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I got this from Deno at this summers Inkbash in Stockholm. He came up with putting the gorilla in a tower and the roots there. Midway through I asked him if he wasn't going to put something coming out of the skull. "Like what?" .. I don't know, something.. And he just put that dot trail in there, no pencil or anything. I think the whole piece came out just nice and strong, might be one of my favorite tattoos so far. He was super quick and fun to chat with. Tried to ask him about how graffiti has helped him develop as a tattooer but he didn't have much to say about it, except being taught to work fast. Jelle SOOS came by to say hi too, so I got to exchange a few words with him also. Man travels, a lot! Tomorrow I'm going to be under the needle of Joel Madberg SOOS. Putting a bird with alligator head on and around my knee, same leg as the tattoo above. A little scared of the knee actually, will I shake like crazy? (edit: oh by the way, the picture above is from today so the tattoo is close to 6 weeks healed or so)

I agree. Also, if I could afford (or when I can) to make it to California, booking an appointment with Chris Conn would be at the top of the agenda. To get back on the topic of pet peeves...for me, the only big one I've encountered from a customer's perspective is having to listen to stupid, offensive shit. I realize that a lot of people would consider me to be overly PC, which is fine (I disagree to a large extent with what most people consider to be "political correctness" and see it more as "not being an asshole", but whatever), but it definitely turns me off to hear racist or homophobic shit when I'm getting tattooed. On one trip to a pretty well-known shop, my buddy that I was staying with (who is gay) decided that he wanted a tattoo too and came with and got tattooed. He was super stoked on it and really liked the dude that we both got tattooed by, but during his tattoo a couple of the other tattooers hanging out made a few gay jokes (unrelated to my friend), and it was pretty awkward and uncomfortable for both of us for a minute. Consequently, I probably won't ever get tattooed by those dudes, despite them making rad tattoos. With a finite amount of skin and a Want list longer than I'll ever be able to get through, I want to enjoy my tattoo experience as much as possible, so I'm gonna go with the tattooer I don't worry about having to endure hearing go off on some "faggot" shit during my session.

No offense meant, and no offense meant when I say there WEREN'T three "top shops" in Chi twenty years ago. As far as pricing, a 6-inch square tattoo for $150??? Not in any decent shop-and there were only one, maybe two at the time-that I knew of. I'm not tryina be a dick, (just comes naturally) but there was really only CTC back then that was really what you would call a "top shop". There were what, maybe three or four other shops that opened and closed regularly in different parts of the city. AFAIK, the only one that has stuck was Fat Joe's place. I hear what you're saying about butterflies and stars, but it all depends on how big they are and how detailed they are-how much work went into them. I agree that some tattoo shops are overpriced for what they offer, just as some mechanics are overpriced.

Prices increase plain and simple. When a tattooer gets better they can charge more. When the price of groceries, gas, insurance, you name it goes up so do the price of tattoos, but probably not quite so drastically. $100/hr seems like a fair price for sure, but just to put it in perspective 20 years ago my boss was working on his ribs at tattoo city and was paying $120 per hour and that's not with Ed that was with Freddy.

All I can say is that in this area, 3 hours of work for a deuce would be like a major discount. Most places, I'd say a hundred an hour is gonna be about the minimum. You play, you pay. You can always find someone working at a truck-stop or out of a motel, or go to a "tattoo-party", but you'll get your $50 worth there.

Hello everyone, I have been lurking on LST for a while but have never introduced myself and said hello. Hello! I'm Adam, 27 from London and I'm a tattoo collector. There, I've admitted it. So far I've had the pleasure of being tattooed by the following; Steve Boltz Dan Santoro Jordan Teear Sarah Schor Chad Koeplinger Stewart Robson and Valerie Vargas. All my tattoo's where done at Frith Street Tattoo in London. That's it. Cheers. Adam.

Guess some of you will have seen this already, Valerie at Frith St on me this afternoon Asked for a girl head, then today asked for freckles...

Greg Christian is guest spotting in NYC next month. Got an appointment on the 4th of November. Very excited.

