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My latest, another torch. Done by Xam at The Family Business in London, last Monday. Healing up pretty good. Pic is fresh, as you can tell from the bloody paper towels!

got these two by lowercase j @ tattoo marks

Here's one: The same name as another tattoo shop, even if it's in another country. When stuck for a name, call it the name of the street it's on or the name or the nearest major street. Works like a charm. Although we do still get phone calls at the shop that go: *ring*ring* "Hello, Frith Street Tattoo, can I help?" "...erm, what street are you on?" "We're on Frith Street" "Ok, thanks" *click*

awsome.. Man gets DUI after driving on AA co-founder's lawn - News - Boston.com

This is the tattoo I ended up getting instead of a verse done in text. Hebrews 6:19-7:2 would be the reference. When I thought of it I didn't really realize that anchor tattoos were so common, but I realize it's a classic image so I'm glad I went with it anyway. Done by Chris Lombardi at Hand of Doom Tattoo in Buffalo, NY.

in Pensacola ,Fl. ...Tit for tat... In Mobile, Al. ...Scarred Hard... they just don't sound like excellence.

this is so good

Hands down best Tattooers name is Valerie Vargas , Quentin Tarantino eat your heart out . In the event of me winning Lotto I would promptly open a shop in the London Tower or the like and name it " Ye Olde Tat - Zappery " the name being stolen from @hogg .

I have a full chest piece that got cut through because of an open heart operation and the most common question I get is “was it done before or after the surgery to cover the scar?” My response is “It was just good forethought”, my heart problem came as a surprise. Super glad I did it because after the surgery I don’t want another sharp object within a mile of my chest. I had a rock star surgeon take me apart and put me back together, with attention paid to lining the ink back up correctly, now there is an obvious quarter inch incision with hard scar tissue, but the tattoo looks fine. My advice is get your full chest done now, but just be sparring with the detail on the center line where you will be cut, tell the artist, they might dig the idea and design something that will look better with the scar through it. Do you have an existing scar? Like you said in 5 years valve replacement can likely be done without the need to crack the chest, but don’t count on that. As for tattooing the scar, f-that it cost about $250,000 ill be keeping mine and I bet it would be years before the scar is adged enough for a cover.

You can't go wrong with a Sacred Heart, it's just classic. I'm particularly fond of the one on this H20 album cover, done by @Scott Sylvia himself, 15 years ago? Shit, we are getting old.

Gotta have some ethics. It is up to us. I don't support the "fuck it" mentality.

i like those lees! its a shame, a lot of these "american heritage" lines are more difficult to come across in the us- carhartt wip, woolrich woolen mills, lee 101, etc. youre lucky, theres more access to that stuff in the uk. tellasons are dope. rogue territory, baldwin, and 3sixteen are excellent american lines as well. im not crazy patriotic or anything. its just cool to see brands being made at home and theyre like half the price as japanese lines. but from what i understand, on the flipside, the japanese will go crazy and pay a lot for american brands right now. i think we do the same tradeoff thing with them in tattooing!

I don't know about you guys, but I sometimes struggle to find a Christian themed tattoo that really excites me, and I'm a bona fide Jesus freak. Don't get me wrong, Rock of Ages is cool and all, but other than that crosses and praying hands don't really excite me. Do you guys have or know of any cool Christian Themed tattoos?

The one thing I would find one of these at home infinitely useful for would be stupid plastic car parts. I would be printing all kinds of gauges, dash pieces, various interior doo-da pieces (clips, molding, etc) and maybe and custom airbox. When I was in college we used the uber-expensive 5-axis CNC to mill out skateboard trucks. I think the school got a bit upset at the waste involved but it was cool!

You mean "klassy."

welcome

@YOMONEY @kylegrey I've been wearing my 501s a lot lately. I haven't picked up any new pairs, due to money issues, but I did get a nice blood stain on my 501s today. I also wore mine to Christmas dinner with the family, but I'm not at the point where I need to vinegar wash them yet, as I am only at about 4 months of wear. A lot of those lines you guys mentioned I haven't even heard of; thanks for the heads-up.

