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Final session on my back with Rubendall today. It's bittersweet. So happy to have this portion of my back finished but will miss the fun times with Rubendall. Great gentleman, incredible artist and shrewd businessman. The complete ball of wax and then some. I still have some appointments booked and I'm thinking about starting something new with him. Henning will top things off end of this year when he'll be visiting and doing his usual guest spot at Kings Ave! Enjoy the pics! Eyes, spine, and the orb/pearl Filled in some more flame work as well Rubendall said when after the orb/pearl is full healed, it'll lighten up to a bit of an iridescent affect. Full moon close-up :o

@ironchef that is one hell of a tattoo, truly mindbowing I cant wait to see it finished - - - Updated - - - Valerie just finished my back, just short of a year, maybe 40 hours, its been a ride and I've loved every minute, well apart from the love handles, that sucked :D

We get pictures of Mike Rubendall and Valerie Vargas backpieces on members here posted within an hour. Thank you everyone for being so awesome.

It's a snake and tiger kinda time! 3rd session in, steaming through it! By Stewart Robson

@bugxjuice Howdy, right back atcha. I was tattoed by Chris 8 or so years ago. I am terrible with time lines but it was a very sweet experience and it was where I met Mike Lucena who tattooed me last year. He was apprenticing with Chris. - - - Updated - - - God, that just took me a minute to figure out the photo upload feature on here! - - - Updated - - - Mike Lucena's fancy workings Thanks for all the encouragement. It's a bit intimidating to share. Hope you all enjoy a peek in to my mind/heart at the hands of some very talented artists. Enjoy. - - - Updated - - - @hogg Thanks! and BAY AREA! When is it gonna rain?! - - - Updated - - - hey there @Iwar I was in Oslo a few years back, it was lovely. I posted a few pictures below. I actually dont have many pictures of my tattoos. My co-worker took the one of my arms today at work. And the moth, I took off of Mike's Instagram. I hope they are ok! And thank you for the kind welcome.

Hey all, The Few and Far is a project myself and my friend Travis Meisky first embarked on about one year ago. The goal was to create short documentary films about passionate and interesting people. The people that put their hearts into their work and make those around them better while they do it. We wanted to meet, engage with and befriend these people that we found inspiring. Creating for the sake of creation As the introduction to the series, tattooer, artist, business owner, husband and father of four children DJ Rose is an exemplary subject for what we aimed to accomplish. I thought this would be appealing to the folks here at LST. If you like it, I'd love if you shared it. Thanks for looking. The Few and Far - DJ Rose on Vimeo -Ryan Ryan Scott - Photographer

Mike Wilson:

BAN THIS GUY. Sorry. I meant, DAN, THIS GUY (rules).

My name is Dan... I like tattoos and drinking beer. Oh, I'm back! Sorry for the long hiatus... Life got busy, but here I am. What's new?

Who let this asshole back in? Probably gonna start threads about Lucero n shit. WATCHING YOU.

- - - Updated - - - Hi @rozone Thanks! one is Chris Conn and one is Scott Sylvia. I got Guadalupe first and then about 4 years later had finallly come up with my next idea. Since Chris had left the business during that time. I asked Chris who he suggested for the style I wanted. I shared my idea with him and he pointed me to Scott Sylvia, for which I am super grateful. Scott did a wonderful job with what I call "indigena" he nailed it. I know this may sound silly, but A big part of getting tattooed for me is feeling a connection to the artist. Both of these guys made the experience memorable for me. I wish Scott was my unkle. Nicest dude. oh and btw. I absolutely LOVE your 3 eyed lady, it's so beautiful and unique!

Hello motsimus, I don't mind you asking, I am new to this and generally don't talk too much about my tattoos. I can be a bit shy about it actually. Hopefully this forum will change some of that. I really respect the people who I've chosen to tattoo me. They were kind and very thoughtful with their approah to my ideas. They executed them way beyond my vision. Travis Berg Chris Conn Scott Sylvia Jonah Levin Mike Lucena

Some progress on my frontpiece with my boss, Josh Cruse. Did about three hours of color in the snake all around my chest and belly. I have another sitting in two weeks, but I'll probably hold off on posting anything until we get it all done... after it's healed and settled, we'll touch up anything that needs it and add some pattern work in that minty green stripe on the snake.

bryan burk dark horse, los angeles

Sleeping after a back session sucks. That is all.

