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Not one on myself, but one I put on a good friend recently. He came home for New Year's to surprise his family, and drove three hours to surprise my fiancée before she went home to Ireland. I was the only one who knew of his plans, and thankfully he avoided all the snow issues. Inside of the knee/thigh... or the No Fun Zone.

Hey cheers for the replies! So happy to hear you guys are excited for our part of the world too :-) I should've loaded pics last night, but it was a bit late, ha! Just recently got this lady head from Emily Rose Murray Took around 4.5 hours and I'm not short! I also have a forearm half sleeve in April with Clare Hampshire, she is doing a deer head http://claritytattoo.com/ and Emily Rose will be doing a horse head on the outside of my other thigh in May. So lots of exciting stuff coming up! Just want this year to get a move on already, as much as I hate wishing my life away. Who are you favourites from Aussie? - - - Updated - - - - - - Updated - - - Fuck, sorry its so massive, no idea how to resize :o

Guess I'll throw in another Scott Sylvia... from richmond - - - Updated - - - How to I post the full pic instead of thumbnail?

Why is it feminine for a guy to have a big tattoo of a beautiful lady? That's manly as fuck. seriously, i've seen men from every walk of life, with all different styles of tattoos, with tattoos of beautiful women. I get shit all the time from my family members because apparently as a woman it's weird to have two lady heads on me. Do you bro, you won't regret it

Hey Guys So i have decided to travel to the states from Australia around July/August for a couple of months possibly with another tattoo friend of mine and would love to meet a heap of you guys while I'm over there. We are planning to start in San Francisco and travel across the country to New York hitting a lot of shops on the way for walk-ins (not going with a plan). I just wanted to use this thread as a kind of home base for information for the next few months. Thanks LSTers Also i will probably be doing a travel blog thing aswell.

A tiger, maybe fighting a snake, maybe not, from Dave Cummings at PSC Tattoo. We're scheduled to start at the end of July, maybe earlier if he has cancellations.

I guess this is a little of a derail but here goes anyway, I think those shows may be a part of it for some, but I also think a lot of people just love talking about themselves and attaching meaning to things. Before those shows existed, people attached meaning to their tattoos. It's human nature and symbols hold meaning. Some people are just a little sappier with the meanings they attach than others. And some more literal. But yeah, agreed: meaningful or devoid of meaning, or anywhere in the middle does not determine whether it's going to be a good choice in a tattoo. Just takes a good skilled artist to have a great, satisfying, and worthwhile tattoo.

Healed from the London Tattoo Convention - by Chriss Dettmer

So I called the Immaculate Tattoo place and Aaron is in Colombia at a tattoo convention which is pretty cool. He will be back next week so I can meet him and maybe make an appt. His next appt is for March, so that would give me enough time to plan more and save $$. It's not too long either I think. Feb always goes by quickly.

@graybones I forgot that there's another Dave Cummings! I hope you still have a job after finding the other one at work. But yeah, Dave's tattoos fucking rule and the pictures of them really do them no justice. @Diehardonvhs We'll go down to the back of my thighs. Right now, starting in July, I have monthly appointments booked until the end of 2014, but it will go into 2015 for sure. Yours looks fucking amazing from the little I've seen of it on IG. Who's doing it? @SStu We'll see. I was super into it with a snake but he showed me a drawing he'd done for a backpiece that somebody didn't get of one of those really wild Ed Hardy-style tigers and the drawing had so much power that I wonder if adding a snake to that would just confuse things. It's sometimes best to keep it simple.

Ha ha . All the O.G 's are turning in their graves right about now .

I read this thread and then stumbled across this. It's just far too much IMO

I'll be there on the 22nd (getting my right arm/elbow finished) maybe I'll see the sketch/stencil for your backpiece hanging up in the private studio.

I like seeing the pics of all everyone's overall look, so here's my updated one: (ETA: now my right arm tattoo is going down farther than my left arm, so now I'm going to have to add more to my left. And so it goes...that's how they get ya.)

Okay, per request, one Monmon Cat by Horitomo. HORITOMO (@horitomo_stateofgrace) | Just finished | Intagme - The Best Instagram Widget

A woman I work with was at a local tattoo shop getting some script on her wrist and texts me, "Hey, your friend works here right? I think he's tattooing a butterfly on some guy. Isn't that real girly?" ::sighs::

I can't wait to join the backpiece club. Still months to go until I start.

yup, nothing manlier than some beautiful ladies tattooed on you!

