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Got this Rock of Ages from Joe Ellis while he was guesting at Lab Monkey Tattoo:

dude, get what you want, don't get what you think others will approve of. All this tattoo elitist bullshit popping up around here is not cool. Just because you've collected cool tattoos by good artists doesn't make you any better than the next guy.

Here is cell phone photo of my latest by Jeff Srsic at Redletter 1 in Tampa:

Well I finally get to post in here about getting a new tattoo, not just getting the same one worked on (damn it's almost been a year!!). Just signed up with Matt from Invisible to get a demon on my knee.

I like cake and unicorns.

My backpiece experience is scheduled to begin in February 2015. :D

I was planning a girl faun tattoo with panpipes on either shoulder/arm or inner calf but I've just found out I'm pregnant! Guess I'll be waiting a while before I can have any more done.

Here's the result of my 6 sessions with James Spencer Briggs at Memoir Tattoo in Los Angeles. He worked around and improved upon the nautical star with my daughter's name above it that was already there.

That's like trying to figure out if you want mustard or mayonnaise on your shit sandwich.

one i finished the other day

It's loosely based on an engraving from this series: The image itself is an alchemical illustration depicting the distillation of the lapis(or philosopher's stone). The annotations mention three types of distillery: cold, hot, and dry. This one is hot, describing the process as burning the lapis at a high temperature for a very long time. The series shows a homonculoid creature and fire within the bottle, and changes into a snake, which eventually eats its tail(ouroboros). It's all very metaphysical and dense, but very interesting to read about. I'll take some pictures of the book and the images I referenced when I get home if you'd like to see them.

Personally I like the "classic tattoos" aka very much repeated tattoos. I got a skull with a snake and dagger. The only time I find an image "played out" is when it wasn't a good image to begin with. Fuck it get what you want and give the finger to the people who rag on you. Sent from my SGH-T999 using Tapatalk 2

Done by Darcy Nutt while she was guesting at Providence Tattoo :)

yes, girls get tattoos of anything they want. It's not weird. Or if it's weird, who cares? Being normal isn't necessarily something to aspire to.

and the winner is...wait for it...TWO PEOPLE! @phickey with the the amazing lady head in a mirror by Xam(post #13) AND @phickey with the crazy dragon 3/4 sleeve by Henning Jorgensen(post #10) Congratulations!! Thanks everyone for your submissions. Keep 'em comin! Please PM @steve1461686340 with your shirt info (size and male or female) along with your address.

There's a whole section of this forum dedicated to tattoo designs, try looking in there. Go to a bookstore or library and look in art books. I know you didn't like people busting your balls about your tattoo, but getting good tattoos requires doing some work researching artists, looking at reference, learning about tattoos, art, and design and while this forum is a great resource and starting point, the onus is on you to do something with it. Nobody here is interested in holding your hand through the whole process.

hahahaha ohhh I never thought about trying to hobble around after doing the knees-I think we should video tape ourselves after having parts of the legs done and then laugh at each other. I made all kinds of silly noises after my feet, a lot of oooo and ho ho ho when I'd try to step. After our son was born I had surgery to fix my umbilical hernia so wasn't walking very well. Every time I'd try to walk around my husband would whistle this and say "the man in black fled across the desert and the gunslinger followed". We could get some good after tattoo videos w/sound effects based upon personal research haha.

@Eilin congrats, and to think you haven't even entered your Conn tattoo yet, that has to be a favorite already for June. @ironchef you are most certainly winning at life with that sleeve.

More tattoos please !! I should not have digressed Its backwards to me to actually join last october not seek any information or help go get a tattoo then question your own decision with complete strangers all over the internet on various platforms. Not meaning to come off as a tattoo elitist bullshit guy I genuinely want @Mike Clayton to be happy with his tattoos.

I'd avoid an asshole, largely because I don't like giving my hard-earned cash to douche-bags. I've been tattooed by all kinds of types. Some are super friendly and talkative and others are the silent types - and a range in between. All are totally cool with me. Just don't be a dick! I've noticed a really unpleasant trend on instagram recently - some artists have taken to posting pics of their clients, mocking them for being fat or ugly, or generally dissing their choice of tattoos. That's fine, I guess, but I sure wouldn't go to their shop. It strikes me as an odd way to do business, but hey, its their choice.

For me, it isn't the tattoo, it's the begging for comments and attention. Sure, it's really nice to get flattering comments or a whole bunch of "likes" on instagram or whatever, but that shouldn't be what it's about.

It's only outlined but I'm proud to say that I entered the Backpiece family.....:rolleyes:

Congrats to both of you! And yeah, I don't even know if that awesome Xam piece is the best tattoo Eilin got in May. She could have her own side contest with all the awesome shit she got in the past month.

I will get this going. Here is my dropping the F bomb tattoo done by Cory Norris from Classic Tattoo Grass Valley CA.

Congrats @Eilin! So honored and humbled to be able to share this with you. Thanks to all the LSTer's for voting and much appreciation and admiration for all the mods on running such a great forum. To all the other participants, love all the pictures of your tattoos. Keep them coming as I'm enjoying every bit of it. Cheers!

I am quickly moving into the "living vicariously" phase of collecting: i just got my wife an appointment with Paul Dobleman (as a gift for her getting her PhD) and also told her to book with Capilli Tupou, who will be in SF for a guest spot in September. We went over what would be great to get from Capilli, and she heard back yesterday. I'm super excited for her, and at least these are tattoos I'll get to look at every day.

just to be clear, my comment wasn't directed at you or anyone else, it was more of a general statement to cut the negativity on the forum. We want people to be attracted to this forum and ganging up on people will chase them away......

"

This thread has been beat to death so hard that there's pics of stencils bein posted as "the worst ever tattoo"

Picture stolen from @Stewart Robson and the "On the Shoulders of Giants" blog. Done by Valerie, Stefano, Valerie again, and Stewart at Frith St.

I have not been tattooed since SFO last year and I thought this yr would be a no go but got some funds and wife nodded so a solo trip for me is looking good

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!

Just for the heck of it, I'll throw in my right arm 3/4 sleeve done a couple of years ago by Henning Jorgensen when he was guest tattooing at Kings Avenue Tattoo (both the Manhattan and Long Island shops). This picture was actually compiled by Henning and shared with me. Enjoy!

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

I looked at some other online discussion tattoo forums for a while, and most of them were just filled with negative rude people, online discussion forums are not new to me,I have belonged to computer/home theater/audio video/canine,etc,etc,a couple for 10 years now, so thanks to all here for making this one a friendly,enjoyable,& comfortable place to hangout.

Congratulations! That's beyond awesome.

Exciting! Who are you going with?? Nevermind, I just saw you on Rubendalls instagram haha, nice one man, respect for going the extra mile for an appointment! I think its awesome he does it like that, it really does weed out the people who are serious from those who arent really bothered.

Thanks everyone! Very early days yet but I'm so excited! Ill have tattoo envy though haha Love those ideas Delicious. Have thought about incorporating a greek temple into the Medusa tat and other Greek myths like Pandora's box but will have to shelve these for a while

Abstract (or weird?) can certainly be cool. If that was a bottle of perfume, I might have to buy it without even smelling it.

I'm not looking to necessarily "connect" to a tattooer when I make an appointment, but just as I wouldn't buy products from a business or corporation with politics I don't agree with, if I knew that a tattooer is homophobic, racist, or sexist, I would not go to them. Another trend in addition to making fun of customers, which I saw a while ago on Instagram, was white tattooers using "jigaboo" imagery. To me that's not funny and the idea that it's transgressive because it goes against notions of common decency is stupid. We still live in a predominantly racist society, so reiterating racist ideas is essentially conservative. As far as personality, I wouldn't think you'd be able to tell until after your appointment, but I would never give my money to a tattooer if I knew ahead of time that they're going to be an asshole. You're already paying him or her to put you in pain. That said, I would not base my opinions on a person's personality based on hearsay either. Fortunately, I haven't had any negative experiences in these regards.

Nothing huge compared to some others here but 6 hours is my longest. No hurry to do that again, the last hour was brutal.

There's a tattoo shop in Maryland doing this. I'm kind of bugged out by it because there's no background info given / no FDA approval for how / why it works and whenever anything is marked proprietary I start to question what's in it. The results are somewhat impressive, but the procedure time is longer, it's invasive and who knows what the long term effects will be of it. At least laser treatments are FDA approved and there's 2 decades of proven history to go along with them.

I had to add this - This is from a Jenny Clarke flash sheet, and is supposed to be a chest panel/half sleeve design, which the artist clearly didn't understand, and copied it, very small, onto a forearm. I don't think I have ever seen a tattoo miss the point as much as this one.

I can't wrap my brain around guys who are negative about women having tattoos (or doing anything else they want). Life is too short for people to spend so much time/energy trying to manage each others' lives. Either I'm a space alien or most people in the world are...

Use a good name-brand of sun block and you'll be fine. I use Neutrogena SPF 45 and it works really well. Target has them in a 2-pack for around $11 which is pretty good. Rob

Hey! I am brand new. Jumping in at the deep end. I love this forum - been lurking for ages! I had this namakubi done by Danny Rossiter from Rain City in Manchester, UK. He's from New Zealand but has been tattooing here for years now, very talented and very underrated! Didn't an awesome tiger win last time??

I'm usually good for 4-6 hours. The hardest was three days back to back, on my left arm. Last year, I moved from Chicago to the west coast, and the move happened as I was finishing a steampunk sleeve project with Larry Brogan; we needed three or four more sessions. He had a guest spot coming up in Grants Pass at Jeff Gogue's place (Off The Map Tattoo) so I booked three of the days. I figured it was a lot easier than flying to Chicago three times. The first day was fine. We did 6 hours. The second day was fairly rough, very tender. I felt everything. We did 5 hours, then went for pizza and beer. The third day, totally brutal; my arm had serious swelling (looked like edema). It was painful from the first jab to the last. Larry really did his best and was concerned, but I insisted. From a pain point of view, it was brutal. In the end, it healed perfectly and there were no issues. Pain is temporary, awesome tattoos are forever. I attached a pic of the upper part of the sleeve. Won't do that again!!

One of the better and probably most famous prison tattoos out there: