parts you're not so good at, it dilutes it. That's probably why a lot of the older guys get upset when younger tattooers don't even know how to make their own needles and inks, because to them it seems as if you're less pure of a tattooer.

I like to think of myself as this generation's Ed Hardy.

Here's my hand I got from bailey a few weeks ago

Eisen Flower. « Hoopers Electric – Meditations in Atrament I havent added anything to my profile because i am slow with comps.

Crispy Lennox :

Sometimes I really can't tell the difference anymore. Tattooing is SO over saturated that it feels like i work at hot topic most of the times. I mean when everybody has a fucking tattoo what's the difference anyway? I've seen tons of kids with tough traditional tattoos wearing hipster v necks and thick rimmed glasses. But what about tattooers? Dickies and flannel? I mean fuck! It's all been done and over done. None of us are original, we might have got there sooner but does it matter anymore? How about we all dress like it's the 30's? Oh wait that's done... How about ties and button downs... Fuck another cliche. Today tattooing not just about the tattoo it's about the total image of the client wearing it... And I think that's bullshit. When "alternative" is the mainstream, what's alternative? I don't have a clue... Side note: some of the above tattoos are really stupid!!!

people who are into tattoos get tattoos whether they are tattooers are not. if you're not tattooed then you'll never convince me that you are really into them. my experience has been that non tattooed tattooers dont love tattooing, they love money and they think tattooing is an "easy" way to get some they are "artists" who cant make it as an artist in the art world so they become tattooers because it the only way they can figure out to make a living illustrating. sidenote: Ursula, while the majority of the time you'd probably be correct it is not always true about tattooers being covered in the stuff we like to do. especially with people like myself who've tattooing for a long time. the 90's was an exciting time for tattooing and i am covered head to toe in tattoos that do not reflect who i am artistically at all anymore.because tattoos are permanent they do not change as our taste does so I have a biomech sleeve even though i havent done any biomech tattoos or had any interest in biomech at all since the late 90's.

She's right, they are called squid spots.

lay of the chrome virgin mary woman...it was the 90s and eddy did it.

Well when the book is related to illustration I think that quote goes out the window.

I personally do not respect tattooers as much that have no tattoos either. Now maybe I'm being closeminded but fuck it. I wanna know that a tattooer is devoted to his trade; mentally, emotionally, financially and most of all physically. I'm not talking about being heavily tattooed but at least a forearm shot or two. If you're a tattooer and have not one single tattoo or maybe just one... You're just a tourist in our business, go back to selling real estate, there's more of that 'glory' stuff you're lookin' for.

Is this for real? from the way she's tattooing to the lack of tattoos. and why don't we get a close up? these are suppose to be tiny portraits right? man, just checked out the site.....they offer try on tattoos! I really cannot get behind this kind of tattooing, this kinda tattooer or this viral video. yuck:mad:

no respect.

I was at an offsite work event yesterday and a woman from our LA office saw my sleeves when I rolled up my shirtsleeves. She has a tattoo of upside-down script on her wrist--in all red--so I already knew how this was gonna go. "Can I ask you some questions about your ink? Because I just love ink. I wear some myself--but obviously not as much ink as you do. I only wear about three pieces of ink." Every time she said "ink," I cringed.

y'know, i like the squid pant's name for leg tattoos. i don't even like the term sleeves for arm tattoos. sure there are proper sleeves worked out on someone as a full arm tattoo. but if i'm out somewhere and somebody says, "ooh, can i see your sleeves?" i think, "fuck off, retard", unless it's a hot girl, but i would still think she is stupid, but i would use her stupidity as an edge to get her to sleep with me. because you have to be pretty stupid to sleep with me. and customers that come in for a "sleeve", or thinking "i want to get a tattoo here and turn it into a sleeve someday", annoy me to. they're just tattoos.

honestly, "collector" bothers me (sorry robin)! generally speaking people who refer to themselves as collectors are a bit smug and see themselves as above other clients. no offense robin, or anyone else who use this term, it's just been my experience and bothered me for years. the guy getting his girlfriend's name is just as important as a "collector" getting a custom "cool" tattoo. sometimes these "collectors" scoff at having to wait while i do a regular walk-in on someone they deem "uncool", and it eats me up. but i guess this is a whole other discussion!

Cory Lenherr. End thread.