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Yeah I hate helpful people, too..

We've updated the LST Store system and added a new product type: downloadable eBooks. First up is Scott Sylvia's Rose Design Book - check it out: http://www.lastsparrowtattoo.com/store/ We hope to add more eBooks from other great tattoo artists soon. We'll be tuning up the store and making it better over time, but let us know if you run into any snags in using it. Thanks for your support as always.

"We would appreciate it if you did not rock out with your cock out while on school property."

I'll be working the show with Frank William.

I guess I've been living in the country too long... I was thinking "what's wrong with rooster tattoos? Lots of people have them!"

Healing up nicely! Peony sleeve by Kurt Wiscombe, Skull sleeve (in progress) by Kore Flatmo!

I like the way you think! That's a damn good idea. Anything she wants, how could she turn that down?!

@Our Endless Days forgot you were in Rochester. Dated a girl that was from there once. Ended terribly but kinda dug the town! (I have nothing to add to this thread..)

Nope.

I have been watching the work of Alexander Grim of St. Petersburg, Russia. Not sure what his availability is but his work is remarkable. Here's a link to his IG http://web.stagram.com/n/alexandergrim/?npk=134049836_5397190

Better yet... Get your lovers name tattooed across your face in 5" letters. That one always sends a nice message.

this is would fit better in a "Latest Tattoo Shop Visit...." because I just checked things out and didn't get tattooed... My girlfriend and I drove up to Portsmouth, NH to get lunch at Portsmouth Brewery and after lunch we walked around the corner to check out Congress St Tattoo. The shop is covered floor to ceiling with flash, and almost all of it is hand painted by artists at the shop or friends of the shop. Spent about 20 minutes looking at the flash and Spencer Scott (shop apprentice I think?) pointed out a few of the cooler ones including a Jason Scott/Greg Christian split sheet. I asked if Greg ever made any guest appearances there and was told "We are trying but it is New Hampshire so...." Overall it looked like a great shop and I plan to return to get work done by Jason Scott @Grim Ginger, Ron Henry Wells @The Hyena, and hopefully @chad koeplinger

After reading that post a few times I think I understand it and to answer your question You need to get a huge ass crawling panther or a ROA.

Details of two sheets I painted due to how stoked I was on Pure Love's record Anthems. There's a design for each track... I'll post them in full if I can remember to get better photos of them in their entirety.

I LOVE this city!!! There is art everywhere! Lots of tattoos! Eye candy to the max! It is also sunny and I've been deep in the dark days of the Seattle winter and early spring, so maybe my sudden and intense (though hardly new) love for this place is influenced by the sun and warm(er) weather... Getting some work done at a coffee shop before a tattoo afternoon...today is a good day! <3 SF and you crazy people who live here. :)

Off to PDX tomorrow to get more work on my back from Jason Kundell. He is also going to start my wife's back piece. Then in June I start my front side with Horitomo. Excited and dreading that one...

there are seriously so many awesome tattooers that are gonna be there, that i don't know who the hell else to get tattooed by, @mario desa you included. - - - Updated - - - do it do it

Frith Street Tattoo | Rihanna Tattooed by Valerie at Frith Street @Valerie Vargas Can you share some of the story behind this? I'm curious because most of her other tattoos are text or google image clip art type stuff. Did she specifically seek you out or did she just get lucky by walking into Frith Street?

You can't call it a "trouser snake" anymore...I'm trying to come up with an appropriate name for a dick on your forearm. Surprisingly, i got nadda.

Another one I finished last night for a trade with @nofireinmylungs on instagram. I feel a bit happier with the colours on this one. I am trying to put together a flash set of around 6 sheets if anyone would be interested in prints just let me know. Thanks for looking!

I got "Country Boy" across my back....please don't laugh yourself out of your chair. If it's any bit of redemption, it is now covered by a Kore Flatmo full backpiece.

Sure am glad I didn't waste any money buying up FRKN SKIDLOADS of ammo back before the first selection of O,Bummer!

7th session. 7 hours of snake scales

I chose my first tattoo a long time ago I just never knew how to make it work on my body, my first tattoo was finally done last month(February 2013). My grandfather was in the Navy. He had tattoos all over his arms, dancing ladies, navy patches, and hinges. He also had bugs bunny on his stomach that said "What's up Doc?" at his crotch. He had a pig on one foot and a rooster on the other and the reasoning behind it was that you wouldn't drown if you had them. I loved his hinges the most. Being that I'm a gal I didn't want big ol' metal plates on my arm. So I modernized it a bit and did an olive hinge with scroll work in place of the metal plates. I keep telling myself that I should be saying it's too big and it's too dark but I love it and I don't think either of those things. It's like my grandfather is right here with me and I get glimpses of him every time I see it. He passed away suddenly 30 years ago and this tattoo is an honor to finally wear in his memory all of these years later. I love you Glenn Wayne Dalton.

@hogg Hyphy? http://youtu.be/vlkF1zHAB7k

First of all, you should have read the newbie guide: Last Sparrow Tattoo - Newbie Guidelines Do not go posting a bunch of meaningless posts just to hit your 10 post requirement! If you want to ask a question right away - just post it in your intro thread. Your first ten posts consisted solely of "Welcome" and "LMAO".... You could just as easily have posted this in an introduction thread. Second of all, why are you asking us for opinions when it seems as you've already made up your mind?

If your the type of person who feels that they are not getting enough attention from people, and are not comfortable unless your impressing everyone, and are thinking of maybe getting a tattoo that will gather crowds, may I suggest a full shirt of "Where's Waldo." I guarantee you'll be an eyeball magnet. And if you want your 'new friends' to hang around a bit longer, don't include Waldo anywhere in the piece. Just keep saying "He's there, you just gotta look."

Always the case. I saw this and lol'd. WHAT A REBEL. SO SEXY.

{ Miles Maniaci }

That's pretty! :)

Im going to second Duncan X. Incredible work.

Andrew Stortz, done at Congress St in Portsmouth, NH Took this photo from his instagram :D

My simple answer is no, I would not get a "realistic" tattoo. Not because I don't appreciate the art and what it's doing for the tattoo industry. It's more because realistic tattoos have stopped looking like tattoos, and to me, look like temporary body paint. The whole culture of tattoos and the evolution of designs is what I love about getting tattooed--being a part of that. These realistic tattoos are such a severe deviation from what tattoos have been and have become. This doesn't mean it's not something to be admired or respected. However, realistic looking tattoos have allowed consumers that never would have gotten tattooed to find something that they like. In some ways, it feels like its only creating this other tattoo culture where everyone in the world has at least one tattoo, but doesn't know what it means to be tattooed. They don't take on the burden of setting themselves apart and defining their own subculture. All because they don't want a tattoo that looks like a tattoo. They want something that looks like a photoshopped nature photograph on their ribs. Now I'm just getting biased and cold.... But I hope someone understand what's I'm saying. As for the tattoos lasting, I don't think any tattoo truly "lasts". I'm not expert as I don't have many and I'm not that old. I do have a almost 6 year old solid black outline which looks the same as the day I've got it done. But that's because I took care of it, SPF 50 always. If you take care of it, it will probably look better than some one who didn't.

First session with Jessie Tseronis from Sakura Tattoos in Winchester, VA. We were going to do a Kapala Skull but when I showed up he suggested this. I'm a "go with the flow" guy and I'm glad I did.

My wife and I are headed to San Francisco in June! Super pumped. It won't be the first time i've been there but the first time I will get to stay a week, and the first time I'm getting tattooed. It can't come soon enough!

Mine has a lot of outline work and I can't believe he got all of it on me in 3hrs and 40 mins. It was rough to get through, but there was no way I was gonna puss out on it. It's all done now, touchups and all (reminds me, I need to get a good , healed pic of my back, without florescent lights glaring off of Vaseline) I'm so happy to have it and that I get to keep it till I'm worm dirt. I never thought I couldn't finish it, but I'm glad I never have to put myself through that again. I'm a bit obsessive about getting large multi-session tattoos finished in the order I started them.

I hate e-mails (and probably typing in a forum haha) I always feel like an asshole or something, I'm pretty sarcastic in real life and typically cuss like a sailor (my moms fault) and when I type something I always feel like a tool.. idk why. but anyway I just got tattooed at CTC and the dude on the phone was super helpful and when I e-mailed Nick about the tattoo he was super cool and helpful. When I got tattooed there my wife, her sister, and my good friend were with me (sightseeing Chi town) they wanted to come in and see the place and were going to grab a beer while I was getting tattooed. Without even asking him Nick right away said "bring your wife back we can get her a chair" They had left for the bar already but I thought was cool and nobody seemed to give a shit about it, even on a super busy Saturday.

I've taken on an apprentice. I'm 12 years in and do not feel like I could've or should've taught anybody before this. First, a little shop background I work in an small isolated area that is expensive and inconvenient. You can't drive in or out and while we have some of the modern conveniences, like costco, we do not have a lot of things, like art supply stores or fast food restaurants. I bought the shop almost two years ago from the original owner, who moved back south. I did not ever expect to take on an apprentice. I also did not think I'd work alone for a year and half straight. I thought I'd make the shop the best I can and some one would slip right in to that glass slipper and it'd be sweet. Well, nobody did. A few artists expressed interest, but costs, inconvenience and ever gloomy weather killed the deal every time. Sometimes the tattooer would be pumped, but their significant other couldn't hang with living a borderline "village" lifestyle. So I worked alone for a while. I wanted the best for the shop, so I didn't turn down anything and worked myself silly. I got a sweet eye twitch out of that that has finally went away unless I'm really tired. So after talking to enough artists about why they couldn't make the move, I started to realize that I may have to grow my own. I took on one of our shop's regulars as counter help. How do you get to work at a tattoo shop? I wasn't looking to hire a friend as I've seen that go bad, so I hired someone that I had built a professional relationship with already, because they were always at the shop getting tattooed. Once I saw that he was doing a good job and began to notice that his other plans (school, etc) starting to fall to shit, I realized that I may be able cultivate a mutually beneficial apprenticeship. It wasn't that I didn't want to mop, or I wanted my ego stroked or I wanted to try and get an extra $15,000. We talked a lot about his future and future plans before we entered in to this and if fulfilled, he will contribute back into the shop for several years as his obligation for having a place to learn and a person to learn from. It was understood that he would not be tattooing for quite a while, it would be the slow road and that he's going to have to learn a lot of things that are other people don't, like needles, mixing pigment, painting flash, taking apart machines, making footswitches and all the other stuff folks with real deal apprenticeships learn. I'm trying to give him a combination of the apprenticeship I had and the apprenticeship I wanted. So far, I'm pretty proud of the little fucker. He filled a sketchbook of traditional designs cover to cover ( most tattooers I know haven't done that), put a machine together, rewired a footswitch, made needles and we've done an oversized split sheet on coquille. He studies a lot. He looks at good stuff. And while we have a pretty good generational gap, I'd like to think we've become friends. Being busy, isolated and working by myself made me feel like I was a little stagnant. He's into it and younger, so he looks at both my influences and shows me the stuff he's into. So it's not out of the question for him to introduce stuff to me, even at this point. When you have to teach, it makes you step back and present things to somebody else. That step can often make you put thought towards something that had previously become automatic. So, in that respect, I get charged up on shit again. That's the new blood factor. Overall, I hired a regular who was already familiar. Not a friend who will break my heart if things didn't work out right away. And I do feel as though there is a need for entry level tattooing at the shop here. That can free me up a little to do the best I can on the bigger projects for now. There is another factor that I don't know if it has been addressed directly (richard's quotes were closest) but yeah, it takes time and a lot of effort to teach somebody right. I'm invested in this shit now. I have a one year old baby and a wife, and I'm sneaking out in the middle of the night to teach him how to make liners at 3am on a friday night. Why would I ever do that for a stranger? I don't know if I could even hang in the same room with the person,let alone have to teach them all these pain in the ass aspects about tattooing in the middle of the night. Also, If I still tattooed down south, I would never take on an apprentice. There was just never a need. ps- I also asked the people who taught me if it was ok for me to teach someone. They looked at me like they had nothing to do with the decision and granted me permission, but the fact it, if those important people to me said no, I wouldn't have an apprenntice right now

I did what I call "The Reverse Lebowski": a bathrobe worn backward. Just untie it and brace yourself.

the legs definitely aren't pin pricks. the knee ditch sucks.

All will be forgiven when you get a good tattoo.

It's a message board, not a Minor Threat show.

Courteousness is key. It shouldn't matter who you are, how many tattoos you have, what you're getting, etc., you should be treated with courtesy. There are so many great tattoo artists out there that I can't be bothered by getting tattooed by someone who is rude or is a dick. It's also bad business sense. A couple of years ago my wife @Pugilist emailed a very good local tattoo artist about getting a tattoo (for what it's worth, it wasn't the easiest tattoo request) but instead of just saying that he wasn't interested in doing it, he sent a really assholey reply...though, curiously enough, he didn't actually say he didn't want to do it. It was probably good in the long run that he did that because that got her looking into travelling for tattoos, which led her to Stephanie Tamez at Saved who is completely amazing both as a tattooer and as a human being, and who is now doing a full back piece on her. There's a few thousand dollars that the first guy potentially deprived himself of. Obviously, that courteousness goes both ways. To me, that means appreciating the fact that tattooers are often busy and might not respond to my emails as quickly as I'd ideally like, that appointments often run late, that when they suggest something it's often to make a better tattoo, and so on and so forth.

That's why I'm glad I only got two.