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Bob Roberts panther tattooed by Hiro at Spotlight Tattoo. His photo.

By Phil Hatchet Yau at Master Tattoo in San Diego, CA. What a rad dude to get tattooed by. I met Drew Linden there too, she's super chill! I thought Phil switched to a rotary at one point, but he was using lidocaine instead (which was awesome). I've met only one other tattooer that uses Bactine during tattoo sessions.

This is getting into a lot of things... meaning vs. no meaning (personally I don't care either way but sometimes when people insist on the meanings of their tattoos it does sound cheesy to me), content (too much lettering & bird silhouette explosions vs. battle royales or skulls)... whether people like their tattoos or not being all that matter... But a bad tattoo is a bad tattoo and everybody knows it. Look at the "worst tattoo ever" thread or whatever it's called. Shaky lines, blow outs, bad proportions...those are bad tattoos. I think it's kind of pointless to make fun of the subject a person chooses to get. But, take music--put two people next to each other, one who is tone deaf and can't sing and one who can belt it out from the soul... nobody would say the two are equal. If someone wants to get a lot of text, whatever, that is up to them--I just hope they get it done by someone good. When I was getting my tiger worked on a couple weeks ago, Shawn Barber was next to us doing lettering down a guy's side. It was a LOT of lettering. He did a great job, the guy was stoked. Could I read it? I don't know, probably not, I don't think it was even in English, but in that case I do think all that matters is the guy got what he wanted. I don't think it would have been any cheaper than getting imagery though. Text tattoos seem to take just as much time and effort--they still require excellent line work. As for getting something because it's cheaper, I think that is just sad. It's your skin for crying out loud! Save up...pay as you go...it's worth it!

Jason Kelly at Live Free in Atlanta, GA. Nicest dudes. My girl got a sweet hour glass from Miguel O. Back of thigh is by far the worst tattoo pain I've felt. Goes right on to my ass cheek with the tongue, but Jason drew it straight on and was super fast and a true dude to the tradition of tattooing. Walked away with a cool tattoo, some prints from Miguel and a cool ass experience from all of them. Oh yea my appt got delayed because Myke chambers was getting tattooed by Jason. NBD Also, a drunk chick asked to watch me get tattooed so I said yes. She then proceeds to massage me and tries to cop a feel under my shorts all while getting tattooed. Thankfully Jason kicked her out. Fuxking weird

Last session on my left arm (#6) coming up this Friday. Bittersweet. :):(:confused:

Meaning is 100% a construct though... my knee tiger could represent "courage", or it could be about "my relationship with my mother", or whatever... it might be just that it's pretty frkn awesome to have a big ol' tiger on my knee... the meaning in it is what I want the meaning to be. I could get a tattoo of a hairy ballsack on my thigh and decide that it represents my love of music...

I did! Two semesters of the stuff, going on 20 years ago now though. Showing my own nerdiness, I was within 12 credit hours of a degree in Latin once upon a time... Honestly, I'm really glad that didn't work out and I ended up in Speech Pathology instead!!

I think Hipsters are the ones getting all the lettering and seem to require all their tattoos to be meaninful and quirky. I have a four word rule. My tattoos should have no more than four words ex Love Thy Neighbor, Sink or Swim, Heads I Win, Hardcore Roadwhore and you should be able to describe your tattoo in less than four words ex Panther, Rock of Ages, Kewpie, Rose, Skull and Dagger otherwise you put too much thought in to it.

I got this yesterday from Andrew Conner. The first image was bogarted from his Instagram.

We all know I'm just pretending to be tough, though I don't think I'm really fooling anyone.

I just had the worst heal of my life (which I think probably happened for various reasons not to do with the tattooer)--like today is more than two weeks since I got tattooed and it's the first day that the damn thing looks good again--and have therefore been whining to the mister a LOT lately, you know, the old "why do we do this to ourselves???" stuff. I thought that this can't be worth it. And yet today, looking at how damn cool the tattoo is, and it finally not making me miserable anymore, I started getting the itch again! Already! Messed up. Good thing I have a session on my back coming up in 3 weeks. PS @TrixieFaux - totally bittersweet! I am psyched to finish my back and see what the whole thing will look like, but bummed about the experience itself ending, as it's been pretty great. So I feel you! Enjoy it!