I love this thread. My girls: This is Daisy. She's a retired racing greyhound and is the sweetest, laziest dog ever. We adopted her from a greyhound rescue about a year and a half ago and watching her go from being this dog that had never lived in a home before to being this sweet little girl who just wants cuddles from everybody she sees (except for children, she is afraid of them) has been one of the most amazing things I have ever experienced in my life. http://distilleryimage5.s3.amazonaws.com/a5b74d08dff811e1a2ce22000a1c86dc_7.jpg And this is Susan (grey one) and Willa (orange one). They're sisters. We adopted them from friends of friends who took in a pregnant stray off the street. She gave birth to four kittens. We couldn't decide which one we wanted so we got two. The guys who took in their mother from the street read somewhere that the best way to socialise kittens is to hold and touch them from birth so they have none of the usual cat aloofness and you can pick them up and cuddle them and rub their bellies and basically do whatever you want with them. Willa regularly shits outside of the litter box because she's an asshole. http://distilleryimage3.s3.amazonaws.com/ee70b336e26911e1bb6a1231381f737d_7.jpg

Got this on Saturday night and took this picture Sunday morning (please excuse the photo quality). By Johannes (blackstalliontatttoo.com) at Good Faith Tattoo in Boston/Brookline, MA

Going to Dark Horse tuesday to make an appointment with adam to get my shin done

The question that has not been asked yet is...will there ever be any LST stickers?

Harry Potter Deathly Hallows friend tattoos ... Kinda in shock I did it. Done by Javier Betancourt at Ochos Placas Tattoo in Miami, Fla.

These are my grandfather's tattoos, done in Cape Town, circa 1956!

Some new one from the last two weeks... Two by Duncan X and one by Jondix Got some monster appointments coming up within the next 2 months... 4 with Hooper and the beginning of about 20 sessions with Rubendall.

I'm about the total opposite of PC, but here's what I started the thread with... "...I hear fuck this, fuck that, fuck the next thing, I got cigarette smoke blown in my face, and ya know, the guy never even asked if I was interested in getting a tattoo." As far as the homophobic/racist type stuff, I've never heard any, but I guess it takes all kinds. Hell, take your friend to CTC, they have a whole section of flash dedicated to the hardcore scene..."Prime Meat" and such-I doubt you'll hear any jokes!

I think this is probably the wrong place to bitch about a tattooer being overpriced. Especially when that price is $100/hour. Maybe check out the thread on Chris Conn for a little bit of perspective?

That's quite a lot to take in all at once. Not sure you wanna tout getting kicked off of other boards as a mark of honor buddy! Welcome, hope your time is here is well spent!

I got my first tattoo right after graduating from college when I was 23. I was living in the Bay Area and rode the BART over to Oakland to visit Tattoo 13. Chummy tattooed my upper arm with an scene of St. Michael. Not long after it healed I was visiting home and having a drink on the back porch with my mom. I told her that I really needed to talk to her about something, and rolled up my sleeve. She starting yelling and slapped me, while I was laughing at her reaction. After about a 5 minute rant she asked to see it again, and commented that it was really pretty. My Dad just told me to keep them where they could be covered in a suit. Every time I visit LA these days I end up getting tattooed. My parents have slowly become more accepting of them. They used to say "that's the last one right?" after each tattoo, but even that has stopped. In fact my Dad just texted me about getting his first tattoo at age 60. I honestly thought he was messing with me, but he was dead serious. I guess my point is that parents attitudes can change over time. Mine go so far as to show off my tattoos to friends when I'm on vacation.

I am almost certain that this tattoo is on The Gus, and was done by Matin Lacasse. Both work at Olde City in Philly. - - - Updated - - - I should add that I have been wanting something along the lines of this for awhile. I love this old bike style shit.

What about Temporary Tattoos for little LSTers

Portrait taken at the Brooklyn Invitation Chopper show . Tattooer unknown . BROOKLYN INVITATIONAL PORTRAITS by James Stone

Right? It was pretty painful, as expected. He hung the needle so deep and blasted the f*** out of it. I'm only at 14 hours after the fact now, but it's relatively painful-free at this point and not swollen at all. Surprisingly. I'm totally rocking some DIY sock-gloves I've cut finger holes through so it can breath and remain clean. New fashion trend? Homeless-chic.

"Tattoo poor" I call it. Basically all my money beyond essentials gets saved for tattoos.

Got this from Spencer @Memoir tonight! Session 4 on Weds...

That classic Eddy Deutsche jam .

So here a a couple of pictures of what I got on my west coast trip. They are all healed up now. The dragon is by Jeff Rassier of Black Heart Tattoo. Juan Puente did the sugar skull at the same shop, an hour later! The week after I got Stuart Cripwell to do the moth. While I was a Spider Murphy's I picked up their flash book which is quite beautiful as well as getting two new sheets of flash. I just got the sheets home from the frame shop. They look awesome on my wall! The three tattooers were super friendly, I would highly recommend all three of them for your tattoo needs!

My new flash set is up for sale.Sorry for the dull Picture but I promise these sheets are BRIGHT. $65 delivered in the U.S. $60 in person Paypal [email protected]

If I were you I would seperate California into three sections, Bay Area/North, LA Region, and San Diego. Similar things could be done for states with one big city list those shops first together and then list stuff in smaller towns at the end, also listing people who work at same shop together. I get that you have it alphabetical for whole state, but that only works out if you know the name of the tattooer you are looking for, in which case you wouldn't need this list.

All the guys over at Tattoo Faction in Cleveland. Greg Christian, Robbie Hamilton, Dave and Dan Wulff, Cindy Stroemple.... All great people and rad tattooers.

All your points are totally valid to people like us who will put in the time and travel and do what we need to do to get tattoos, but majority of people don't like tattoos, they just want to have a tattoo. They just want people to be able to see the tattoo so they know they didn't chicken out, and are usually not as concerned with how the tattoo looks or if the idea is sound. Is that for me, not at all , but if that's how people party, then so be it. They have to live with it not me. I got a little pissy with a client who came in with a new tattoo yesterday, I could tell was done in someone's kitchen. But I mean she knew it was shit and she paid 10 dollars because she is broke and wanted a tatto and the only thing you can get in the shop for 10 dollars is a t shirt so it's not like their was any business really being taken from anyone and she now has a shitty tattoo on her forearm.

The contrast wasn't pumped up, it was just the lighting from the shop compared to my house was different. No problems healing except for a few pimple in some places... I still really like it but i guess I should get used to it not being exactly what it was

Snake head on me by Nick Vargas of F U tattoo in Santa Cruz

...when first thing in the morning you devour this thread that you completely missed and sit here nodding and grinning like an idiot going "yesss" under your breath like a total weirdo.

Car scratches can be pretty rough!!!

Darren Anderson and Megan Fernandez from Panama City, Florida - black cat tattoo

I hadn't planned to get tattooed at the London Convention, but Michelle Myles (Dare Devil / Fun City NYC) had a cancellation and I've always really loved her work. I got a fantail (native bird from my home country New Zealand) on my outer forearm. I totally love him! Will post a pic once he's healed. I had such a great time at the convention, the first one I've been too.

LST tributes!!

@gougetheeyes I'll post a picture of my Koeplinger tattoo as soon as it's healed. This will have to do in the meantime: My girlfriend got a ladyhead from Todd Noble and a Leopard/dagger combo from Koeplinger: And I also picked up this little fillergirl from Civ (stolen from his instagram)

I hate everybody so I just mumble a "yeah thanks" and wait for them to finish ringing up my groceries.

Andrew McLeod- Chapel Tattoo in Melbourne He does such nice solid and bold work

...you take a picture of your new tattoo ASAP so you can show it off on LST

I just got this tattooed at the Montreal convention by Mike Rubendall. We did 4.5 hours last night, and then finished it in an hour this morning. I'm so pleased with it.

my cat Louie... only photos I have were taken when we first got him from the shelter a year ago. He's got two extra toes on each paw.

There are enough tattooers here in the Bay Area that I don't necessarily need to travel to get tattooed, and we have the State of Grace Convention each year. The farthest I have traveled is about 80-90 miles round trip from Half Moon Bay (Peninsula, southwest portion of the Bay Area) to Oakland. I'm also in the beginning stages of accepting the fact that I might have to travel to Japan for a tattoo sometime in the distant future.

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

Minor correction... Motorcycle CLUBS.

here's the thing about Canada... most of us do not sound like South Park, the ones who do are fucking hilarious though and get made fun of even by us Canadians.. we do have gang activity. what happens a lot of young people trying to imitate the gangs they see on t.v. shows from the USA. I remember in high school a group of shitty 16 year old white kids claiming to be crips. That lasted about a week and ended when they realized no one believed them or was scared of them hahaha.. but for real, there are scary parts of canada, especially in the larger cities like Toronto, Winnipeg and Vancouver. There are areas of those cities that I (as a skinny white chick) would not go to alone late at night. We also have the problem sometimes of south american immigrants who are gang members coming to Canada to chill for a bit when shit gets too real wherever they were at previously. It seems like since this was put out by the border control they are likely trying to cut down on immigrants who may be criminals in another country from entering Canada

No offense but when I read the descriptions in this its in the voice of a Southpark Canadian...