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Ha! Alright then, here's my RH Wells from last year (march-ish I think).

Ill throw this in the mix. valerie vargas frith street

Got this done by Frank Carter yesterday, nabbed the picture from his instagram as i'm too lazy to take one myself.

Looks great Peter! Ugh anxiety. I have my next appointment in a couple hours. I'm always afraid I'll tap out after 45 minutes, haha. UPDATE From Dana's Instagram and then a closeup from my wife's personal collection. ;)

Per Graeme's suggestion, my entry into the Ron Henry Wells Tattoo of the Month contest: This is all your fault, by the way. The collective you.

I'm gonna arse up the RHW month combo with another Valerie Vargas piece! Even though most people know this, both Valerie and Stewart are seriously awesome people. If I had infinite skin and infinite money I could very happily spend all day getting tattooed and listening to their stories!

Fuck it. Ron Henry Wells. Done in 2011 at the State of Grace Convention. Right before he went to put the first line down, he said, "Let's give this guy a snake! A TROUSER SNAKE!"

The Japan Times has a long-ish article about the history of foreign-Japanese tattooing relations: Loved abroad, hated at home: the art of Japanese tattooing | The Japan Times It takes the Perseverance show as its jump off point and then looks at how international and Japanese attitudes towards tattoos have often been so different. There are some quotes from Japanese American National Museum's top - plus Horiyoshi III gets a mention and Don Ed Hardy. As a side-bar, there are also some interviews with Tokyo residents about their tattoos and a nice piece by Shige: Tokyo: What's the story behind your tattoo? | The Japan Times Happy reading!

It's because they didn't get a panther.

I'm a newbie too. I like your octopus concept and choice of artist. My idea is similar, but I want the octopus outline shape to be recognizable/standard. The octopus pattern is where I want my artist to get creative. I asked him to have the octopus hold a starfish with a cool unique pattern and have the octopus mimic that pattern in it's body and legs. Kind of cool since in real life octopi mimic what they touch. Here is an update on my whale shark tattoo. Finished this past Sunday. Tail is a little wonky in position and looks because it's covering a big old surgery scar.

Even though I was never actually good at it, skateboarding is probably one of my biggest and earliest influences in life. In the late 80s or early 90s during the summers in the shitty little town where I grew up, the curling rink was converted into an indoor skatepark with half pipes and even though those ramps were terrifying and I couldn't actually skate them for the life of me, that skatepark is where I first heard punk rock. Thrasher magazine was like a bible: I read about Youth of Today in there, it was through Thrasher that I was introduced to artists like Pushead and Jim Phillips, there were the Skate Rock tapes and the Sessions ads always selling t-shirts with the Misfits skull on them. I treasured those magazines. Actually skating went in and out of my life and I don't think I've actually been on a skateboard since high school. I think about starting again from time to time, but then I remember that I'm old and my body hurts at the best of times as it is. But even so, I like going on Youtube and wasting away hours watching skate videos. Anybody else? What are your favourites? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rVLguwR5o8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHj-nlam4C4

I support this thread 1000% Barrier cult / dark man woods have been some of my favorite videos lately - - - Updated - - - Mid-late 90s high budget birdhouse video, this was and still is such an awesome idea

Bubbleberry Starfish.

My new rose from Mr. Wells. Totally over-the-moon happy with it. Still too much of a numpty to figure out how to post an image from Instagram on here.

Walk in day at blackheart. Get tattooed by Jeff Rassier within an hour. no big deal.

I'll toss in my new chest piece done by Tim Pausinger at the Pearl Harbor Gift Shop, for this month's contest.

I put this in this months contest thread, but I figured I'd put it here too. It was done by Ron Henry Wells at the Philly convention. Getting tattooed by him was great. He kept yelling at me every half hour or so. Highlights included: "I can't believe you're making me tattoo between Grez and Scott Sylvia!" "Seriously, fuck you." "You know I'm ruining the property value of your leg, right? I mean, I'm gonna put this tattoo here, and next thing you know, bloods and crips will be selling crack on your leg." "Why do you even want to get tattooed by me after these other ones? I should be working at Starbucks, not making tattoos." Dude was hilarious. Anyway, this is healed now, and it definitely fits in and doesn't ruin my leg at all. Haha. He's so self-deprecating, but goddamn if he doesn't just keep killing it. I love almost everything I see him do.