I will say that with regard to sleeve length that my left arm is tattooed down to my wrist bone and a properly-fitting long sleeved shirt does cover it, even when reaching. Career-wise, I have to work in short sleeves anyway so if visible tattoos are going to count against me, I've already burned that bridge, and it ultimately comes down to your comfort level with visible tattoos, but in normal circumstances full sleeves can be covered with not that much effort. When I was deciding about length I was thinking 3/4 to a couple of inches above my wrist bone for reasons of concealability, but I was also thinking of what I would do to extend the sleeves at a later date, so I went the full length.

3/4 is definitely the maximum length for me because I like being able to cover up and even with long sleeve shirts a full sleeve would peek out when I extend my arm. Saving full sleeves and hand tattoos for when I'm old and retired... - - - Updated - - - 100% agree on matching styles. It would bug me if the styles weren't similar and the work didn't flow together smoothly. I'm leaning towards returning to the original artist but have 1 or 2 other artist that I might inquire about their willingness to extend existing work.

If you have a half-sleeve, and now you want to bring it down to 3/4 then you will eventually want it down to a full-sleeve. Going from half to 3/4 doesn't give the tattooer much to work with. One of my first tattoos was a 3/4 sleeve, and within a year I wanted to bring it down to full, but it took me nearly eight years to do so. The guys at Redemption are awesome so getting good work won't be a problem for you.

I get tattooed in Williamsburg and from what I've seen on the people around there there's a lot of hipsters with a bunch of text on them, but there are also plenty of hipsters with some pretty damned amazing tattoos too. Bartenders with Hooper sleeves? Fuck yes. I know we all love to vilify hipsters but I'm not going to blame them for bad tattoos.

I'm just much more of a whore than you are, @Lance. And here's the little tattoo I got from Horimasa (at the State of Grace Convention in 2006). He lined it by machine, but shaded it tebori (by hand). Still looks great.

Ah, smart and beautiful...what a combo!

Totally Graeme, I hang it on Alberta St where all the hipsters have Dan Gilsdorf and Cheyenne Sawyer tattoos and drink craft beer. I think everyone in Portland is a hipster in some persons eyes.

My name is Jose Carranza ,I am a tattooer and I am a 100% hand made tattoo machine fabricator. I'm in pacific grove California and can be found on instagram and facebook under Carranza irons , I been in this fourm for little over a year but I guess I have to introduce myself again. Follow me here or on any social media networking or on my site at Carranzairons.com, thanks.

Mr. Flores, you are a huge asset to this community. Every one of your posts in this thread is real solid advice and commentary on tattoos and its culture. New people, listen to this guy! You can't get this insight anywhere else on the internet!

It really depends on the artist, some really do not like adding or continuing other peoples work, whereas others will give it a shot - it depends if what you already have fits the style of the new artist, and if they think it is done well, and will compliment their own work! If it is the koi sleeve you have in your folder then you shouldn't have a problem, it looks really nice, fingers crossed you find a great artist who works in that style who is willing to do it!

The way I got better tattoos was continually seeking out people that have more knowledge than me about tattoos, listen to what they say, pay attention to what they do and visit the people and the shops they talk about. People get bad tattoos because they don't do these things and they think they have it all figured out before they walk into a shop right down to how much the tattoo should cost. You don't have to be artistic or cool or even special to get a good tattoo, and having a good tattoo doesn't make you speical either (despite what your mom told you) you just have to be smart and humble enough to let the people who know what they are doing do their thing and be open to their ideas.

I don't like this complaining about price nonsense. Yes, large tattoos can be very expensive (though because you're not doing them in one shot you're stretching that cost out over months) but there are a lot of truly great, even world-class, tattooers who do amazing small tattoos that aren't going to break the bank. It's a matter of doing your research and finding those artists, and the great thing about tattooing right now is that there are SO MANY great tattooers out there, and making tattoos a priority in your life.

