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Some progress on my Marius Meyer backpiece last week. He did all the green/scales ..

Yep, this was all at the NYC con. I emailed him and told him I would like a nine tailed fox and I like this drawing, and he told me to come in Saturday.Horimitsu seems like a nice guy. He shook my hand when I arrived and left. He doesn't speak English well so sometimes I had to say things twice, but I was able to get across what I wanted. I asked if I should get it on my upper arm or lower leg. He looked at both and decided my leg would be easier. He enlarged the drawing with a photocopier when I asked him to. He knew what I meant when I told him I wanted it yellow but not too yellow. At the same time he also exercised his own judgement, which I'm grateful for because he knows his stuff. For example he told me blue wasn't a good color for the fox's eyes when I suggested it. I watched him draw, he was really careful, precise and focused. When he was done I saw him count the tails to double check and make sure there are really nine of them. I was planning to ask him if I could keep the drawing when I was done, but by the time it was done I totally forgot. I guess it doesn't matter though, because I have the same drawing on my leg for the rest of my life. I wasn't good at handling the pain, especially for the first couple hours. I probably moved way too much. I'm glad all the lines came out non-shaky despite that. It took 5 hours total including a few breaks. One of the guys working there (don't remember his name, sorry) gave me a rice dumpling during one of my breaks because there wasn't any food for sale at the con. The food helps with the pain. He also got me a Twix when I was done. He also answered some questions I had and even brought me my ipod so I wouldn't have to interrupt Mitsu to get it myself. There were a lot of people gathered around the booth watching me get the tattoo. I thought that would bother me because I'm a shy person in general, but I was so distracted by the pain I didn't care at all. Also the tattoo is so great I kind of wanted everyone to see it. I chatted a bit with the guys getting tattooed by Shunho right next to me, and some other people. There's kind of a sense of comradery in the place because we're all interested in tattoos, which is cool. I left shortly after it was done though because I was pretty tired. So, overall, Horimitsu is a nice guy and the experience was great.

A tribute to my brother, who passed seven years ago. He was a transplant from the midwest to L.A. and resented the Hell out of the fact that he was expected to know Spanish.

I thought Junii had (to me)the most inspiring lecture. She may have struggled through some English but every story or idea she was talking about rang true regardless of gender. She well deserved the ovation if anyone were to get one. Chasing dreams is part of what makes us interesting people and keeps out spirits alive. I can relate to the same experience of chasing a dream to be doing what I love to do and how the realization of the dream has made me a happier person in general. Chris's was really interesting and well put together. Both of those were my favorites. I have always been a huge fan of Chaz esp what he's been doing the last few years style-wise but it (again in my opinion) wasn't a lecture that truly fit in with the rest of what the exhibit was about. ^@moisttowelette that's a super awesome page you got there. I would've liked to get the catalogs I picked up signed (sorry Ross) but I had been sitting in one seat for 4 straight hours with only a roti and coffee for substance for the whole day. I was ready to eat my hand by the time 5 o'clock rolled around. Skipping the signing turned out to be a blessing; while everyone else was inside lining up for the signing I had the chance to have a lengthy conversation with one of the people that inspired me to chase MY dreams. This guy did more for American tattooing than anyone else arguably more so than Jerry even if he wouldn't accept that honor. He continues to inspire me every single day. Thanks Ed, for everything you've done for us. What I didn't know before is that he gets a fair amount of his prints done in a town reallllly close to my house, right down from a mountain where I take daily morning hikes. He said he'd be glad to stop down to our shop next time he's in town. edit: after reading it just now I had to include a quote from a link I found in a different thread "Without Hardy, I wouldn’t be who I am today,” Horiyoshi III told The Japan Times in a recent interview."

that was an amazing experience! to see tattoos and actual live tattooing represented at a museum was incredible, along with watching so many body suits displayed at one time. my favorite part was getting the epic catalog signed by the artists, and shige doing a full page autograph! i might be wrong, but i believe my buddies and i were the only ones to get the full pager!! i wish i was able to get a vid but my phone died...

@lastjohn and @The Dude definitely seem like trolls, and most of us seem to be able to spot trolls when they show up here. We should all (myself included) take our own advice and stop giving them the attention they want. In this and all threads. When in doubt, ignore them.

Got this done yesterday by Leigh Harris, guest spotting at King Carlos Tattoo in Stockholm. I'm so happy with it! :)

got this from jeff rassier the other day in sf super stoked. super nice guy. go get tattooed by him. oh yeah thanks to hogg and others for telling me to call the shop back coz would not have gotten it if i didn't

Last night while scrolling through some work on here, my wife looks at @hogg's gallery and goes, "Man, this Lehi guy is the guy to go to for tigers, huh?" She's learning.

fabulous!!!! - - - Updated - - - Over the moon with this Ron Wells reaper!!! I just love it to pieces! Ron's a great guy and I had a blast getting tattooed by him again.

This session we did all the green. The end is near.. By Marius Meyer

these 2 are from yesterday thanks for looking

I saw this collaboration one-shot backpiece by Yang and Ching from East Tattoo in Taiwan, done at the Paris convention, and thought it was worthy of this thread. Ching did my back and one sleeve, so obviously I'm a fan of their work, but I thought this was really funky. You can see a little of Ching's Filipino Leu backpiece here. The rest of his stuff is mostly by Yang. Pics from their Instagram.

As a kindergarten (multi-subject) teacher, I love teaching art and have gotten more into it this year than ever. Aside from visual art I also do a lot with music & drama. These are some of the art projects we have done this year. One super awesome thing about it is that our most recent art project (the Mondrian one) was suggested to me by @cltattooing on Instagram!! I just think it's really cool that a tattooer from Oakland who I've never met in person has influenced my Los Angeles kindergarten class. The internet can be so far reaching and positive.

Five hours total for your first tattoo strikes me as pretty badass, whether you "handled it well" or not. Congratulations on an excellent tattoo!

Everyone freaks out about the healing of their first tattoo. The dripping is just plasma from the tattooed area that is carrying excess ink away. After that it will dry out and you'll notice a softening of the tattoo colors.

Just got this! First tattoo! Another photo.

got this pretty lady today from timmy tatts.

Got this one done by Tony Nilsson aka Tony Tox at Blue Arms Tattoo in Oslo! On the biceps.

Frank William from when i was in chicago last week.

He politely said that this is not a place to post tattoos at a learning stage like yours. This is also not a forum for critiques and technical information is never shared or discussed. I gave you a private message with a suggestion of a different site where you might get some level of that. You should read the forum rules before posting anything else.

I don't know about other people and I agree this thread should just die a boring death but... @The Dude the point everyone is trying to get across is that you can't dictate to others how or how much they should get tattooed. You don't like heavily tattooed women and men? Fine. Then my suggestion is that this forum is not for you.

Welcome to the forum, and congratulations on having your own studio. Out of curiosity, who do you have as a mentor? I'm hoping you have a more experienced tattooer with you there? If not you should seriously consider hiring one. Flying blind is a terrible way to start and bad habits, purely out of lack of training, are hard to break. Expect to get some heat here for opening your own place after tattooing 5 months and I would agree that it's not a great idea without more experience. To keep on a positive note I must say your English seems to be doing fine.

@TrixieFaux It's been soooo cool watching your class work on these projects! It always makes me proud when I see young children getting into art, so especially rad given that they have all captured the essence of each artist's style so well. Such an exciting thing to see. One of my best friends has a 2 year old son and he is always drawing, every day. She's been posting his drawings and paintings on facebook and it's really nuts to recognize the real talent that toddlers and pre-school/kindergarteners have even though they are still learning cognitive functions. @hogg we went to Taqueria Cancun :cool:

Thats why we have banners displayed at the backs of our booths and business cards at the front.

I love this piece in progress from Filip! Also going to throw in a picture of the one in my collection :D:

@Tesseracts tattoos hurt in the healing process. all is normal.

So I just moved to Berlin. It feels like I'm crazy but actually I'm here for an artist residency for the next two months. Now I have to go out and work on my German and try to meet people or something. And I'm itching to work getting tattooed in there sometime as well. I just really had to share that!!!!!!

I love all you guys and your awesome tattoos!! This is a good thread. <bows to LST for existing!>

A bird whispered in my ear that he is invited to do a guestspot in a rad shop in London, @Russ

I got started on my leg piece yesterday. I was such a little bitch. I seriously was tapped after just three hours. Thanks to Sam @ Clubhouse in Oakland. Can't wait to finish this!

Got this shaded last night by Jason Reeder. Really feeling the burn today. :D

Finished my leg by Marius Meyer yesterday, we managed to finish it in only three sessions and I'm very happy with the result!!:o Cat lady on the front is by Chris Conn

Giving this a shot. This is my alligator tattoo done by Seth Wood who works at temple tattoo in Oakland California. We finished at Saved Tattoo in Brooklyn this Monday the third of march

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

The preferred LST terminology for this kind of coverage is SQUIDPANTS.

Next time, try La Taqueria on Mission and 25th or La Palma Mexicatessen on 24th and Florida (which unfortunately closes at 6pm).

@LadeiraTattoo I'm not sure this is the ideal place to be posting your work this early in your career.

I love this forum. Thanks everyone for being so great.

yeah nothing to worry about you will have some ink mixing with body fluids. This usually last like a day or so. Totally normal! - - - Updated - - - maybe it is caused by too much ointment .. keep the plastic on for only a day. When you start switching to lotion don't over do it. Less is more.

Ha, that's one reason I know I'd be out of place in a convention unless I had someone leading me. It would be nice to avoid that "Oh, you're Shige."

Under saran wrap you get puss, sweat, etc... No worries! Odd that he said don't use soap, but eh, I'm sure it's fine. If the black ink were dripping, it would be black running down your leg and not wound colored.

What @DevilMan said. It's perfectly normal for tattoos to hurt for a few days afterward (and feel like a sunburn for about a week).