Working on my front piece every other week for the next month and a half (hooray for day off tattoos), then headed to the West Texas Tattoo Convention to get my right hand tattooed by Steve Byrne. Also, depending on budget and peoples' availability, I may try and get a Japanese flavored dagger through my neck, or some kind of small Japanese mask filler in one of those awkward spots you sometimes get around the elbows.

I'll be starting mine on the 23rd. Can't wait!

Sure! Oh wait, I'm not in charge. ;)

that's such a good point,LA & Miami & NY Ink & Ink Masters & all the TV crap isn't what it's always about,very few of my many tattoos are not "meaningful" to me other than good art or just a cool tattoo ! not that there is anything wrong with a "meaningful tattoo",I do have a couple that are that too.

Sorry if my post sounded hurtful. Not my intention at all. Ask and you shall receive? I wasn't describing your situation just thinking out loud. My real point was that your situation and tattooing seem like a big roadblock and maybe it's time to accept a tattoo may not be in the cards. Especially if this is the only one you intend on getting. And a lot of people on here (myself included) get "random inconsequential design"s so.... meaning isn't always everything.

Totally this. Not going to send mr praying hands and mrs script on my ribcage to anyone specific lol....

I got a cobra wrapped around an ankh on Dec 29,2013 by Christine Vallieres at Old Town Ink in Scottsdale, AZ After my first tattoo, I thought about this one and what I wanted it to be. For me, it symbolizes rebirth of life and protection. I think snakes get a lot of bad rep but I think they are awesome creatures. I consider myself pretty spiritual so the Ancient Egyptian symbol of life fits with the snake imagery. Some people think it's an evil snake but it's not :p This tattoo, along with the one on my back of a scorpion and some Arabic script do mean quite a lot to me. I got them a year after I had a near death experience. I was hospitalized for a long time and lsot my job and almost had to return to living with my parents back in Connecticut. I beleive that I was given a second chance and was being watched over somehow. It made me think how precious my life is, how strong I actually was and how much people cared for me.

Tattooed by Tony D Chronic Tattoo Elyria Ohio. Thanks for letting me share!

Pure awesomeness ! Memoir is such a great shop I think if I won the lottery the first thing I would do , would be to book a flight to see Shawn Barber his work is just mind-blowing. - - - Updated - - - Got my wife to take some photos of my latest tattoo all healed. The photos are a bit glarey cos of the flash. Tibetan Skull by Ema Sweeney at Custom Inc .

Healed pic of my Scott Sylvia (BlackHeart Tattoo - SF) roses from Dec 2013. Happy New Year, everyone!! :D

I really like this one,it was done by Seth Leibowitz on one of the regular artists that does work on me,Jennifer Leonardi

I don't make any special efforts to keep them covered around my parents, no. My parents live on the other side of the country from me and I see them once, sometimes twice, a year, so it's not a huge issue. My in-laws, on the other hand, don't know that me or my wife have tattoos, and they will not react nicely when they find out that we do, and so we both keep them hidden from them at all times. We live in the same city as them and see them often enough so the situation is getting pretty absurd. For example, this summer we were walking back from the store after grocery shopping and my wife spotted my mother-in-law standing at the corner of our street from a half a block away. She'd stopped by to drop off some vegetables from her garden and was waiting around to see if we would show up. I was wearing a short sleeved shirt. So we turned around, went down another street, waited around a corner until we were sure that she had left, and then returned home. Is this better at this point than having a huge fight, dealing with it, and eventually moving on? I kind of don't think so, but it makes for funnier stories.

First try with One Shot from a month or so ago... Going to have to try it out more when it's warm enough to sit on the balcony, or I can put a fume vent in my apartment.

Not to the 25th for me. Mike

Great work! Who's the artist?

If you ate two meals at a good restaurant and weren't disappointed, would you never seek out new restaurants ever again? :) I am not sure of wait times, since I booked in about 3 or 4 months in advance because I was travelling. But don't worry too much about cost. Aaron Coleman tattoos extremely fast, so even if he has a higher hourly rate than what you have paid in the past I'd bet the cost would be very similar.

Google maps tells me that your route should take you through Phoenix, AZ. If that's correct, I highly suggest checking out Immaculate Tattoo in Mesa. Anyone there will give you a great tattoo.

This sounds great. You should do a little blog or video series of this trip ala True Love.

Not tattoos. You get what you pay for.

That's awesome @ironchef. I bet you're excited to see it done at least from one perspective.

Wind bars would work good for covering that up. It would flow with the Peony and If eventually you want to bridge the tattoo over to your cherry blossoms. Both the Peony and the Cherry blossoms are used often in traditional Japanese pieces. With tying it in with your frog, there are frogs in Japanese pieces as well. You can make it fit and look like a Japanese piece. However, instead of wind bars I would look into waves, would cover the band better than wind bars. Wind bars are black and grey wash that fades to skin. Where there is open skin youd see the old tattoo. But with water bars and waves there is more ink coverage on the skin and would cover the old tattoo better. Peonies are often drawn with waves and since you have a frog which comes from the water, the waves would be able to depict its immersion from the water into a frog, and the peony could be getting taken away by the water. I think your best bet would be to take it the Japanese route since there is a lot that you can do that way, and to bridge the gap to the blossoms it would be seamless. Paisley would work too but I think the Japanese would look really good. The Peony you have is beautiful I would keep that theme going!

Thanks @Wilhell! Gotta love Scott Sylvia's roses (well, actually I guess Scott Sylvia anything :) ) I love all of your Marius Meyer...so badass!

This was done by Gina at Studio 69 Tattoo on Long Island, NY last month. Picture is right after it was finished. I have a follow up appointment on 1/8 to complete the forearm sleeve. Rob

Beautiful. OTOH?

All-time favorite is on a friend of mine, mostly because of how silly it is. What do gorillas think about? Bananas, duh. By Drew Rash. Additionally, here are three I've seen on Instagram recently that I've loved. Another Tim Hendricks. Squeezing a readable ROA on there blows my mind. Grez. Does it get better than classic roses on a hand? Grime. And to totally tweak out the classic rose, a rose skull morph.

I waited a long time to have my hands done. I guess it helps that my municipal job is outdoors and 90% of the time I have to wear gloves due to safety rules.

Not just yet. We still have various spikes and the back bone (horns/scales?) the horns on the head, the tongue and teeth, the eyes, some more flames, the pearl/orb and the spikes on the tail end. I'm sure there will also be some touch ups and embellishments as well. Funny thing, Rubendall had a client in the morning and he was filling in scales on a dragon and then in the afternoon is me and...filling in scales on a dragon. I asked him if it gets tedious or if he just gets tired of seeing the same thing. Mike said he loves it and each one is different. No cutting corners or trying to make due here, just doing what he loves. AMAZING to be part of that creative process.

Friday the 13th tattooing at Kings Avenue!!! Sorta... Short 4 hour session today with Mike Rubendall at Kings Ave in Long Island. It's been freezing cold in NYC and I braved the train ride out to Long Island to continue work on my back piece. Added more color to the dragon. Here's the report. Enjoy! Alpha Omega original hanging in Rubendall's room. Details and colors are AMAZING!!! Straddling the chair and about to throwdown: And the results from today's work: Really digging the vivid colors: Slowly coming together: And of course I couldn't go home without grabbing these. I have a copy of the Fingerwave Book which these prints were made for. Saw the original hanging in the shop. LOVE the waves and happy that I own some Rubendall waves on my backside, hahaha

I kept mine covered for so long, it just got to be too much. I got tired of wearing long pants, long sleeves, and keeping my hands in my pockets. Your mom will always look at you and still see the baby she first held at the hospital; it's what moms do. Change is difficult for a parent to accept. I know I look at my kids and can't believe where the time has gone. I went to my parents and had a very upfront talk with them about tattoos. I thanked them for raising me to be the person I am today, accepting and open minded. I explained why I do what I do. I think while they may not have wanted me to wind up heavily tattooed that they now understand it better. But a mom will always be a mom to her kids. My mom still pleads with me, "No more skulls".

Opie G. Ortiz posted this 20 year old Hardy backpiece on instagram a few days ago