I'll take the survey if I can be assured that this quote makes the final paper in some fashion.

Apparently Siri doesn't like the word Kult Anti Hero team are always killing it. Just style in general if not choice of terrain. The type of skating I like to see. Beauty & The beast vids were awesome too

Can we just send Mr. Wells a shirt and call it even? I feel like thats the best way to go about this...

Done by Ron Henry Wells at the Philadelphia convention. It's finally healed, so I figured I'd throw it in here.

I'll do that only if you follow the very good advice given to you on that other thread and cover up that janky star with a really nice sleeve.

Collar wrap is all done and healed! Lion & Snake were made by Shawn O'Connor in Oct 2013 and Jan 2014, respectively. Eagle was made by Chris David :cool:

Well, we didn't manage to make it 5 hours, I gave up after 3.5 hours :) But we did cover a lot of skin in those three and half hours, so I think we did OK :) Next session in two weeks... can't wait ;-)

I went the ways of a home gym mid 2013. I've had some slow gains because I had to readjust for so much tattoo healing, but I do want to say that I FINALLY hit a huge milestone and I put my body weight overhead with a slight push press. And anyone who's been keeping up with my back piece progress has seen dat ass and knows that it must mean I put up a good amount of weight, haha. For how long I've been training, I should have had 3x BW by now, but hey, a PR is a PR and I'm happy about it,

@suburbanxcore and @graybones if you're going to play it like that, I'm going to throw this into the ring and we're going to have a three-way Ron Wells showdown.

@suburbanxcore , since you're entering your Ron Wells wolf, I'll throw in his cousin, the Ron Wells fox:

A little Black and Grey skull action at Spotlight Tattoo from Christian Cervantes.

Hyottoko from Civ at the West Texas Tattoo Convention...

I might as well go balls deep with my second post and stick this in!:p My latest piece from Ross Nagle: As per my introduction thread, the top of the skull looks a little distorted because of the way my arm is turned but you get the idea. (I really need to get healed pics!!)

Instagram Instagram Haven't seen pictures of the front of it though...

@Marlena Rozenberg Fair enough, and for that I'll take your survey.

tatoo!

Call the shop. They are the most reliable source for answering this question. As a side note I think we as clients do artists a disservice by publicly quoting the length of a wait list. I wouldn't want a potential client to not contact an artist because they heard a rumor that their wait list is X months/years long. A new client might get lucky if they call right after a few flaky people back out of big scheduled projects. Or certain ideas might be bumped to the top of the waiting list.

I got the job I was hoping for! Wont make very much hourly for the first three months, but after that I should make good money. And the company offers an awesome profit based bonus system, which will most likely lead to my car being paid off quickly, a Triumph motorcycle, and some rad tattoos. Not necessarily in that order. I may be thinking a bit far ahead, but damn im happy now!

I feel like my intro thread was pretty terrible (nervous questions about first tattoo etc) and I've been wanting a do-over, so here goes: I'm Rebecca and I live with my SO outside of Boston, MA. I've worked at a bookstore for almost 8 years and am a college dropout, though I might go back full-time someday. (I've only done a handful of night classes since leaving.) I'm not really an artist - not a good one, anyway - but I do like to write. Almost anything can and will pique my curiosity, especially if there's some tricky technical element to it, i.e. fixing up old stereo equipment. I've always been fascinated by tattoos but didn't really do anything about it until last year. I have a lot to learn. I love beer and funny English novelists and bands with large, convoluted back catalogues. I am pretty shy and socially awkward but would be interested in seeing some of your work in person, if there's ever a northeast US get-together. ...and here's a picture of me in footie pyjamas surrounded by books, because every picture of me is as terrible as this one.