Looks normal to me, just regular wound fluids. I normally put on saran wrap for the first night and the wrap is usually pretty soaked in the morning. Don't worry, just give it a wash a couple of times a day and leave it alone as much as possible, you'll be fine :)

Ahhh, Perseverance, what can I say? It was awesome! But everyone already knew it was going to be. Here's a rushed description of the exhibit space itself. This doesn't do it justice or describe the energy on Friday and SaturdayI'll write something up later regarding the actual experience of this exhibition mixing people with tattoo knowledge mingling with those who don't (that was interesting. Kind of cool in a funny way), the lectures, tattooing, etc, which were all cool too. I'm just too tired right now. But it was great to see Reyeslv on Friday, and @TrixieFaux & @DJDeepFried on Saturday. Btw, DJdeepfried, get that spot with Stewart Robson! You've got to. I was too shy to introduce myself to him, again (headsmack!!!) For those who did not make it out to the opening and can't go due to travel restraints it's located on the upper level level of JANM. The exhibit is contained within 2 rooms. Before you even enter the exhibit the anticipation builds as you encounter kites hanging from the ceiling leading you towards the exhibit. On each kite is printed a close up of someone's tattoos echoing the woodblock printings on kites of Japan's past. It's an effective drum roll as your pace quickens to drink in all that will come mere steps away. Once you enter you're greeted with an explosion of these kites suspended from the ceiling and not only the kites but you are welcomed by a large floating temple style gate sitting in the center of the rectangular space. Starting at one side of the gate, ringing around and ending at the opposite side are suspended panels of life size bodysuits created by the 7 artists that are the main feature of the exhibit. When you step inside, each panel displays a Client's back. As you walk around you see the Client's front. It's quite impressive. Especially when you are in the center of it all ringed on all sides by these amazing images. Hanging on the exhibit walls are a series of double rowed smaller photographs lined up and down. In the second room there are more photos placed in double rows on the wall. On the white walls, are intricate reproductions in black brush strokes are drawings by some of the tattooers. On one wall a koi, another a dragon, a third, Benten, etc. these pairings work well with the photos and subject matter and also informed where photos were hanged in arrangement. It's all very clean and well thought out. One wall in particular,which I thought was a great idea, is dedicated to those who don't have knowledge about Japanese motifs. There are descriptions behind certain supernatural entities flowers, warriors, etc. This was nice and absolutely essential for anyone not familiar with Japanese tattoos and helps inform viewers. Also, within this 2nd room, floating just off center from the center was a large curving panoramic depicting 13 of Shige's Clients. If you are a fan of Shige's, this is a must see Soaking it in was a delight. All of the exhibit was a delight and deliberate. All the elements not on walls were suspended. The kites, temple gates, Shige's panoramic. All were floating and I couldn't help but think this was a deliberate act to allude to the ideas of the "floating world" of old Japan. Even if this wasn't deliberate, I think it's a cool thought. Accompanying this was the exhibit catalogue. Oh my! It's so amazing! This will be my favorite book for a while. it's absolutely worth more than the $20 you pay. I love the images of course, but also how it's broken down. I think it and the exhibit does great justice to tattooing. The format is awesome. From including descriptions regarding Japanese tattoo elements such as munewari and soushinbori, to showing traditional Japanese tattoos and tattoos influenced not by Japanese subject but by Japanese form. Basically a bunch of good things in it. My favorite of which is a chapter specifically dedicated to Chris Brand's 108 heroes of Los Angeles. Another favorite is a chapter featuring the work of Onizuka Tattoo owned by Lil Tokyo Jiro in LA. I haven't heard many shout outs for this shop but Iv'e been aware of them for years. 3 Japanese ex-pats working out of Little Tokyo. Jiro Yaguchi who has crazy solid work, and works by machine, LA Horitaka from the Horitoshi I Family doing tebori work, and Jakoh who's work has a modern twist. I'm happy to see them get attention. If I hadn't gotten tattooed by Jill Bonny 5 years ago, I'd probably be going to Jiro right now. Taki, Kip Fulbeck, and all involved deserve a great deal of congratulations on a job well done and our thanks for putting something like this out to the world, not just the tattoo community. Btw it's also awesome to look at this book and see larger images of 3 torso tattoos depicting Fudo Myo-o by Horitomo, Shige and @Stewart Robson. All 3 are uniquely their own and equally beautiful. I wish they were shown together.

Navajo style filler by Paul O'Rourke, AllStar Tattoo, from today.

Hello everyone! It's been quiet from me for a while here now, that'a because I've been working on this leg with Marius Meyer! We did it in only three REALLY painful sessions :cool: never tattooing the side of my stomach ever again! hahah But I'm soo happy with how it turned out! Cat lady is by Chris Conn :o

Thanks you everyone, I totally love it! The sternum was an 8 of 10 pain wise wasn't pleasant the nipple was a 10 on a mans scale of pain lol but it only lasted like 10 mins... First day we did only 6 hours as we spent like 4 hours perfecting the picture and stencils and by 6 hours of work it was 1am and my Mrs had had enough so we called it. Second day 14 hours! I am considering lasering y Remis piece as letting carlos do my whole front, we have some great ideas for it and the Remis piece just doesn't fit in

Finally finished up with Seth wood the other night. Here she is, the gator!