Leaderboard

Last night......I was tattooed again......go figure right? Only this time it was by me.....my first tattoo as an apprentice! No pics unfortunately.......but it's in there to stay and I am on my way........

I find based on questions I get asked a lot from "plainskins" is that people who aren't big tattoo-heads think they have to justify getting tattoos by giving them personal meaning. A quote or a small image is easy to be meaningful. A badass battle royale tattoo probably has no meaning. It's just badass. People can't make that kind of commitment without a personal connection. Just like some people can't have one night stands. (This is just my opinion based on the dumb people I know who get lame tattoos).

Thank you!!! I really do appreciate that! :) - - - Updated - - - I did.....I pre-tipped her......I bought her a liner made by John Black so she could do the tattoo! ;)

Yesterday 15-05-2013 I got my right fore-arm inked, with the classic Death Before Dishonor. By Robert Aalbers' @ Clean Solid Tattoo, Waalwijk, The Netherlands.

Terrible cell phone picture, a little red n bloody, but you get the idea. Yesterday was a blast -- ran into @Perez and an hour or so later got one knee webbed. Hopefully we can knock out the other one next week or soon.. Thanks again dude, you're the best.

Well...thats the first intro I have seen that could double as the start to some erotic fiction. Nicely done sir.

Doug Hardy was here the other day and told us about being in a bar talking to a guy who struck up a conversation with him about his tattoos. At one point the guy said, completely seriously. "Y'know I always wanted to get a tattoo, but I never knew anyone that died." Thanks TV.

You are assuming that everyone out there has a creative mind and/or appreciates art. It ain't so.

I very much agree with HaydenRose - people seem to get genuinely offended when, after asking me for the "meaning" of my tattoo and why I got it, I reply that I just thought it would look good, and I wanted to get it. Sorry to disappoint you, but my cat didn't even get cancer or anything. Miami ink mindset.

I was skimming the activity stream and read "How big is your ass?" LOL!!! What a weird question (for a tattoo forum)!!!

I love you.

I hope you tipped the artist :P

Greetings all... I am a soon to be apprentice based out of Oklahoma (actually moving to OKC for my apprenticeship). I have worked as a digital artist for years now 38 , and finally am pursuing my desire to be a tattoo artist in the future.. married two kids and full support from my ink loving wife.... Forum seems like a wealth of knowledge and respect for tattoo heritage of which I fully believe in as I come from a trade background. Hope to make many new friends and fewer enemies through leaving the corporate world... anyhow that's about the sum of it...

Your cats are assholes though haha! Awesome thing i have been doing? Hitchiked to my hometown in the Netherlands yesterday with my girlfriend. We made it in 15 hours. First time in 2 months since I've been home. Feels good to be back. We will be here for about 2 weeks and next month we will pay @Johannes a visit again. Hanging out with him will guarantee the best of times!

At last my koi with Japanese maple sleeve is finished and pretty much fully heeled. The work was done by Mo Coppoletta from the Family Business in London, done in seven sessions between December and May. Pictures also posted on the May tattoo contest thread elsewhere on this forum.

Ok, I'll play, though it is a tough month on this thread once again with lots of superb entries already. My sleeve has recently been finished and has nearly healed, the work was done by Mo Copoletta at The Family Business in London, it took seven three hour sessions which between December and May. I have already posted a few in progress shots but this is the finished product.

We can show before and after photos, talk about how it's done but I think for anyone who's considering getting a tattoo removed via laser should also probably watch a properly done treatment. YouTube is full of blisters, scabs, scars, bloody messes and all kinds of gross things. It's a shame Google Image Search is also full of the nasty tidbits. I'm sharing this video (and more in the future) not as a promotion of my business but as an informal education to the process, to help answer questions and to be the one who can answer them with my first hand experience both receiving treatments and doing them for clients. This client has several tattoos he wants lightened, all to be covered later. The white frosting you see is water in the skin being vaporized from the heat of the laser (condensed beam of light), it typically will fade within 5-10 minutes post treatment and the tattoo may even look darker for up to two days following treatment. He's agreed to let me record a bunch of his treatments so as he comes in I hope to expand both my creativeness with editing but also loop together one larger, longer video.

In that case its full backpiece time! Chad Koeplinger! Something massive, with skulls!

Well then what is it about people these days that they walk around with so many sob stories that they absolutely have to put on their bodies with typewriter font? I mean, my cats and dogs have all died, my grandparents all died, and in my 20s I walked around with dysthymia like nobody's business but I never once wanted to tattoo a word on myself about it. I went to meetings instead.

Go, Bunny, go! One of the only people on here I can happily support with this. Stoked for you!

Tranquilo, tranquilo.. Posts from new members need to be be approved by mods and there's not always a mod online to approve 'em.

I found this photo online of Hori Chiyo from the collection of the Nagasaki University Library

I have no upcoming tattoos and i feel this must be rectified as swiftly as possible.

I saw this today and didn't see a previous posting of it. Pretty interesting images. Cedric Arnold:

No Problem !!

so your saying you want to have more one night stands as a memorial to your dead pets?

I find it worst when its a tattoo representing the very recent and very painful death of a loved one (like a young son or daughter), if it helps them deal with the pain, then that's great, but at the same time for the rest of your life you have a constant visual reminder of your absolute worst moment, that people will ask you about and bring up time and time again...

Cool, I so want a spider wed on my knee

Stuff. Let's just say they did stuff.

thanks for posting a nice little video. on the topic of nasty internet information and blisters.... I've seen some pretty nasty blisters and had a few myself... I noticed as the treatments got more aggressive I did get more blisters, but nothing unmanageable. Would you say treatments should be almost blister free? Or does it just depend on how aggressive you want to get?

@else I'm all about the booty...

I would think you have some valuable business and personal conduct skills coming from another skilled trade. Good luck in the future and welcome to LST.

YES!!!! haha i like cats...

Welcome! I recently saw Jake Miller from Cathedral Tattoo in SLC tattooing at the Rochester convention and he's making some real good tattoos so look into him. That shop gets a lot of good guest artists passing through too.

@Badtaste & @Chelsea Shonek, I love both of your work! This is where the term "hipster" gets confusing for me. I used to think of a hipster as just a hip person...a cool person, creative, artistic, musical, whatever. The term has definitely taken a turn and these days it seems to mean: a douchebag. Anyway, the people you guys tattoo seem pretty cool to me. They get good tattoos.

Awesome, good luck with your future.

I agree with @Badtaste ... I would much rather tattoo some of these hipster tattoos than silhouetted birds, infinity symbols and lots of other Pinterest specials :) dinosaurs on unicycles, owls, and animals dressed as people? Yes please ^_^ while they may be trendy, they're still infinitely better than rib paragraphs and tribal armbands :)

Thanks ^_^ I figure now that the green card shit is more or less done with and I have time I should start being a forum lurker again haha.

Figure as it's up on Xam's Instagram I'd throw this progress shot here too. Colour in a couple of weeks, got all the black done in basically a couple of hours earlier today at The Family Business in London. Man has that shop changed since I was last in a couple of years ago, it's at least doubled in size with a new brighter, modern feeling area built out into the next door shop. Tons of artists there as well now. Photo by xamthespaniard • Instagram

I am in an awesome relationship right now, my girl has a few tattoos and she's really been good for me compared to some others I've been with in the past. I was a plainskin but she always saw me on instagram checking out tattoos and browsing this great website we've got here. About a month ago she asked what I wanted for my birthday, I couldn't really think of anything so I said nothing, and she brought up a tattoo! That's too much, I said, we'll split it. Anyways I ended up with pretty much the best present ever and I'm super stoked to have an awesome girlfriend and a sick tattoo. </end sappy story>

Just had my Medusa done by Stu Pagdin at Progression Tattoo Adelaide. Unfortunately we ran out of time to finish the rest of the coloring but I'm pretty stoked with it! Will be finished on the 28th.

Phantom of the opera done by Fat from Spain (Iker Ruiz)

This may be the greatest story ever told.

Got this from Valerie yesterday! Got it as a walk in, i had only gone in on the of chance somebody had space, Right place, Right time I suppose!

Peony from Nathan Kostechko at Will Rise in LA. Based on a design from an Ichibay book (I think this one if anyone is interested, looked awesome). To be honest, though, I hope that El Monga cat wins...that thing is insane!

Not sure if this should be posted in snakes, snakes, snakes - or skulls, skulls, skulls. Oh well, I can remedy that . . . William Yoneyama

Tebori by Nakamura Toshikazu - http://shisei2011.web.fc2.com/index.html

Hey Mask0311, First off, I would love to see everybody sportin great tattoos wherever I go but unfortunately there are fewer people out there "keepin it real" and if I go to WalMart I can see a store full of bad tattoos these days. As far as this guy "blowin you off", it's an old game, as old as it gets with "runnin' the scam", some will spot you and size you up to start something at a high price that they never intend to finish when they have a string of butterflies they can knock out and make more on when you may have already paid in advance, basically you will get shuffled to the rear like you got treated at the 9pm bell. NYC went crazy with those scams when it opened tattooing back up and on this subject I could go on and on. As far as the tooth hurting thing, RUN!!! should have been your instinct and this leads me to tell you that there are tattooers out there who relish a challenge of turning bad tattoos into good ones, so don't worry about having someone else drive over the mess you have started. As far as your expecting better treatment/respect for being home from the military, your absolutely right, the military has always been our staple in tattooing and when everybody's home and the wars are all over we will miss that amount of biz and it goes from steak to pork chops for us tattooers and this is not to mention that there are those of us out here that understand your service to Uncle Sam. So, as far as "keeping it real" and to prove that not all of us are like this disgrace to our trade I will fix and finish your dragon at no charge with the stipulation that you provide the steaks that I will personally grill for you at my country home where I have a rifle range that I will provide 500 rounds of ammunition for you to shoot through my legally owned and registered machineguns after we are finished with the tattooing, on this deal you have my word. Your only hitch is to make it by land sea or air to Illinois and provide the bovine. It can be fixed and finished and picture posted to this thread should you come through on your end of this bargain and I mean all of this most sincerely. I can't do this for every person that's received your treatment or I would work myself into the poorhouse but this is my offer to you. Thanks for your service and I apologize for the hack who misrepresented our trade and culture and I hope to hear from you. Sincerely, -Hawk- of Hawks Tattoo's