@dane Those are awesome stab holes. Skin portals? Knife pockets?

A healed shot of my Back piece:)

Oh what the hell. My leg, done in November by El Monga Sasturain.

Look, man. You're really not seeming to get this whole forum, and don't seem to be taking anyone's advice. Maybe I'm wrong.

Nice one. If they keep doing it monthly, I'll be back every month. I was gonna wait for Rassier, but went with Cody instead.

Got my first tattoo wednesday, by Dotwork Damian at Blue Dragon, Brighton. Took around 6 hours. I'm incredibly happy with it, and will be extending it :)

Yeah at this point I see someone who clearly has no intention of listening to well-given advice and continues to act like an ass with little respect towards the community or the people involved in it. Stop giving this idiot advice and let him continue to use words and phrases like gun and 'get your ink game up' so that any professional tattooer can see the kind of moron they are dealing with. You have completely exhausted any sense of patience and help or advice I have for anyone at all much less on the internet. This is where I tell a customer "it's clear you are in the wrong shop. I'm sure you will find someone out there that will give you what you want. Good luck and good bye." It's clear you are on the wrong forum. I'm sure you will find plenty of forums on the Internet that will tell you the advice you want to hear. You know, one of the only reasons of giving someone like this much time and patience is only because Ian recently made a post about how we need to be kinder to new people here. It's hard to be nice to people and give this much credit when they act this stupid. "This why we can't have nice things"

The main issue I have (as a tattooist) with certain slang terms is that they instantly identify someone as a kitchen wizard, or someone who is happy to frequent scratcher shops. I've worked hard to get where I am, damn hard, and a large part of that was learning about the history and tradition of the craft. Through this, I've developed an overwhelming respect for the ancientness and significance of what we do, as both tattooists and tattoo enthusiasts. This respect makes it impossible for me to use terms such as 'inked' 'tatted up' and 'tat gun', simply because it demeans what I have worked so hard for (and continue to bust my balls at). I'm not really bothered when customers use them because the majority know no better as they haven't had the insight and learning I have, nor do the majority care (they just want to get tatted up). That's cool with me. They've just accidentally come to a decent tattooer and will end up with a better tattoo than they probably deserve. They pays their money, they makes their choice! Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Get your ink game up? Dear lord....

Hi, bumping this thread because I need some advice. First of all I wish I could edit the post where I said dragon tattoos don't have character. I think at that point I just hadn't looked at enough tattoos to figure out how to judge them. You can't judge a 3d object the same way you judge a painting. Still, I wish there were more non-Asian style dragon tattoos out there, maybe I'll create a thread on that. Anyway, after I found this website I looked at a lot of tattoos, then I stopped for a while, then came back to it. After a few months I found that Japanese traditional stuff has the most lasting appeal to me. Like I said on this thread I'm thinking of getting a kitsune and going down to the NYC tattoo convention to do that. How hard is it to get a tattoo at a convention like this? Is there any way I can reserve a spot? Will it come out worse if the artists feel rushed and overworked at the convention? If I don't get it at the convention, I might try to get Shinji Horizakura. I also like Seth Wood's style. Any other ideas?

You speak a million languages, it's easy to confuse you for a Norwegian.

If you really want to get something big like a dragon or a phoenix, I'd say to wait, do your research and save your money, and go for that instead of getting something smaller just for the sake of getting a tattoo. Take a look around here at the Latest Tattoo Lowdown thread, the Tattoo of the Month contests, and because you're thinking of going big, the Full Back Piece thread to see the tattoos people here are getting and who they're getting them from. That tiger you posted is on a poster here, and it's amazing.

Welcome to LST. I have a nautilus tattooed on my forearm so I like the idea, but that one does nothing for me. It looks like something pulled off of Google Image Search and just looks kind of cheap. To give you a couple of ideas of what you can do with a nautilus, here's a picture of my forearm, which was tattooed by Thomas Hooper (it's kind of hard to get a good picture of it because it wraps around my arm): And here's a picture of one Seth Wood did that I also think is super cool: