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I wanted to address the forum as to not let speculation get to out of hand. I am actually amazed that anyone is concerned about me leaving Chicago Tattoo and the amount of support and well wishes i have received is very humbling. I want to thank everyone for reaching out. I spent ALOT of time at CTC ALOT! from the first time I walked in at 15 with Erik Gillespie and was promptly told to leave to the last 18years (almost half my life) I have been in awe of that place. In awe of the history, the stories, the people, the friends, the tattooing, the flash, the neighborhood. Everything was just amazing to me. I always wanted to be there. Always. I treated it as my own and most people didn't even think otherwise. I have met some of my dearest fiends through there and through tattooing and I owe a lot of gratitude to the institution that I believe I helped build and to the owner Dale Grande. Like all people my needs started to change, my family started to grow and my career really started to get in a great groove. It seemed like the hardwork I had put it was paying off but there where issues that needed to be addressed at the shop that couldn't be resolved. I've sat on this decision for quite some time actually over a couple years. I've done a lot of soul searching and confided in my closest colleagues and friends and especially my wife on what to do and I came to the decision to leave Chicago Tattoo. I wanted to move on still in love with tattooing still in awe of the history and still amazed at 18 years of amazing times some great some not so great. I have a lot of things in the works. Nothing to crazy or unexpected but I can say that I will continue to stay to true to tattooing and what got me to where I am without tattooing I couldn't say where I'd be.

White ghost tiger using only black light ink?

I've posted it before but it may as well go in here too! my skull/snake off Valerie

It can be your orange phase! Or just get a blue tiger. Funny, just got a little dragon head yesterday and we stayed away from greens and reds just because it was bookended by two tattoos with a bunch of greens and reds.. used muted blues, purples and yellow. Came out awesome. - - - Updated - - - Just see what Mr. Hundahl says, I'm sure his take will be better than ours.

Your Mom is HILARIOUS!! :D My daughter was in town a couple weeks ago and we went out to lunch together. I showed her all my new tattoos and she made a comment to the effect of "it's a bad idea for young people to get a bunch of tattoos, but someone as old as you can get as many as you want because you won't live long enough to regret it". So funny!

Check out those artists I mentioned. A good artist can take your ideas and usually come up with something pretty rad. Also, according to @Graeme, never, ever, EVER, google "juggalo flash." it means two different things to tattoo heads and well, the others.

Calling a tattoo on your shoulder a half-sleeve...

tomorrow my youngest turns 1 (!!!) and i just quit my job. good times.

@Reyeslv and @ironchef - Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu... thats all I have to say at this point in time as I can no longer string together a coherent sentence after witnessing the awesomeness of your backs. 3 Months and counting to start mine.

Here is the latest on my backpiece from @stewartrobson Did 5 hours on Saturday and 4 hours on Sunday. Actually tapped out on Sunday, it was a long week of good eating and drinking and it caught up to me. It's 47 hours of total work so far and it will hopefully be completed in October. Pic is from Stewart's IG. Photo by stewartrobson • Instagram

In progress... Finished. Half skull half samurai mask.

I hate all of you. Hate hate hate hate hate hate. These tattoos are too good.

Giant infinity symbol with the word tiger in it. But symmetrical.

I doubt that you will be rushed. Dreyfus, the shop guy, that booked you in is really good at his job. He was very helpful when I got tattooed by Steve about a month ago. I was only in Austin for four days with limited time to get tattooed, and he worked it out for me. Also I got tattooed by Tony when he was visiting Seattle, and he is pretty fast. They are all very professional. I am sure you will get what you want as long as your expectations are within reason. Which I am sure they are.

You need ten posts to start a thread and it's for this very reason. "Initiation" threads don't get buried here like a lot of other forums so use this thread to post away with questions, pictures, etc. We try to contain new users who just have one or two questions from upping their post count quickly simply in order to start a new thread, get their questions answered, and then leave. This way, we keep everything in the welcome thread nice and neat. Most of our LST users are long-time contributors to the site and are more than happy to try and answer questions and help out.

Kurt Wiscombe

Triple post. Ban me bitches.

So was there a plan for the other 3/4 of the half sleeve? Or you just kind of winging it?

The guy in the pic is Nottingham tattooer Wilf Hardy , he held the most tattooed man record in the Guinness Book of Records in the mid 70's overtaking previous record holder George Bone .

Turns out about an inch away from your testicles is fairly brutal.. yowch.

Hi all. I'm Julie Clarke and have been tattooing 15 years, six of those been running my own studio with my partner Kai, Flaming Gun Tattoo studio (:::Flaming Gun Tattoo Studio:::) Based in Colchester England. Looking forward to some interesting discussions and meeting new people. Thanks Julie. X

I like my pinups chubby. Here's a nice one from Ashley Love: And a weird one from The Gus:

Quick update of more work from Rubendall on my collaboration backpiece. His attention to detail is fantastic and looking at his water makes me sea sick! More to come before I take a break over the summer. Hope to see Henning soon to continue the upper portion of the backpiece. Enjoy the pics folks. FYI, there's some work that's still healing and of course new work. Will have fully healed pics in a couple of months.

Matt Arriola , Liberty Tattoo

So I was back in Chicago in January and we went to visit my wife's 92 year old grandfather. I always wear long sleeves around him, out of my mother in laws wishes, and it was Chicago in January so it was kind of chilly anyway. I was sitting their with my son and grandpa, and he looked at me and said "What? You're not going to show me your tattoos?" I was taken off guard and couldn't come up with a quick comeback before he said "You want to see mine" I said sure, but he said he didn't feel like taking off his pants. I know he was kidding about having a tattoo, but had to let me know he knew.

...you get stressed thinking about what you will do when you have no empty space for new tattoos even though you still currently have plenty of space.

based of the bolded words you should get: pattern = mandala sweatheart = heart or rose stab = dagger boyfriend = japanese penis monster (aka a poorly drawn koi fish)

Got a one way train ticket to Cologne, Germany for this friday morning. From there I will start my backpacking/hitchhiking adventure through Europe. I'm currently looking for a couchsurf location for the first day. These past 2-2,5ish months of preparation went by so insanely fast, can't believe that in 2 days I will be living out of a backpack. It's absolutely terrifying, but I couldn't be more excited for something. Next time I'll post something on LST, it will be from the road. Life of a drifter in Europe for updates on my travels @ThaliaCamille how is the carpe diem life going for you so far? Have you been able to find other work yet?

My two-headed raven ! inner bicep Zafera Kambouris. Ashland, MA

@jacobyoung I think I saw Matt working on that off and on... a friend of mine was getting a rose on his hand by Albrigo, so I spent some time hovering that general vicinity. Also, I got this at the same convention, from Ron Henry Wells. Photo from his Instagram...

My Mom hasn't seen my legs since I just had the one on my calf. My baby sister's graduation is coming up in May and I'm planning on "surprising" the family when I show up in a dress. I'm curious how my Mom will react.

Where are all the awesome Mermaid tattoos?! Such a classic sailor design I love seeing. Here's mine....kinda. It's a spin on the Capricorn, but you get what I mean. Hillary Fisher-White is awesome.

Here's one of mine I did recently to go with skulls thread.. Sent from my GT-P5110 using Tapatalk HD

Judas as a saint-tattoo on my thigh tomorrow, by Iain Mullen. Going to be fun!

Color and shading last night! Another 3 hours, but I think it was totally worth it. A little more orangey than I was expecting, but I'm guessing that will calm down a little as it heals. Either way, I love it. The shading really gave the image depth and made those leaves and cones pop off my skin. The second pic is the day after (this morning) right after washing and Aquaphor. -Joe

Appointment is booked for April 11th because the artist is booked til then the artwork he showed me is easily 10x better than what I had showed him it looks like a more traditional piece of Japanese art. I did not want to take a picture of it because I wasn't sure if that was a bad idea or not. I am SO STOKED though :D

Shins are easier than back of leg, IMO, until you get close to knee cap, but more weird sensation than pain. I still think the tattoo that hurts the most is the one your are getting at the time or about to get.

pretty funny but they have no tattoos....looks strange to me...

So glad other people quote Home Alone other than me and my wife.

dude, good luck. i've failed so many times before. now i do not smoke cigarettes anymore. i'm so proud of myself! started when i was 12...quit for real last year when i turned 30... just do it!

I'm an apprentice... I started to learn from Richard in 2002, then we all got a long so much I bought his partner Stace out of his partnership, which was Skin & Bones, a completely different business in the same building... As a business minded person I had to set down the apprenticeship, and focus on the piercing business, but knew I would get to be around and maybe get to have time enough to pick up a few things... It never happened, we maintained a partner relationship from then on... In 2009, we were reunited somewhat... after about 6 months, I was his apprentice again, and still am... What I have gathered from my 13 plus years in the body art profession is this, Tattooers or some of them, are a lot like teenage couples that don't think about the big picture, they get all hot and heavy and forget to take that pill or wear a condom, and oops a baby is born, and they themselves are still children... Babies having Babies is not an ideal situation in population or profession control.... Especially if you care about people and people getting good work. And Richard has always ALWAYS said... Taking an apprentice is like getting married and someone taking your last name as theirs.... And there is no divorce, that's forever. Hence even too risky for him to teach or just trust even a friend to tattoo... They are bound to you for the rest of their career, and you want to teach good tattooing, and it's hard to teach something that we should constantly be learning about... especially if you love it.

Where the hell has this thread been, anyway . . . Nate Beavers

Happy days, today I fly to Singapore then to the Philippines for a month to get barrelled at cloud 9! My good mate is at 33 secs and the 103 sec mark in the video got a perfect 10 points for it as well! Be safe talk in a month.

Owen Jensen flash that Josh Stephens made on my arm this past year. not a "head" but it's a gorilla haha

I wish this style didn't have a name. As soon as a style is given a name, it seems to give others the impression they can do it too. The reason I don't do this stuff is because I like Hooper, Jondix and Albrigo as people and friends. They each seem to take direct influence from each other while still retaining some individuality and nuances of design and layout that make it possible to identify which one of them did it. The same goes for Binnie, Xed, Tomas Tomas, Mike from Athens and Curly. I love the work of each of those guys. I can't say the same for anyone else doing these styles. It seems to be a "Me too" attitude. They let the first few guys take all the risks and learn what works and find select clients who want to trust in something new. Then they make technically clean but hollow facsimile of something that was interesting. Maybe thats a bit strong coming from someone who doesn't have a style of his own, but I try to work in existing, classic tattoo styles and sometimes have a little fun with them. The reason I don't do this pattern/skull/mandala/pointilist stuff is the same reason I don't do Biomech, Pacheco painterly colour or straight-up cholo tattoos: They are styles that were developed by people with a specific set of interests and inspirations that managed to filter them into a style of design and execution. Also those pioneers are still alive and working. Maybe I've opened a nasty can of worms... How soon is 'too soon' so imitate an iconic style? Do we have to wait for the pioneers to die before crotchety fucks stop complaining? To be honest, I'm not interested in the answer. I just notice that every week the internet spits out a new guy who sticks a skull over or under a doily and it's held in the same regard as work by Mike, Jondix and Hooper. The same as we distinguish between Aaron Cain or Guy Aitchison Biomech, we shouldn't try to coin new phrases and just refer to Thomas Hooper, Jondix or Tomas Tomas Blackwork, dotwork or whatever. Use the name of the guys that made it what it is. We at least owe them that if we're gonna encourage other people to try it and get it tattooed from the rest of the pack. note: I'm certainly not anti-new styles and I'd like to say that I'm eagerly awaiting the second generation of artists influenced by these guys who take it somewhere new, now that there's a body of work by a group of artists. That could be exciting!

Is it anything like pulling a nipple hair out? I think I got this..

i don't have a pic of my skull that cris cleen did but it's up on his blog. skull/butterfly morph... this one done by a local guy is freekin rad.

My vader skull so far

My first one done when I was 15 years old Not bad for a 40 year old tattoo My latest two weeks ago