Selecting a name is marketing. Its about attracting whatever clientle you're after. Some people want to appear cool and others shoot for professional and easy to remember. Its easy to see who takes what they do seriously and those who think its a rockstar lifestyle.

The one exception that comes to mind for me is the Ink Addiction Beppe works at. That is a goddammned horrible name for a tattoo shop and I hope it's only called that because of a not great understanding of the English language.

Yea ill jus add one more " it looks fucking great!"To the list

Whilst I go along and agree with what David Flores said, I wanted to offer two examples which show there are probably some exceptions .. Into You in London, owned by Alex Binnie is a great shop with amazing artists. So is The Family Business also in London and run by Mo Coppoletta. Both shops have not a name which immediately identifies them as a tattoo shop but are well known and deliver outstanding work. Probably here we can apply the idiom 'The exception proves the rule' .. :-)

the type of shop names I think don't work are names that sound like nothing good is gonna happen, examples; Insane ,Smoked ,Deviant,Chaos,etc.These kind of names just dont give me the feeling of comfort. A friend owns Safe Voyage Tattoo in Baton Rouge, Isnt that a comforting name.

I am sure there is a wealth of imagery that could be created from the stories in the bible, but I don't think a lot of people want tattoos of the lesser know characters in the bible, it's really all about Jesus and Mary and of course the tattoo of St Michael that people get keeping the devil out of heaven with his staff, pitchfork thing. If you are Catholic I there are probably more options, as there seems to be a lot of depictions of different saints. Depending on what the saint stood for or maybe what saint you were baptized under that could be an option.

Most of them do plastic parts and have been around for 20 years, used to be known as Rapid Prototyping. The newer ones do much finer detailed work and they're fast. We have one at work that gets a lot of use. There are also ones that make parts out of metals, known as Selective Laser Sintering. They make parts from steel, titanium as well as alloy blends, as well as green sand used for making molds. But, you need to have the part geometry in a certain format that the machine will accept. Any glitch in the 3D CAD file and it crashes in the middle of the part. So these will be pretty much limited to industry for quite a while. I'm sure when they are available to the public, they'll come with simple canned geometry to make simple parts to amuse yourself. Rob

Yep, you dodged a bullet.

The virgin de guadalupe is pretty powerful imagery, and all the secular interpretations people have come up with are pretty entertaining. I think the problem these days is people who get christian tattoos just want to get script lettering of bible verses.

Can't go wrong with an icon tattoo.

@YOMONEY cool stuff there for sure , I was not familar with these lines but I also like Tellason from the U.S., as well as the usual suspects . My weapon of choice right now is the 1966 Lee 101z Japanese numbers best I've ever owned those Union Sewing machine stitches and sort of fluffy denim make for some hard wearing , was kind of pissed I had to give em a vinegar and water spruce up for the sake of the relatives noses - Christmas and all .

nice.. coffee nazis and denim people.. kyle, currently im in a pair of left fields for the last 4 months. probably my favorite pair so fair. theyre the nisshinbo denim and wear beautifully (crazy electric blues). ive been in a handful of pairs, but id probably say that these are my personal favorites (so far). i dig a lot of japanese stuff like momotaro, pbj's, sammies, etc. but have been psyched for all of the lines in the states currently. whenever get my cash flow situation right, im leaning towards a pair of railcars, im pretty sure..

I think I've mentioned this before, but I heard from an artist on Season two about how heavily edited they were. You shoot tons of footage and use the best of the worst to 'create a show' that has 'villains' and drama and tension. You're also coached on things to say. You look like a giant ass on tv, but... after the show airs... you find your appointment book is a little fuller, even though you looked like a giant ass on tv. Turning a culture into a commodity isn't new, its just affecting us a little closer to the chest because... well.. it's us. We had to bleed for these damned things. We had to get stared at in line at the bank. We have to answer the litany of dumb questions on a daily basis... "why yes ma'am, it did hurt" and "yes, I AM tattooed other places... wait, we mean my dick, right?"... Im kind of biased though... I grew up on Royboy videos. Tattooers hated them, too, but.... damn they were fun. I should mention that a tattooer friend asked me to write some Inkmaster erotic fan fiction that he's going to illustrate and we're going to accidentally leave at tattoo conventions the 'stars' are at. If he ever finishes the first chapter I'll write more. Kay Kutta and Sarah Miller are in it. "Penetrated by more than your needles" comes up a lot. Because we think it's ok to make fun of people we don't know. People who may be genuinely nice. Because we're children. :D

'til the wheels fall off.

I've heard that one before!!!

nobody gets just one or two.

people trying to bargain. I always charge a fair price for a good solid piece of work. ANd the people I have always found trying to bargain are wearing $150 sneakers and name brand everything, but want to save $20 on a lifetime investment

Lets see a photo of the tattoo in question

You really should have something in your hand that you can look at and decide if you want it on your body or not. I've had details drawn freehand on me... while there are artists who do a complete bang up freehand tattoo, they are in the minority. Anyone that has never been inked before, I advise them to go with a stencil and approve it before the ink flows. This is also the reason why I like flash on the wall... what you see is what you get. Rob

this is so silly, there is no need for all this hoopla. If your hesitant why not ask the wealth of knowledge right here are your fingertips? there are many contributors here from California both enthusiasts and tattooers. It can be as simple as I think xxx guy is who I am going to, I live xxx. what do you guys think. It sucks you got a bad tattoo but you dont have to repeat the process or go at alone trying to find a good tattoo.

I can understand shinobi. It does happen. I was tattooed by an artist of considerable repute last year, saw his work in magazines, etc. I went with a "trust me" for a sleeve tattoo and am regretting it. The first alarm bells rang when he inked a perspective line drawing of a phoenix on my forearm. It looked great on paper, but not so wrapped around my arm, it's hard to pick out what's going on and it looks like it has a broken wing and neck. I was in denial for ages and friends told me not to worry as it would all work out in the end. I went through with the full tattoo thinking at the end of the day I will get a great piece of work and I didn't want to micro-manage. But the sleeve isn't great either - far too much solid black, detail on the outside of the foreground pieces has been lost and I've noticed a few errors where lines stop behind foreground pieces, etc. I hold my hands up and think I should have communicated my thoughts and concerns more, but just did not think I would get a bad tattoo. Same as you, I'm too embarrassed to show it. I've worn a t-shirt twice since I had it and always seemed to see a lot of people with good and fantastic sleeves when I did! If you're having doubts now, with a work in progress, I'd seriously consider whether you want to go through with it. I wish I stopped after the first session with the linework, but hey ho. I'm looking to remove too if I can scrape the money together so will join you posting on the removal forum!

Got this one the other day not got my own pic yet I'll take one when it's healed

Getting stares because you're wearing something that has traditionally been jailhouse art, or other "outsider" type work is entirely on the wearer. To the people who have traditionally gotten things like spiderwebs, walls, teardrops, etc., they are specific indicators freighted with much significance. I'm not saying don't get 'em, just to expect the stares and attitudes. .02

4th hit on my back. 7 hours on veil and leaves. Once healed veil will be an opaque grey to distinguish from the black and grey background, everything under the veil will be boosted once healed aswell,Thanks.

I feel punching this guy in the hair would be good therapy for me.

dont look too long

Here you guys go! ha just realized I screwed the last 30 seconds. will fix

Anyone else see this on Tattoo Snob today? D’inked – A Tattoo Removal Documentary : TattooSnob: The High End of Low-Brow I can see getting some small, bad tattoos removed (at least to make room for good new ones) -- but an entire half-sleeve? Crazy.

Even without the face tattoos, still don't think I want to party with that dude.

@irezumi sent me this today:

I also just got an email from Thomas Hooper sneaking me in for finger tattoos- the day after my birthday. Jesus. Sumerian priest sounds awesome... cant wait to see it!

Here's one of my favorites. This is on another friend of one of my customers, who wanted to know how much it would be to cover this tattoo. I told him that the tattoo was awesome and it didn't need covering...