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Just finished last night! Chris Garver , Invisible NYC Timeless tattoos Rock!!

Souvenir piece from my trip to Japan last month. Completed by Mutsuo at Three Tides Tattoo.

I got this from Chad Koeplinger earlier this year. I love it, and I want to share it with you:

So during my trip to SF back in October. Our first area we ended up in was Mission, and I was so inspired by the murals painted there. I took a lot of pictures and decided I wanted one of the beautiful traditional roses tattooed on my arm. We went to Oakland at Temple Tattoo, I wanted to visit this shop anyway because well....its fuckin historical. So there was only one artist there that day, Jonah. I asked if he had time for a small walk-in tattoo, and showed him the pics of the murals. Ended up being him that painted those murals! :) We definitely made each others day! So he drew up a rose while we were talking to him, fuckin awesome experience overall. Having someone with 15 years experience tattooing me was epic and especially in that shop. One of the best trips ever. I have to go back to California. <3

Started my back last week. Definitely one of the craziest things I've ever done... Can't wait for the next session!

got this today from justin hyde my cousin got this one from him

I took this photo and a bunch of others at the New Jersey State Fair in Cherry Hill. It was August 12th, 1990. It was a blast meeting Jack Dracula. He had such a crazy mystique about him. There were all kinds of crazy stories about him and I was afraid to meet him but he was a fun guy to hang around with for an afternoon. He rode back into town with us and told us old corny jokes. RIP Jack Dracula and Sonny Tufts.

Needles and Sins Tattoo Blog | Demetra Molina Interview with Loretta Leu

Knee hurts like fuck! 5 hours on this by Piotr Deadle :)

Anyone defending this guy is a complete moron

Here is my back-piece from @Stewart Robson Started - 11/25/2011 Completed - 11/24/2013 The tattoo has 78 hours in total.

Well LST, I am happy to announce that after a brutal session we have finished the motif on my back! Not going to lie there where some moments when I wanted to tap but half way through Hiro dropped into the shop just to see it completed and that gave me what I needed to keep on keepin' on. All I heard was the door open and the war cry of "No Pain, No Gain". I nearly laughed but figured it wasn't the best time. Funny how the little things can keep you motivated and focused. I would have been pissed if I was so close to finishing and tapped on the final leg. I'm so wiped out but am also on that high that's probably going to keep me awake most of the night lol. Don't worry I'll post pics as soon as I can ;) and @RoryQ I don't think there will be any hard liqour tonight, I am well and truely spent.

@Ragen looks good, who is doing it? I go on Monday for my final session of the year.

deleting. sorry, not the place for me.

Just finished my first session with Tomo from Yellow Blaze. Super sweet dude with a magic touch. Plus the place itself is incredible - located just up the road from Yokohama's Victorian-era studios where all the Euro(-trash) royalty got inked in the 1800s. Got a few weeks for the ink to settle and then back for the colour...

First time posting hopefully I uploaded the image correctly. Finished this little guy in the summer.

He should do his day job for free.

Obvious comments about people getting the infections...errrrr...tattoos they deserve aside, this guy is an idiot. Given that it's a pretty nasty feature of contemporary capitalism that it's even harder to make a living as an artist, illustrator, photographer, musician, writer, etc. because increasingly fewer people want to pay for that kind of work--not to mention the number of other careers that now practically require countless hours of unpaid labour in the form of internships--there's nothing at all "refreshing" about working for free. Maybe if these people actually valued artists and paid money for art that instead of complaining about how they, the oh-so-romantic-Jawbreaker-is-my-favorite-band perpetually starving artists, don't have money for things like tattoos (but please don't ask them how much money they spend on drugs), they would have money for things like tattoos. Maybe they'd have to live on tighter budgets, pick up extra shifts at work, wear clothes and shoes a little longer, and so on, to save the money to get tattooed and that it would be worth it because if you love tattoos you'll find a way to make it work even if it doesn't mean instant gratification. Not to mention that if you have a respect for tattooing as a craft, or shit, for crafts and craftspeople in general, that you should understand that this stuff always comes at a price and that the craft isn't less "pure" because of it. I can't wait for the hipsters to be eradicated by a plague of hepatitis.

Alright... here goes nothin. Pharoah's Horses tattooed by me, finished in October.

Finally making a trip down to Electric Tattoo in NJ and getting tattooed by Robert Ryan. I'm going to be at the Philly convention at the beginning of February, so i'm just going to NJ the Friday of the convention. Probably not going to make any appts for the convention but we will see.

Thank you!! Yeah, do that! Say hi and tell him that I will send him a healed photo soon

Guys, scratchers fucking suck. We all know it. Lets just do our best to talk about good tattoos. We don't need the negativity this kind of bullshit brings.

Congrats @Wilhell !!! I'll let Rubendall know next week when I see him!

Second session just finished on my thigh. 6 and a half hours in. Swollen, bloody and inky but here is a pic. Tried to get some details in on the right side pics.

Bleeeuuggghhh can we just remove this article from this forum so as to not spread this spewing uninformed BS. I hate people with that mentality, especially since my fiance is a musician and supports himself the same way as a tattooer. He recently had a regular gig and the guy shorted him because of something he didn't like (but he didn't tell my fiance anything, just gave him less $) and he had to give up the gig, because he can't afford to not be paid or worry about not being paid. That's true among all service jobs.

Chances are this guy is lying about his apprenticeship. People do that all the time to try to gain credibility. And it's a real shame that most people reading the article won't be able to read the subtext of what this guy really is saying which is that he sucks too horribly and is too lazy to get a spot at a real shop, and because of that he could never actually charge anyone for his work. He's probably just using this to be "cool" with his jerkoff hipster friends. Yet another crappy side effect of tattoo TV shows.

Really love the cowgirl! I got some roses off Rich Hardy last weekend whilst he was back in the UK.

I got this Cowgirl head from Rich Hardy while he was doing a guest spot at Third Eye Tattoo about a month ago.

Second session yesterday. Was a lot easier this time around, not so apprehensive I guess and also made a point to just focus on my breathing for the few lines that needed finishing. Looking forward to the next session! Thanks again Stewart.

Is it a LST record that a tattoo of the month contest only lasted 9 minutes?

i think one of the main things that adds to the mystique of higgs is that he doesn't tattoo any more. not because he can't but because he chooses not to. he worked with some really talented folks and for most of us that do this, it's something that we'd probably find hard to give up if we had the same opportunities. also, it wasn't until after i started tattooing that i really even knew that he tattooed. i always knew him to be the singer in lungfish, it was only through diligent efforts that i was even able to obtain the lungfish albums back then and that was from working in a record store. back before the intervebs, if you didn't have an excellent book store or some type of real active art scene, you didn't get to find out about much that went on in the world. so i dig getting to hear stories about and from people who were there and got to work with him and it's obvious he had an impact on them. plus, in reality he is an important component in tattooing history due to those interactions. so rock on!

Mike wears crocs. Take that how you will.

@slayer9019 maybe the mods can make it a requirement for future contests, hahahaha

Ahhhh! I was literally looking at his IG yesterday to see if he'd announced he was coming to the Philly convention, but somehow missed the post where he did exactly that. I emailed him, fingers crossed...

Looks like you pull that off pretty well mate. Not something I could do but fair play to you. Never seen anyone in person with a covered face tattoo, but yeah I can imagine that would be pretty creepy.

Here's the three Higgs on my body. Wedding ring Left arm Right arm

Awwww! Thanks @Graeme , @hogg , @Delicious , @TrixieFaux , et al. I love that picture, I was stunned when I saw it. I was flipping through the photographer's favorites from the wedding and there it was. I hadn't realized she took that picture. (Admittedly, I'd put back a few by that time of the night!!) I honestly had no idea how awesome the tattoos all look together - I never see them from afar like that, never see them the way a distant observer would. It's no wonder I get stopped on the streets!! :)

Go to the Asian Art Museum!!! A must see! Go have sushi at Isobune in the Japan center, and go drink like 5 fresh-squeezed grayhounds at Cafe Van Kleef in Oakland. The botanical gardens in golden gate park are free, and quite gorgeous. The California Academy of Sciences is one of my favorite places in San Francisco, definitely worth spending half a day over there. And if you do go to Oakland, go visit Temple Tattoo, walk around Lake Merritt (super beautiful and romantic and stuff), and end your night at Van Kleef's. Also in Oakland are Tattoo 13 and FTW, and if you can make it half a mile north from FTW, George Campise's shop Warhorse Tattoo is definitely worth a visit. The Mission has the best tacos and dive bars in the city, along with the best street art. Haight is also worth a visit, and if you're down there, you might as well pop into Idle Hand. Hope that helps!

I am very much tempted to send him an email to fish for info on one of these parties and just send it to the health department... But alas, this pisses me off quite a lot because there are artists whose work I really admire who have worked at East River Tattoo, and that is just such a fucking bummer. I guess at the same time, you can't attribute one person's dumbassery to their coworkers. Mostly, this just makes me really sad.

rip jason molina

I have the great pleasure to announce that my buddy @Wilhell has won the November contest with his jawdroppingly awesome Mike Rubendall snake'n'hannya thigh piece!! Congrats my friend!! Here are some reaction photos from when he received the good news Please PM @steve1461686340 with your shirt info (size and male or female) along with your address. Thanks to everyone for your submissions! December contest will be up soon.

Here is my bleeding moon. I posted this a long time ago. Matt Brotka in Richmond, Virginia, but that fine gentleman is now at Left Hand Black in sunny San Diego.

ok lets see if this works... I couldn't stop attaching photo's so there is kind of a lot. Enjoy :) and last but not least... his puppy picture from his little profile on petfinder

This is slightly off from the question but still relatable. This idea of "Japanese" is a funny one for me. I've always loved the traditional Japanese style growing up. Without getting into details I was less fond of tattoos I'd seen around the neighborhood. Both in terms of subject as well as how they looked. Traditional Japanese stuff always looked clean and cohesive, the neighborhood stuff were blotches. I didn't know spit about anything. That's straight out fact. I attributed bad tattoos as American. But even then I did develop a discernable eye for recognizing traditional Japanese on a subconscious level. When japanese influenced tattoos started becoming increasingly popular or more readily seen in the US circa the kanji craze, it never looked really "Japanese". I would flip through magazines see the images and would be able to blindly point to images saying,"American, European, American, Chinese, European, European, Japanese.". Then I'd look at the tattooer's names. 90% of the time I'd be spot on. There seemed a time when it was very discernable between the traditional Japanese style, American Japanese, and European Japanese. American stuff often seemed busy, sometimes cartoony, blue water almost definitely signaled American, but also solidly packed with colors. European stuff almost seemed delicate with smooth shading. Chinese was painterly(???). And Japanese stuff had balance between detail and legibility or if the detail took over it seemed that the point was to create texture or patterns on the wearer's skin. I don't know how else to describe it. This was all just by looking at them and not taking into account stories or any of that. Again this was during my ignorant phase, pre-tattooed but looking, when I still couldn't appreciate an Ed Hardy piece. Skip to today years later, however and looking around it's much harder to pull up a magazine and call out traditional, American, or European. So many artist's works from outside Japan these days look more traditional than artists in Japan and same with the opposite. So many artists in japan are flipping tradition on its head and giving a fresh breath to things w/ western influences. I've come to figure it's all good. There's room for all. After hundreds of years of the same thing traditional Japanese can probably stand to take in a fresh breath. I am still intrigued by people when I hear them say things are traditional only if done by hand or if they have a hori title and all that vice versa those who don't think it matters. An interesting debate to see viewpoints. Just to be a stinker, lets just remember traditional Japanese is not even the same in Japan. What I mean is there are families. The rules of one family are not necessarily the rules of another. Then you have variations by regions too. It's all very interesting and overwhelming. Okay nuff said I'm just rambling. Btw, all the above, take it with a grain of salt. I'm no tattooer, historian or anthropologist on the matter. Just a random guy giving you his personal and I stress personal history, recollections and experiences. Rip into me if you will.

What should we be discussing?

But it's all good times though.

I think he's more accessable than people think if they put serious effort into contacting him. but that would only be the case if you were serious about getting tattooed by him.