Nothing planned below the knees for the moment. Kicking around some ideas but don't relish the pain associated with knee caps and knee ditch, haha. No plans for anything on my front torso either. My right thigh is open at the moment and already have some ideas. Will probably see Henning towards the end of this year for him to color in the phoenix. - - - Updated - - - @Russ Your Vargas piece is INSANE! LOVE LOVE the details and the colors. WOW!

This one by Eddy Deutsche rules too

Welcome! The only advice I can give you, since you have picked out an artist and all is to talk to him or her about your ideas (they are the professionals after all) and they should be able to give you feedback.

Those Chris Conn tattoos are insanely beautiful. They're aging so beautifully and still look so perfect. It's crazy. My tattoos are all black and grey too. Last time I got tattooed by Freddy he told me he was jealous of me for having the foresight to get nothing but black and grey when I started getting tattooed years ago, and that if he could do it all again that way he would.

The tattoos on the episode and a half I saw were all awful, and a fair few of the "before" ones were downright fake. A few of the cover ups were as well. Someone, either here or on Facebook, had found a casting call aimed at members of the Screen Actors' Guild that outright said you didn't need to have a tattoo, and specifically asked for someone with space in which to draw a fake tattoo. I think this was covered in another thread at some point as well... perhaps in the depths of the Inkmasters thread?

Welcome from another SFer! And yeah, that's a great list of artists.

past 24 hours

For your consideration. Just got this yesterday from Beau Brady while he was at Invisible NYC this week and a few forum members suggested I put it up in here. Thanks!

Here's a healed shot of the rose and dagger I got from Scott Sylvia at the Richmond Convention.

While I can relate to being pissed off about general rudeness, I feel some things tattooists need to lighten up on. Basically being unknowledgable about tattoos in general, asking questions we have heard a million times before, bringing references on phones, wanting stuff that is too detailed or won't work. A gentle approach goes a long way. The way I look at it, I patronize a lot of business where I don't know jack, and I don't appreciate being treated like an idiot for not being in the know. A good example is when I went back to my local print shop. I was asking why I couldn't open a certain file which was a flash sheet I had scanned to a tiff file. The print shop guy snapped at me "ITS A MULTI PAGE TIFF FILE!! YOU CAN'T OPEN IT UNLESS YOU HAVE PHOTOSHOP!!" I am like ok, can you change it to a file that I can open? Again snappage "I CAN'T DO THAT! YOU HAVE TO HAVE THE ORIGINAL IMAGE!" I am like "ok, I have that, could you please scan it again?". I also had them saved as PDFs for easy printing. So he was like "I am just going to change these PDFs into JPEGS". I said I would prefer to have both, as the PDFs print original size and all. Even more snappage " UNLESS YOU ARE GOING TO PRINT THEM OUT, THERE IS NO USE". I calmly explain to him that they are commercial art, of course I am going to print them out. Then I ask if I have the jpegs and alter them, they can be saved into PDFs again, right? More snappage "ONLY IF YOU HAVE PHOTOSHOP!" The guy was literally yelling at me. Needless to say, I won't be doing business there again. Think about that the next time a customer says asks about things that seem readily apparent to you. A lot of times people are not trying to be difficult. You are the expert, not them. Try and take this into consideration.

I found a web page that had the Haeckel source for this Guy le Tatooer piece but I can't find it now... always thought it was a cool tattoo, read this thread, found the source, then lost it. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I always told myself that I'd wait to be dating someone to get a full back piece (so they can lotion my back hahaha), but then I thought to myself, "Hey I can reach back there. I can just do it myself I guess." Or could I just dry heal it? Decisions, decisions.

This pretty much sums it up. So nice. I can't even imagine how sick it will look when Henning is done his part.

Wowowow @ironchef! What a beauty!

@MadeIndelible Ah, cool! Really looking forward to the release of this!

Who runs Barter town!?!

The Civ one would have been awesome, but god damn scott's roses and daggers are rad. BTW, thats probably one of my favorite HWM chants ever.

