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Heavy hitters already this month... Done by Stefan Johnsson @ California Electric

Snuck down to see Stefan Johnsson yesterday, guys a certified genius, robbed this from his Instagram, cannot recommend him highly enough. [/url]

Victorian Dolphin by R.J. Hitchcock at American Graffiti Tattoo in Sacramento, CA.

Holy shit!! Thats so cool! I got a rose yesterday by Joshua at Peoples Art Tattoo in Copenhagen. The banner says mom in danish.

PLEASE we don't need to resurrect old Bubbleberry threads.

Lets put this to bed with this timely shot of Lemmy

The price is the price, whatever it is. It all depends on how bad you want to get tattooed by someone. Just for the record, Chris Garver over Gogue all day every day in my world. I can respect what Gogue does and his artistic ability, but not the kind of tattoos I would want to wear, but again just personal taste. I think the best Gogue tattoos I have seen are on Nikki Kasper from TAM. she wears them well. What can I say I am a sucker for tattoos that look like tattoos.

El Carlo Aloha Tattoo Spain

No re-wrapping for me - despite the tattoo artist advising to do it for best results, and knowing people who have done it and healed great. I burned myself once (as in flames) and the "burn victim treatment" did not work. I don't know the biological reasons for this. I've browsed and lurked for a while and though I reckon lots of folk know, I've not seen it mentioned - My lifestyle is largely intense weight training so when it comes to healing, at the forefront of my mind is nutrition. Don't worry, I'm not one of those tedious protein-shakers. In my mind my skin is the same as the rest of my body. If I hurt it, I give it what it needs to mend itself. Anyway - here's a couple of foods to munch on that'll help you heal... Salmon - the fats are really good, also the protein for healing skin (and everything else). Carrots - lots of vitamin A. Chillis - Good for skin (vit E) Olives, olive oil - fats. When I say fat, of course I mean the healthy ones! WATER - I go through almost 5 litres a day and have done for around 15 years. Essential for life, essential for skin health. You don't need this much, but remember cells need water to do their ting. I know enough about nutrition to know that people just don't want to hear "healthy eating nonsense", so if you want to find out all about the vitamins etc go look it up. These aren't fancy foods, I tried giving some examples of everyday foods that folk may not appreciate for the magical foods they are. Always nice to know you've long been doing something great for yourself! Remember also that protein is very important for your immune system - been years since I've researched all this, but I think it's around the first 20g of protein you get in your tummy goes straight to work on your immune system. Don't dweeb out on the diet plans, just reach for the stuff that isn't in smiley face format or crusted in salt and flavourings. You'll still want your creams, ointments or whatever - my post here is to help address the wound from the INSIDE. Have a lovely day all! John

It's a fathersday gift to my mom since my dad is an asshole ;)

Saw this on IG had to share here... Stefan Johnsson

Hi Lynelle and welcome to LST. Tattoo artists tend to be pretty good at drawing and placing tattoos, if you let us know where you live we can suggest some quality artists in your area.

Another day, another trip to The Pearl. I'm working on filling in my right arm at the moment. Today Tim Pausinger added a couple of smaller tattoos. First, a very traditional "lucky" with four aces above it, and second, a sailor girl head that I've wanted for a long time now. I also had a couple of touch ups done, so I'm sitting here with both arms taped up tightly wondering how I am going to get a fork up to my mouth. /searches for a feed-bag

I just finished a session with Garver and it was worth every penny!! He drew up my tattoo in the same day as the consult and was nothing but humble and professional through the entire process. His rates are not what has been posted here on this blog! His fame has nothing to do with the fact that his work is outstanding!

I think the majority of responsibility lies with the artists, I'm not absolving clients who say I want exactly this tattoo, but I suspect most of them think what they are getting is more original than it is. Instagram needs a #shouldhavegonetoshige hashtag.

it's so colorful! makes me happy!

I've posted this before elsewhere on this site but it's beautiful and worth a look .

I like what Troy Denning has, both the beads and the bonji.

Knives & Needles: Tattooer Deb Yarian... Nice, @Deb Yarian! This a great interview with great pictures! Family + food + a dash of tattoo - what more could you want? Thanks for the meatball recipe! :)

Glad you liked it!!

I like how Rihanna asked for the best tattoo artist in new york city, so this guy's friend, instead of sending her to a great tattoo artist, sends her to an average one because they are friends. Seriously?

And did I read that right, when the artist said Bieber will realize one day he has bad tattoos? Is he for real, putting shit on his body and not telling him it's all bad ideas... The article is so badly written...

Thanks. As you may or may not be able to tell from the photo I am black, so that provides an extra bit of a challenge to the artist, but as you can see things worked out well. I'm probably around Chris Brown's complexion but A) I have better tattoos and B) I'm not a total douchebag. I thought it was worth mentioning since the issue of how tattoos come out on darker skin seems to come up on the internet a lot. Maybe I should dig up that older thread on here that I saw about the topic. This is awesome. The last year of looking at tons of tattoos has really given me an appreciation of traditional work that I didn't have before.

I'll give this a shot. Done this past April. Jamie Macpherson Unity Tattoo in Vancouver.

Chris Garver Invisible NYC - - - Updated - - - not sure how to add a lager pic..

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

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

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

Hard to get a good photo and lighting but here is a healed shot of my front, does need some touch up work on it but I am in no rush to get them done hurts to much! Artist, Tristan Bently

The fact that I won't get to see your Grime back piece is pretty good reason to be mad at the guys who copy custom pieces. I seem to recall seeing an ass-peony that was a big tease and was looking forward to seeing the final product. I'm sure other artists are wary about posting work online for the same reason, so it sucks for those of us who just enjoy looking at photos of good tattoos.

My first sighting was my dad's tattoos. He's (t-shirt) covered in underground tattoos from the days before he met my mum. It must have been so annoying for him but bless him, he never stopped me! At night I'd curl up behind him in bed and "play" with his full back Battle Royale, walking my feet up and down it, pinching the snake's nose, pulling, punching, twisting their faces... never thought till now how much patience my dad has! Any time at school when we had to draw our family, our hero, in fact any kind of "grown up"... that's right! A dodgy stickman dad with big circles for muscles, big scars on his face and every single tattoo I could remember till the page was filled with monkey faces, womens names, dice, skulls... my teachers must have had a scream! Speaking of this, I've recently decided that I'll get my own Battle Royale in tribute to his. I'm not gonna tell him, just turn up with the outlines, hopefully a bit of colour at that point and let it speak the words I struggle with. Have a good day!

Hold the mayo.

we dont discuss prices around here.

maybe post the artist's name and give him/her credit for the picture you posted.

What you do with your tattoo is up to you, but I think that tattoos look cool with age.

@blujax01 my brutally honest opinion is if you want a good tattoo look into laser removal. laser will speed up the fading then you can cover it up with a dragon that actually looks like a dragon. ps. i'm turning into a big mean jerk

Tattooed parts... That just made me giggle. Oh boy do I need to get out of this office and go back to sleep.

Oh, surely! Basically what I was saying was that I really enjoy when the imagery is crafted with specific intent. I guess a most obvious example would be Robert Ryan's work. Just as in the alchemical illustrations, every image that is depicted was chosen deliberately for a specific intent of illustration or invocation, and I think it's very powerful stuff. My intention wasn't to discredit tattoos that are chosen specifically for their artistic merit, as I don't think that tattoos need to have meaning whatsoever. I also have tattoos that were chosen purely for the imagery and it's just as you said, they're more of a reminder of what was going on in that time of my life. I don't think there's any real debate as far as which is more valid, it really doesn't matter beyond what it means to the person wearing the tattoo. Pretty much what I was getting at is that I find talisman tattoos to be really exciting and interesting, and I would like to do more work in that vein.

All of my tattoos have really deep meaning and symbolism behind them... it just so happens that the deep meaning is that I think they look fucking cool and are symbols of things that I think look fucking cool.

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

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

long time lurker, first time poster. My latest from Andrew Slater, All for One Tattoo in Richmond, VA.

Thomas Hooper experimented a bit with video of his tattoos on his blog, but I don't know to what extent he is pursuing that line of documenting his tattoos. I agree that well-done video of tattoos is great to showcase them, but I still think there's something to be said for good photography. Look at Taki's book Bushido and the photos of Horiyoshi III's tattoos in them and how well they show the tattoos and the way they sit in the skin. The photos are really pretty amazing. I think the problem is that we've just gotten far too used to looking at crappy pictures taken by camera phones on tiny little phone screens and while I think it's on the one hand so great to have this massive amount of access to seeing some amazing tattoos that are being on daily around the world, we've also lost a lot. An iPhone just isn't going to give you the richness and texture that a decent camera will, and the nature of the internet, and instagram especially, is that it's very much about immediacy and getting as much information out as quickly as possible which means that amazing backpiece or sleeve or bodysuit (or whatever, even a one point!) that you and your tattooer have been working on for months or years and that you're going to carry for the rest of your life and is going to age and decay with your body becomes this image that somebody is going to stop and look at for a couple of seconds, "like" it it not, then move on to the next tattoo, dog photo, or picture of somebody's pretentious lunch. I haven't tried Vine, mind you.

My first tattoo was pretty dumb, just this little power button symbol behind my ear. It's covered now but at the time I had already been getting pierced on my own, so when my mom saw it, she just kinda looked at it, said "hm" and left it at that. I did overhear her telling our neighbor about it though, it was a very matter-of-fact conversation. I think my dad made fun of me, it was pretty good. As I kept getting more, and eventually after I started tattooing, they've just accepted it as part of my life. Both of them are now pretty supportive, trust my tastes, and often look forward to seeing the new pieces that I have. I do know that deep down, it really bums my mom out that I will eventually be covered, but she also recently "got it" when it came to why people get tattooed/how much it changes your life in a positive light. So that's cool. I definitely feel like I could have it waaaayyy worse.

Paul Bosch:

Nothing fancy, and like 5 year old pic. I keep meaning to add lots of stuff around it and fill the area up I just don't now with what yet.

Jon Mirro

Josh Stephens- Hold It Down, Richmond VA

Thats my wife.....its been finished and looks great.