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hello- wanted to add my new work to the thread. I just sat through another double session with Mr. Rubendall. We finished the outline added a skull peony and started shading up the ribs and lower back hard. coming along quicker than I thought, but still slowly. EDIT: Thank god the shading hurts way less than the line work I'm so not sure I could sit through if it was worse.

Got this pantherose from Jeff Rassier at Black Heart yesterday. So stoked. If I lived here, I'd get a lot more tattoos a lot more quickly.

Thank you!! So, as I have mentioned before, Junii usually has some inspiration right before the tattoo and our plans change a bit - now it looks like we're going back to two snakes, no hannya (maybe). And the collab? Oh, just Junii, Shad, and EVERYONE IN DIAMOND CLUB, nbd. !!!!! At the beginning of the second day, I was looking at some frog paintings my hosts have around their home and vaguely thinking "what a cool tattoo that would be". Headed to the shop. As soon as I get there Junii says "what do you think about this?" and pulls out some frog stencils she made!! As my mind was wrapping itself around this fun bit of synchronicity, she explained that she wanted to put a meditating frog down at the bottom of my leg, and then add some dreamy clouds working their way up so it appears that everything we see is what the frog is sitting and meditating about - we have a beginning now!! She is going to add a few more frogs, one guy with beads, another one with a coin, maybe another guy. I am so satisfied with how this tattoo is coming along - not just with the quality of the work, but also the completely organic nature of how the tattoo itself is developing. It's really incredible to be part of this experience!! ...searching for more words...I'm just into it, is all. :p I'm booked again in July...we'll see what she comes up with next!!!!! I've attached some action shots and one of me being just clearly insanely happy to be where I am. (Thank you for indulging me). Yes @Lance, best birthday present to self ever. @Zillah the koi looks great!! You are a beast to sit for 7.5 hours - that shit is hard! Congrats and can't wait to see a healed pic.

Here's the result of my recent trip to Austin... Instagram My hands are currently swollen to the size of boxing gloves, so I had to borrow the above picture from Thomas's instagram. Super happy with 'em.

Also drove up to Napa to get this lady head/eagle from Chad Koeplinger on Thursday. Super good experience.

Boom!!

You're screwed. I see at least one or two people die a week at the shop. See ya on the other side.

I've recently fallen in love with this piece: Absolutely love the abundance of finger waves and the classic simple but powerful koi imagery. Adding this to my folder of ideas...

Got my koi done today finally. We didn't go all the way around the back this time, the tattooist thought it would be better to wait until I extend it down to the forearm to do that. The colours don't look that great in the photo- irl they are far brighter. Need to take a daytime + healed photo at some point. 7.5 hours.

I survived! We got no where near the amount done I thought we would, but it's amazing what did get done. I have to keep my bandage on for a while longer, but I'll snap pics after that. Here's a preview...

Almost fully healed now, leg skull/snake/flower by Scott Sylvia at Blackheart Tattoo.

And just came across this pretty cool one by Civ:

There was a story going around not too long ago about a guy denied entry into Sri Lanka due to his buddha tattoo. The Man with the Buddha Tattoo - Robbie Bulloch I say, if you're a visitor to that country, you need to do a little research and respect their culture, full stop.

Total bullshit but sounds like Sri Lanka's got a proven record of bullshit.. and if you're gonna travel there, you may wanna read up on said record and invest in a long sleeve t-shirt or ace bandage.

Damn @Zillah... with friends like that who needs enemies! Also @beez ewwwwww! Older hippy dude gave you castor oil and said "exotic nipple play" all in the confines of a small bathroom???! :eek: There's weird, there's freaky, and then there's just plain gross. I have lucked out and not had much unwanted attention toward me due to my tattoos. Must some combination of: I'm older now so they are just not interested, I don't tend to go to places where creeps are lurking, I am wearing a wedding ring and often have my kid or husband with me, I live in L.A. where so many of us from many walks of life have tattoos, and/or because I put up a pretty good "stay away from me" vibe when I have to.

Oh, they were just "setting it" for you! Ancient eastern tattoo trick.. :D

I would have immediately acted like she was diseased and started publicly disinfecting etc ... She did put her filthy hand on your wound after all.

I must admit I'm sceptical that he'll stay in one place for too long!

Thanks. Yeah, when it was done, I immediately wanted to get more tattoos from him.

Mr Chad Koeplinger officially announced that he's moving to Austin and working at Rock of Ages full time. Can anyone say powerhouse?

I don't think it's dust, because he uses black fuzzballs to do things like shading and clouds on a lot of his tattoos. Well... fuzzballs probably isn't the right word, but I can't think a better one right now. It may be dust though. I saw the LST interview with him, and he said he used to do graffiti, so he's probably emulating the look of spray paint when he does this. To me it looks kind of like the void of outer space, or some sort of dark magic that sucks out the light.

Thank goodness. I know we're all perfectly capable of taking care of ourselves, but that is creepy/predatory as hell. Brr. I feel lucky that the only unsolicited touching I've dealt with so far has been from my curious 3-year-old pal. (She's now taken to wearing temporary tattoos an awful lot...) It's quite sweet.

Staying w a friend tonight and then have a new place starting tomorrow!

Castle from Kemer at Superfly tattoos here in Leon MX

How dare you not wear an ankle length, long sleeve dress. Jeez. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Spinal fusion to correct kyphosis (similar to scoliosis). I can elaborate more but it might start to feel like an episode of Miami Ink...

Can you put up a better angle of this please so i can get my tattoo artist to copy it,thanks.

I'd say boot anyone out that was wearing a NY Mets t-shirt.. anything else could slide...

It's not in the same league as some of the beauties in this thread but here's a little black and grey number I did last week.

a 7.5 hour session in such a localized area is monster. The trauma your arm must have taken is wild. When I had my half sleeve done my artist went so hard on my arm that it ballooned up quite a bit and I had big arms already. It took nearly a week for the redness and swelling to go away, but I wasn't concerned about infection. I feel like you are hinting about that in a nervous way? My advice that is often overlooked is keep yourself well hydrated beyond the typical tattoo after care, that has always helped me heal up quicker. If you are genuinely concerned I would consult someone that can give you more concrete answers

With my inner forearm I noticed a big patch of redness moving up onto my bicep, and my arm was very swollen. I think the red on my bicep was from where she was holding my arm. It started improving around day 3. I found taking ibuprofen for the swelling helped loads.

I would have slapped her back hard in the same place and laughed. Then called her out of she took offense. "Well, I normally don't go around randomly slapping people, especially over and open wound, but if that's what you like, I'm happy to smack you back."

Oh, um thank you but I think I'll pass this time around. I remember a friend of mine and I, who we both love SF dearly, but at times refer to it as "Never Never Land", where you don't ever have to grow up. Well, enjoy your time there. And, not judging, if you get convinced into the freaky stuff, don't forget to come up with a "safe word". ;-)

That's a fantastic tattoo! Love the goldfish!! - - - Updated - - - Lovely!! Your daughter must love seeing this!

Awesome @Zillah !

6 hours on your back or front would be very painful but do-able. On your forearm? Should be even more do-able, not a bad place to be tattooed. Good luck, you may be being tattooed as I type this!

Yeah, the unsolicited attention can be a bit much. I had a man inquiring about my about pain tolerance/threshold in a really creepy, sexual way; it was gross. I've had a man follow me, chanting a prayer. Some people have weird hangups and misconceptions regarding tattoos (esp tattooed women), other people don't know when to shut up or how to think before they open their mouth, other people are just disgusting specimens of humanity. The only thing I can control is how I react (which is usually exciting the scene very quickly). On the brighter side, a friends young son told his mom she should get decorated fancy like me.

Right then... First three appointments booked in for a dragon back piece with Ian Flower. Only got to wait under two months to start... Let the excitement start to build...

actually, Grime posted this to Instagram so I figured I'd share it over here...

First from Dana's Instagram, second from my own phone. So much coverage from this session. All the fire and the blue. The next few days are going to suck.

Hi, Living at the border of France and always being tattoed in a french tattoo artist, I could inform you from my point of view: French state was crazy. In last quarter 2013 they have afraid all tattoo world by suddendly making a law project to cancel 59 of the 153 ingredients used in tattoing inks... New reglementation should have taken place at 1rst January 2014... French tattoo artists and their customers were really shocked as this law is concerning 90% of the tattoing inks. In other words, the tattoers would have had 2 choices if law become elligible: tattoing in black/grey only in their shops or tattoing still people in colours but at home and ILLEGALLY of course... like in the time of alcoohol prohibition in Chicago.. Yeah baby Yeah Reasons to forbidden these ink ingredients were not pretty clear: State is assuming they are carcinogenic.. but no medical evidence tests behind. Finally, a syndicate of tattoo artists went to discuss with the State healthy and Safety authorithies and finally managed to cancel at last minute this law project. They took opportunity to work together and reinforce some dark some like the traceability and ingredients on the ink stickers. I'm so happy this law was not published. Like that, I can still go to my french tattoo artist and perform tattoo in colours.. But this episode had an impact on tattoed people because we learnt that MAYBE, it's POSSIBLE that some ingredients in our coloured tattoo currently in our skin COULD be toxic or carcinogenic .... the only thing is maybe no medical labatories didn't prove it at 100% till now...:confused:

My wife and I regularly go and get tattooed. Its a really nice feature of our marriage.

This thread always has the sickest work! Here's mine, just finished a few weeks ago:

I'm putting in an old one. (Photo is from 2008) Done by Hunter Spanks in lovely Baltimore, Maryland. It says "Death & Roll" because I really love the band Entombed.

Painting I'm doing for a charity auction next month, and a close up on a 22" mandala painting I'm working on.

you could also get a giant panther.... just sayin!