More like gouge decided to lift the banhammer. heyyyyoooo

Welcome to LST Jasmin. You have been tattooed by some of my favorite tattooers! Would love to see pictures them, if you don't mind sharing.

Wonderful list. And welcome from another teacher.

I took the survey, out of consideration of what @deadsp0t said. That said, the survey was far lacking in it's ability to gather information from anyone who isn't getting tattooed for the Google/Pinterest flash reasons. I left a comment in the final page informing Charlotte as such, in what I felt were blunt, yet polite terms. I mainly did this so she would see it, because there's a good chance she won't be part of the discourse here beyond one or two posts. "Try to go out into the world of tattoos. Go to tattoo shops and learn a bit. Perhaps, even get tattooed a few times as part of your research. Anthropologists should immerse themselves in a culture to learn about it, right? I encourage you to do the same." (not all of what I said, but a short selection that summed it up)

Watched it last night - it's really good. I now really want to get to Frith Street - and not even to get tattooed (though of course I would) but just to meet some of these amazing people.

Brian Kaneko: Chaz Bojorquez:

Chaz Bojorequez lantern!!! The Master! So good. These previews are looking too good. Can't wait to see this! Perseverance Preview: Luke Stewart: Jeff Gogue: - - - Updated - - - Brian Kaneko: Chaz Bojorquez: - - - Updated - - - Brian Kaneko: Chaz Bojorquez: - - - Updated - - - Ergh. I give up posting these last two. Tomorrow perhaps.

Frank Carter, Frith St. He drew this on in quite an awkward space between two pieces on my leg. Super nice guy, had fun getting this one. First time in Frith Street! And I robbed this picture from Frank's Instagram btw

Here's a fully of the progress so far, not just butt teasers from Dana's Instagram (though no one was complaining.....). I had a little fun and struck my best rear "relaxed" pose from my bodybuilding days. My internet personality is way more interesting than in real life. But hey, we're all just in it for the "likes" anyhow, amirite?! :cool:

Stomach tattoos look like great motivation to keep in shape.

Got this done at Black Garden Tattoo in London by Tutti Serra, super stoked with it

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

Our own @Chelsea Shoneck should be on this list:

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.

Got in a session with Henning yesterday at Kings Avenue Manhattan. Haven't seen him in a year and naturally he had a lot of catching up to do on the back piece in comparison to the head start Rubendall has had, haha. It was another 6+ hour session and it was pretty brutal. Side ribs and spine are no fun as you'll see in the pictures and I found myself constantly questioning..."Why am I doing to this myself???" Probably the worst pain I have felt so far getting tattooed. We managed to line and shade the background on my right side and also part of my lower back. I will see Henning again this Friday to line some more feathers and shade in the left side background and maybe finish coloring my koi thigh piece. Strangely ironic that this is marathon week in NYC (The ING NYC Marathon to be exact) because that is what these crammed in LONG sessions feel like. But totally worth it in the end. Enjoy the pics folks. Doing some drawing to get a feel of what left side will be like come Friday Laying down the background and connecting it to Rubendall's work A little more close up with a different angle Masters watching masters at work: Chris O'donnell and Richard Pinch observing and lending advice to Henning. I was in awe! Can't see much from this pic but we got a lot done and I was totally spent. More to come this Friday

1. People bringing their kids to the shop. Nothing pisses me off more. 2. People canceling the day of the appointment OR them "forgetting" they had an appointment. Thanks for the deposit and wasting my time. 3. Asking how much "a rose" is or how much "some letters" are or a how much a "medium tattoo" costs. Fucker, how much is a new car or a bag of groceries? I don't know! 4. Trying to get me to price match with other shops like Im Walmart. 5. Parents that bring their kids in to get tattooed, even though they dont approve, and act shitty to me when I do the tattoo. 6. When a client's friend is with them while getting tattooed and they tell their friend, "its almost done"... um... did i say it was? no... it isnt. 7. Clients who talk with their hands or keep moving their head fast when Im tattooing them. 8. Clients I dont know on a certain level that think Im their therapist. 9. People who think I love L.A. Ink. and "have to get a tattoo from Kat Von D before they die". 10. Clients that put their friend's opinion before their own. I was bitter towards people before becoming a tattooer from working retail... it only got worse. I could go on all day. Im really not an asshole.