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went and got my arm filled in today. here are a few pictures. heres my girlfriends back. took timmy about 45 minutes.

Yep he's gonna add some stuff to the empty spaces in the top corners still too he just didn't decide if he wants to add a border or some clouds. He said he's hoping it knock it out in 2 more sessions. As long as she can sit for haha. - - - Updated - - - heres a photo of my whole arm now that it's filled in. going to take a break from getting my other arm tattooed now for a while. forgot to credit all the tattooers who made this what it is... thanks to lowercase j, timmy tatts, justin hyde, max kuhn, tyler densley, kim marks, ryan bailey, brandon montero, and landon lewis.

Latest tattoo. Got this skull morph from Cory Rogers last weekend. He does more than make machines!

Todays session. 3 hours on feet was a stretch but got through it. Tattoo was done by Chris at Wildcard Tattoo, Kalgoorlie Western Australia I am super stoked with the results. I got permission from the artist at Jubly-Umph to use the designs. It's an Australian based artist who sells prints as well as pendants, handbags, wallets, earrings etc. The artist is even international now so keep an eye out. Not sure if my link will work but it's in my gallery

Got this one from Chad Koeplinger when he guested Royal Tattoo a couple of days ago. Such a great experience!

I'd say if you're worried something is too masculine for you, then it's not the right tattoo for *you*. If it's right for *you*, it shouldn't matter if it's...I don't know, what's masculine, a big ole monster truck? If that's what you like, then that's what you get. and if someone says they don't like it, then you say "Yes, well, maybe it's not your taste, and that's fine. I happen to think you're a fucking knob, however I have too much tact to say it." And then you punch them in the throat.

When you get to that point when you realize you can, it's liberating. Think about it this way--do you respect shallow people who judge others based on something that is skin deep rather than what type of person they are? Do you want to make decisions based on what people like that think?

Girls with tough tattoos are my favorite thing.

....troll?

My first of 3 sessions for the raven sleeve with Kim Saigh is today. I stopped by Memoir yesterday to see the sketch and let her retrace my arm and after seeing the drawing I am more excited than before which was already a lot. :D

When you get to the point where you don't rely on other people for your self esteem, it's a very liberating feeling. It took me more years than I'd care to admit.

Got these two pieces at the London convention, Fudo-she-o by Claudia De Sabe (Black Garden Tattoo), Panther-reaper by Bart Bingham (New York Adorned) As you can see I'm very happy with the trip to the convention this year! :D

I just got back from getting my chest piece outline done by Tim Pausinger at The Pearl. Poor guy - I was the worst client of the month. For whatever reason, I just couldn't settle in. I couldn't find my groove at all. That he could still turn out such a high quality tattoo with me flailing away underneath him speaks to the talent, skill, and professionalism of the guy. It was not my best moment, but it's a truly great tattoo. I've posted it on my instagram, and I'll probably post it here as well, but not until I've battered my brain with gin. Lots and lots of gin.

flying in friday morning, Plan on taking the B A R T to see katie sellergren for some lettering then going to see @Stewart Robson Friday night. @Valerie Vargas Saturday afternoon as well, would i be completely crazy to entertain a walk up if it presents itself to me???

I've been going pretty quickly and getting a lot of skin covered. I've loved the entire experience, even the healing. I've also been learning as I go. I found myself at the intersection of having enough time and money and so I rolled with it. As I reach the end of my current contracts, this situation will change, and my pace will have to slow. I'm ok with that too. But at the moment, I'm still thoroughly enjoying researching and finding designs, meeting awesome new tattoo-minded people. I have a couple of large areas left to fill, and I'm in no rush at all to get to them. I want something large on my back, but after 4 years of thinking about it, I'm no closer to deciding what I want. Given the pace of my other tattooing, this is perhaps a little odd. However, I don't want to settle.

Eilin, I am straight up JEALOUS of your collection. Hnnngh

I understand where you're coming from, but you've got to do things (like get tattooed) for yourself and not for other people, or worry about your decision's affect on other people. I used to care about what others thought about me, everyone does, but then I decided to do what felt right to me and now I love myself SO much more with tattoos than without.

abject pluralized singularity

Got this indian girl done by Greg Christian at the London Tattoo Convention. Got tattooed by Seth Ciferri also, I'll post a tattoo from that later cause it's still healing.

Got this a few days ago from Jason Reeder at Little Vinnie's in Finksburg, MD. Going to hopefully get it colored at the end of the month. Not the greatest pic because 1) it's hard to get a picture of your own leg, and 2) it's getting into the peely/scabby stage and not looking its best at the moment. But you get the idea. It wraps onto my shin a little because we both wanted to expand the theme in the future and wanted to leave lots of calf space open. Thinking about turning this into a leg sleeve for nocturnal/crepuscular plants and animals.:p

Don't think it has enough of the "wow" factor to win it this month but here is my entry: By Todd Noble at the 2013 Montreal convention

Tengu on my leg By Chris Garver, London Tattoo Convention last weekend. Freehand and 4 hours

The whole torso seems to be a brutal area. Nice going on getting it done though! I find, and hopefully you do as well Mark, that the shading and colour is always much less unpleasant. My neurologist friend said it likely has to do with the fact that the wider shading needle stimulates multiple nerve endings. The multiple signals are less clearly delivered to the brain thus, less pain. I have no science to back this, but it sounds good to me. Post up, I'd love to see what you got!

I had a weird glitch where if I got close to the starting point for a mission for Michael it would disappear and then reappear once I went far enough away from it. I couldn't switch between characters either. I think what happened was that I quit my previous game too soon after completing a mission, because eventually Michael automatically made some phone calls that I assume he should have made not long after that previous mission, and once he'd done that everything was fine again. @slayer9019 good tip on the online play. I couldn't get it to work anyway because of, I assume, volume on their servers but now I know to wait. I bet the DLC expansions for this will be great too.

We went to this Irezumi art opening in Hollywood Thursday night. https://www.facebook.com/irezumiartshow Saw some great art there from the likes of Stewart Robson, Tim Lehi, Mike Rubendall, etc., etc. Bob Roberts and Oliver Peck were there. Corey Miller's band played and we met him as he was bringing stuff to the stage. Our little 5 yr old excitedly told him that she's going to be Sleeping Beauty for Halloween. He seemed impressed. Sweet guy.

First, quit doing what you're doing. Throw any remaining needles or ink you have in the trash. Second, get tattooed for years. Third, hope someone give you a chance. Fourth, as much as no one wants to hear it, and no one really listens to it, the best sentiment as to why it's hard to get a chance is something Valerie Vargas said in an interview recently: "Just because you want to tattoo, doesn't mean you should tattoo." You have to prove to someone they can trust you to not waste their time, and your approach does the exact opposite of that.

Spent over an hour sitting in the basement w/the kids tonight while the tornado sirens were going off. Posting updates on FB while listening to the traffic on my husband's department radio. The tornado came 1 mile south of us and then disappeared. After it had tracked on the ground for about 60 miles or so-and it was a mile wide-just poof, it was gone. Craaaazy.

11 hours! I can't even imagine. I'm going to stick to non-realistic tattoos, thank you very much, because sitting that long is for tougher people than me.

I might post my new Rubendall tattoo after I have shown it live to @Iwar, tomorrow. It's our new thing to enhance the "wow-effect".. haha

The only time it really bothers me when people talk shit about tattoos/people's tattoos is the situations when I can't say anything back. This really only happens around coworkers. My favorite being "that poor shmuck will never have a job as good as ours with all that shit drawn on him". I thought to myself, if only they knew... The "never get a job" comments seemed to be the ones that bother me the most, whether directed at me or not. My career is practically my life and to say such things is such a stupid comment that is very ill-informed. This being backed up by the fact that one of the most successful people I know regularly gets tattooed at the same shop as me. I think this misconception will continue as use "closet tattooed folk" never really show any tattoos around coworkers/bosses so the myth will continue.

I'll throw this one of my cats in the ring. Done by Grez at King's Avenue.

And here is my entry for this month, my 'Tamatori-Hime' sleeve (the one with the octopus ) that we finished today (with a bit brutal 5 hour session. This sleeve (and my other sleeve) are made by Bonel from Corazon Santo tattoo studio in Arnhem, The Netherlands.

yes it is crazy but you should still go for it.

I've tried to watch some of these shows, but I just can't get into them. I'd rather watch the interviews here or on Vice. Reality shows just don't do it for me.

Winter is creeping up so it's time for me to renew my volunteer hours at a local shelter. - - - Updated - - - I've only seen a tornado once, outside Winnipeg when I was a kid in the 70s. Scared the hell out of me. Glad you are all all right.

I'm starting to be less and less concerned about concealing my tattoos at work. I roll my sleeves up part way these days, so it's no longer a secret. I just noticed one of my colleagues has a big bright tattoo that runs up the back of her neck. I was on the subway the other day and looked up only to see one of my supervisors staring through the window at me with her jaw on the floor. Lol. Cat's outta the bag now.

In a word @eisen777, no. It's just something else people fixate over without understanding how the machine operates, what a Fitzpatrick Scale is or without any experience. The word you're looking for is energy, not power is relative to several mitigating factors in any treatment. I also don't want to undermine any other professional laser tech, and you aren't being treated by me so I don't want to make any assumptions on you, anyone else, or give advice that could contradict any other professional. I may start a client at one setting, for arguments sake, an arbitrary number might be 2.2 joules (the measurement of energy, often times referred to as 'intensity'). The very next person that comes in might be started at 1.8j. The first client could come back after 5-6 weeks and their second treatment is at 2.4j while the 2nd client's 2nd treatment is at 2.6j. Too many factors go into determining how each client is treated, and each treatment is unique and different. To clear up a little of your confusion, and maybe help set your mind at ease, you weren't treated at a setting of '5' - I'm going to assume that was the Hz setting on the machine, aka the speed setting. Most Q-Switched Nd:YAG lasers can operate at a 'speed' of 1,2,5 & 10. This has zero effect on the energy setting of a machine, and typically a slower Hz setting is used when a tech wants more precise control over a treated area, although sometimes slower speeds are needed when operating at specific nanometers. I will also assume that "bubbling" you mean frosting, and not blisters. Frosting typically is most apparent in the first treatment, but again everyone is different. Frosting is water being vaporized in your skin, converting from a liquid to a gas, and the oxygen (O part of H2o) being trapped under the epidermis. While it's used as a guide for treatment, it bears no significance on the speed at which pigment will be broken down and dispersed through your bloodstream, it's merely a byproduct of the treatment. Some of your questions you need to ask your tech specifically. I've never heard anyone quote a full removal in 4 treatments, typically speaking it's common in the industry to accept 10-12 as a baseline standard, however some will see faster reactions and need 8 while others will need 14+ It's also fairly typical to not see dramatic fading until 6 weeks after your second treatment. Are you or your tech taking photos prior to each treatment for comparison reasons? If not, then you're tattoo is probably fading more than you think. Regarding thick black lines. It's my experience that any portion of a tattoo that's done with a liner will take longer than any portion of a tattoo done with a shader. Moreover, when linework is gone over several times to 'even out' or 'thicken' the lines, often a technique used by artists to hide the 'dot' that appears when they stop through a line or at the end of a line, the fading can take even longer. Take care of yourself, drink plenty of water, eat healthy, get exercise, don't smoke. Those will help put you into a place that will allow the greatest amount of fading per treatment, assuming your tech isn't milking you for more treatments.

This was just posted a while ago, a tribute video to Henning Jorgensen's 30th Anniversary at Royal Tattoo in Helsingor, Denmark. http://youtu.be/iW0062RoRiY

I've traveled far for jobs I hated. If you really are into it, it should be trouble to travel around a bit. Hard work man. No substitute for that

I got this from Bailey Robinson last year. It barely peaks out of some t-shirts, depending on how loose they are around the neck.

I think I might terrify people if I showed up in public wearing a fundoshi

Fundoshis are now required for all LST meetups.

I thought it was because he's drinking beer in this one. I mean, when a guy puts a blanket or something over his head during an interview... You know he's well-oiled. His tattooing has really grown on me- I love all the western elements, the jawbone knives and revolvers etc.

@daveborjes and @Hogrider shut this shit down already.

Here's mine of my cats from this weekend with Grez at King's Avenue.

fuck yeah man i can confirm this looks amazing in person! great seeing you dude!

A dude who interviewed adam hays at the London convention asked to take some photos of me as I have been tattooed by him a lot. Here's the photo he sent me yesterday. Little arty for me but you get the idea haha.

I had a very respected tattooer tell me that I may be getting tattooed a little too fast, and to slow it down. So I am. But my thinking goes like this: get my limbs done first with all the big designs I want, then filler afterwards. Once the limbs are done, I want one artist to do my front. But not one giant piece, I want patchwork. Something similar to what Stuart Cripwell and Matthew Houston are doing lately. I've thought about saving the back piece for last, but there are some days I want to start my back piece right now, before I even finish any limbs. I go back and forth on this every day.

This is from Henning Jorgensen. done at Royal Tattoo. enjoy!