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This is my back. Can't believe its all done.

i took a short trip back in March to Chicago. my objective was to just take a trip by myself and do some sight seeing. well on my last full day there the mood struck and i went down to Taylor Street tattoo and decided i wanted to get something cool. i was looking at the walls full of flash and they were so amazing! the man and artist running the shop that day was Rickybird. i said i wanted to get something awesome maybe a panther or a swallow or anything that catches my eye really. he went and grabbed a huge black binder and flipped straight to a page with a photocopy of an acetate drawing. it was a panther done by Rollo and underneath he had written "the best panther i've ever drawn". immediately i knew that, that was the one i was going to get but just for the sake of it i wanted to compare it to some of the other flash on the walls and honestly nothing could compare. so i left chicago with an amazing tattoo and a very full belly! i promise i will return again because i had a fantastic trip. - - - Updated - - - Dietzel is one of my favorite tattoo artist and i have both of the books that John Reiter has put out. i love all the flash and i love his story. i've had it in my mind for a while that i wanted to get an anchor and possibly a ship. so of course i went back to my books to look for something and found and awesome piece of flash that i gave to Adrian from Speakeasy and made it his own. it turned out amazing and i love it alot!

Looooooooooove the Dietzel piece especially! - - - Updated - - - This is a few months old, but wanted to add more Dietzel love; one of his swallows, done by the fabulous Rebecca at POL Tattoo in Montreal. The first "spontaneous" tattoo I ever got! So much fun. (Also, my introduction to rib tattoos. Less fun.)

this is the thigh piece i started back in September. if i remember correctly i posted a picture a while back in October after my second session where all the black was filled in. then i went back 2 more times (Dec and Jan) to get the color finished. now its all done and i couldn't be happier!

@Dashenka, life is very very short. We might as well do the things that make us happy.

@Ryan wins at the internet today. Such a great backpiece--I can't stop admiring it.

saw this on their facebook. pretty rad:

@Tim Hendricks gold rush tattoo TITS!

Thought I would post the full sleeve pics and after it has healed :)

I am not sure that Walt ever had that much of a soul. I think that he was just beaten down when the show started. He had gotten wrapped up in a life that he hated, and was just pushing through it. His choices have always been pretty selfish, and ego driven. For me the thing that makes the show work so well is that Walt is a genius. He is not just some middle-aged chemistry teacher. Because he is a genius it is believable when he works things out, and doesn't get killed in the process. I don't think that being a genius makes you less moral, but I do think that it makes you less beholden to the ideas of right and wrong that most of us live under. But then again "Just because you killed Jesse James, don't make you Jesse James." So maybe Walt is a good guy caught up in a whirlwind, but I doubt it.

Never saw tattoos as anything but a part of normal life. My Lady was tattooed when we met, and now we just go to the parlor together, works well.

Just got my first tattoo 3 days ago by Josh Wrede at Bound by Design :) I've wanted it for years. I would love some feedback on it since I'm kinda in the freaking out stage because I'm such a perfectionist and I keep over-analyzing it lol.Going back for color in 2 weeks. Heres a link: http://media-cache-ec2.pinterest.com/upload/130956301635443429_qTt8Ha8z.jpg

I say this about every thread... but best thread.

A wise sage once told me "Make your drawings look like tattoos, don't try to make your tattoos look like drawings"

Here ya go....... Told Dave Fox to do whatever....this is what he decided belonged on my ribs....lmfao!

Did anyone catch the season finale of Breaking Bad? It is by far the best show on TV and the close-out of the season was awesome. If you haven't seen it at all, the first 3 seasons are on NETFLIX. Highly recommend checking it out it will not disappoint.

@Mr.Smith i will do! i made one more post on the previous page of a Portuguese rooster and rose, that one was done by Lizzie. i agree, Adrian did an amazing job! he worked really hard on it and the finished piece blew my mind.

Good point, even though I have a sleeve and pony tail, I'm an IT manager. All other things being equal, I'll hire someone who looks like they can think outside the box over some clean-cut, kiss-ass weenie in dockers and a polo shirt. Stick it to the man!

I tell ya, having kids jacks EVERYTHING up! USed to be, I could just walk into the shop, get whatever I wanted to get, no problem. Then the kids started coming. Shit. now I had to plan and make appointments to get tattooed. And NOW! They really jack things up. I try to get in for a tattoo, half the time one of our kids is sitting in Nick's chair getting worked on...little humps!

According to Yoni Zilber's instagram, this is the start of a dragon bodysuit he is doing. It made my heart go all pitter-patter:

I see you've met my lawyer!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

@RoryQ, I've recently started doing mobility work (mostly hip stretching and the like) on a daily basis. It makes a difference, and it's lame that I neglected it for so long. And man, the lacrosse ball is no joke! That thing is evil.

Truth:

I was tattooed before my husband had any, but he always liked the idea of tattoos due to coming of age in punk/hardcore subculture, etc. So it was never a big deal that I was tattooed and he wasn't. But as I mentioned upthread, now that we both are, it has become very much a joint venture in a really amazing and fun way, and I kind of can't imagine it any other way. We've talked about it, and we both think that were we not together and doing this whole tattoo thing together, we might both have some tattoos, but we'd probably have fewer and it wouldn't be like, a major hobby for us. So this business about balancing a relationship and tattoos is funny to me, because I feel like I come from the opposite direction, wherein my relationship is one of the reasons I am as into tattoos as I am! It's a really wonderful thing for us to share and go through together, and I have nooooo idea what my body would look like if this weren't a joint venture. I feel like that sounds weird and co-dependent, but so be it. Edited to add: this is a long-winded way of saying: ditto, @tattooedjuliet!

Sounds like a good balance. My husband is not nearly as into tattoos as I am, but he is far more than the average person! He loves conventions, doesn't mind checking out shops either. It's something I love being able to share with him, because he is my best friend. I love spending time with him. No one else I would rather be around, and luckily he feels the same. :)

Here's my little list Stewart Robson (twice) Mario Desa Nick Colella Chad Koeplinger Phil Kyle Ross Nagle (soon to be twice as he's tattooing me at the london convention) And a couple of others by local people before i really did any kind of research.

This would have been better under the "tattoo advice" section. Also I would avoid doing anything that would damage your skin. If it is an upper arm tattoo wear a t-shirt that covers it. Wear sunblock (as you should any way)

A few updates. I've been implementing the DiFranco-inspired 3-day-a-week approach I talked about a couple of posts back, whereby I've got a pushing dominant upper body day, a lower body day and a pull dominant upper body day. Lots of hypertrophy work contained therein. Also been getting in the 10-15 minutes conditioning work prescribed for after each session. More less just resting the other 4 days. My escrima coach has been in the Phillipines competing, so that's been out while he's away (in an organised way, anyway). Observations:- The strength work is subtly different to what I was doing previous to this. I've been biasing towards high volume hypertrophy work for the past few months anyway, but with this programme I'm getting in a few sets per week of higher than usual reps - couple of days call for 20-25 rep sets, which has been interesting. Surprising how close to my 10 rep weight choices I've been able to go, which suggests I was sandbagging before. DiFranco also calls for some other bodybuilding type protocols which I'm going to use - 'run the rack' approaches, drop sets, pauses etc. Going to implement them and change them up every two weeks. The strength work has left me pretty fried for the conditioning, particularly the short distance running (I've been trying to get in relatively fast 1-2 mile runs amongst other things). I'm not too fussed about this at the moment, I have plenty of days in the rest of the week to recover and as long as I am leaning out and seeing some hypertrophy I will be happy enough. Dan John says 'everything works.... For a while' and as usual when I implement a new programme I feel great now, in the first few weeks. I feel the variety and freshness, mentally and physically, makes for good training in the short to medium term. - - - Updated - - - One other thing- My mid and upper back has been pretty prone to stiffness and some spasming since I hurt my neck last year. I think it's a referral of problems associated with the tendency I still have sometimes to lift my shoulders to protect my neck. You do that for a while and your upper back will tell you all about it... I've used foam rolling and trigger point release (using a lacrosse ball) to tackle this in the past, coupled with hot baths, but a week or two ago when it was irritating me I got a massage. The masseuse (sports background) gave me a bollocking about doing lots of joint mobility work but not actual old-school stretching. Been stretching twice a day since, more out of frustration with feeling like someone has put rocks where my rhomboids should be than anything else, and .... Wow ... I think it's really made a difference. Obvious now that I think about it, but for so long I've been ignoring static stretching. I think for maintaining tissue quality we still need to do it, even if it is boring.

The Champion juicers are the best. Specifically this juicer: Champion Juicer G5-NG-853S | eBay It will last FOREVER, and is top quality. As for recipes, just experiment with different fruits and veggies, and see which you like best.

Rollo AND Dietzel. NICE!

My wife likes tattoos, but has no desire to get one. Which is cool, I get her support though. The rest of my family is cool about them, easier to count the non-inked than the inked. My inlaws weren't into them, but never really said much. My wife's brother's family.. totally stick up the ass types, none of 'em even been to jail even... what a boring existence. CG

Those are both seriously wicked.

My apartment with healthy shit is always open. I just ignore it constantly.

My wife has not and I doubt will not be tattooed but we share other passions together and I would never think about being or not being with someone based on tattoos providing they were cool with me getting tattooed

That's an easy one...big stack-o-Franklin's on one side of the scale, bars on the other!

I feel like I could not be with someone who was not tattooed. The reason being, I want to be with someone who shares my passion for getting, and being tattooed. I would not know what to do if we didn't share that interest. Luckily my husband loves my tattoos, and is getting more tattooed all the time. He is really starting an amazing collection.

Love it. Wish they had instragram.

More like carne marcada, am i right?

Man... you said that one right.

I dont need tattoos of my addictions :(

Mine's already listed in the August contest, for for future prosperity on this thread: I'm a Steamship Agent in Louisiana and Texas.

You sure as hell can't trust them with a pack of Marlboros. ;)

Treat LST like you were a citizen in North Korea. Don't ask questions.

saw the start of this piece on the Franz Stefanik instagram and it caught my eye Franz Stefanik @franzstefanik (Franz Stefanik) 's Instagram photos | Webstagram - the best Instagram viewer

Came across these pieces today from Bill Canales and Rudy Fritsch and had to post them to my favorite LST thread... Don't know anything about the artists on this one but the caption said Amsterdam Tattoo Convention 1994, thought it was an awesome picture...

I got some Tudor roses from Stuart Cripwell, then went back and had him add stems: Shouts to @nicky papers. This is what was pokin' out in that pic you commented on. :)

here's one mark cross did.

TDKR was so damn awesome.

Not a dragon but this shows what is possible - Tim Lehi Blackheart Tattoo S.F.

Some guy named @Scott Sylvia put a cobra over my elbow. It swelled up nicely: But healed perfectly: Every tattooer who sees it is amazed that he got that red in like that in one pass.