Always excited to see the internet working correctly. May as well share my LST success story, ha. I always wanted a tattoo, but all around me I always saw garbage, so I only had really dumb ideas for pieces I wanted done. I also spent all my money on drugs and booze so thankfully none of my bad ideas came to fruition. After I got sober I started thinking more seriously about it and during my research found LST and some blogs with quality work, I finally realized how awesome tattoos could be, versus the shit I see walking around town. Almost done healing my first piece, super excited to collect more!

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.

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

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.

Well...it might hurt a little...

I knew you people were my people. My undergrad was in Linguistics, and along the way I've learned French, Polish (ok this was actually my first language), Serbo-Croat, Spanish, Hebrew and Yiddish, but I've really all-but-forgotten the last three. I dabbled with dead languages in my undergrad but now wish I had pursued them more! I am jealous of your Russian knowledge, @hogg - I am still very bitter that it's my mom's first language, my grandmother was a freaking Russian professor, and I never spoke it growing up. If I were to take up another language, that would be it.

THREAD JACK! I'm a massive language nerd. Majored in Spanish, minored in Russian, and have studied French, German, Spanish, Swedish, Cantonese, Portuguese and Japanese along the way. I'm jealous that @else and @semele have studied Greek.

Um, I love language nerdiness that just went down in this thread. As a reformed linguist, I just needed to give props to @else and @semele on this one!

Thank you folks for the warm welcome and sorry about any misunderstanding. I frequent a few different forums and unfortunately abundant sarcasm is the norm. "No regerts", eh?

Having known people that disappeared in Egypt after brushing up against the local taboos, I wouldn't even think about this. Guess I'm a wuss, but in a country where a man can be legally tortured and killed for saying hello to a Woman, I just don't see any future in foreigners tattooing locals.

NOOOOOOOOO!!!!! Was not my intention bro! And there's nothing to jealous of dude! I was at the NYC Tattoo Convention this weekend and saw some stellar tattoos. Just wished I had more real estate to fulfill all my tattoo ideas!

The thing that blows me away the most is the fact that he's posing as if he looks cool. I think bare arms with hands tattooed and a covered neck looks ridiculous, personally.

starting a big tiger head on my lower belly tomorrow with antonio roque. not looking forward to the pain but it'll be nice to start filling my torso up a little more.. after that i'll only have both sides to fill in and i'm NOT looking forward to that at all..

Could not have said it better... I research daily on the history, styles, and trends. I am studying anatomy and traditional artwork along with drawing every day. I have landed an apprenticeship and plan on laying my equipment down until my mentor feels I am ready to practice on fake skin, grapefruits or pig skin. Reason being I do not want to develop further bad habits and I respect the heritage and the opportunity I have been given in my apprenticeship. I am a people person and a marketing minded person that looks forward to educating my clients about good and bad tattoos....

tattood by me (mike harris) at churchyard tattoo studio in hitchin, hertfordshire englad

In Atlanta GA. And got tattooed by Jason Kelly. Had to wait behind myke chambers to get finished first (no big deal). But I got a snake/skull combo on the back of my thigh and it fucking sucked. The tongue goes right onto my ass. I now see (a glimpse) into the pain of an ass tattoo. The guys at Live Free are stand up guys and was quite possibly the best experience at a tattoo shop I've had. Ill post a pic at the end of my vacation with more details. I do think ill be taking a tattoo hiatus after this considering I've gotten tattooed almost every month this year. And rents due so that's kinda important I guess.

My stock answer answer for plainskins is "I like looking at the pictures."

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. No you are

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.

Daryl's tattoos are killing it. That whole shop is rad these days. I need to get my act together and get tattoos from Josh Stephens and Mike Adams.

Alright, so I got my first tattoo. Marie Sena, Dedication Tattoo, Denver

In LA to get my back finished by Eddy Deutsche and got this wolf from him and a color portrait of my wife by Bob Roberts.

my fathers tattoos by Dennis Cockell in soho a dragon and a cobra! was lucky enough to get the same cobra from Dennis last year

...when the bar and burger joint next to the shop knows you as a regular and makes your usual before you sit down. Seriously it is getting ridiculous

!!!! We should commission Scott to make a sheet of flash with LST bangers!

I usually keep the wrap on until I get home/two hours after the tattoo is finished. Then frequent showers with dial and light A&D ointment. Whoever said "bacteria death trap" hit the nail on the head. Let your tattoo breath.