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got this yesterday from cole dunn @ the rochester convention. hard to get a decent picture because it wraps a bit but it's on the inside of my thigh

Daniel Albrigo, three kings in NYC. Still kind of freaking out

@ Keekatzz. We all have a different mindset why we choose to tattoo. When you have a different kind of motivation, you must expect not to receive the feedback you were probably looking for. I don't explain my mindset why I do what I do, & I don't expect to understand your motivation. I got my first tattoos at 17, which I still have & still love. I wouldn't get them now, but I wouldn't cover them also. Some though, I have. Faaarkin, who cares. If your dead set on leopard print down the back. Do it. Just do your research with a tattooer who can execute the design solid & kick arse. You see, for most of us, the back tattoo is prime real estate and holds a very special meaning to us, but your motivation to tattoo is different to those of us who understand this, so walk the path you feel you need to. Good luck with it.

I like leopard print too! jeans of the day! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

18 year old me would have had a huge circle with a dumb ass quote and some lame ass island scene or something in the center of my back, ruining it for me forever!! Actually 18 year old me put a small flower on my upper back that is now covered by a big ol' rock. I think it's visible in one of my gallery pics. And 17 year old me put the kanji character for "unity" on her hip. (Op ivy not Queen latifah...not that it matters but someone just got aggro with me re song references...I just picked it off a wall guys...bc I was 17...) (but also I'm not covering it up! Never!!) I'm gonna say something...in writing...on the Internet where it will stay forever....I'm into cheetah print. If I could figure out a way to pop some on while still looking good/classy/timeless (haha there are so many haters whose eyes are popping at my word choice right now) I would do it! As it stands I can't think of anywhere (yet) that I would be permanently okay with the cheetah print on me. I have good tattoos and a good look going so far - not gonna mess with that (yet). It's fad-dy and I see it on a lot of young women as a first tattoo, or as part of a first tattoo, so until I see some well aged cheetah print I'm gonna stick to wearing it and not having it tattooed. (But I still like it...!) Okay, there was your sat morning thread derail. <tips hat> ladies, gentlemen, I'll be here all night.

May the fourth be with you...

To be clear it's just an op ivy reference...and I could have assigned any other contrived meaning to it, that's just the one I was thinking of (you know, back when it felt necessary to justify every aspect of the tattoo as spiritual and meaningful and blah blah) when perusing the wall of flash at the shop. A friend and I met in NYC when we were 17 to get tattoos. At this time - Sept or Oct '00 - you could walk into just about any place in the city* and get a really good fake ID from a number of different Northeastern states, with a hologram and everything. I took my fresh fake ID in my hot little hand and my friend and I hightailed it to the place I had found on the internet, Andromeda on St. Mark's Place (ahhh it's still there!!!)...holy shit I just realized/remembered that this is a story in two parts...the first trip I went to get pierced. Had the ID, ran to the shop, and the guy called me out instantly for having a fake ID - he was from PA and recognized that the hologram (that damn hologram) was off...and then the other guy showed me HIS fake ID, they asked how old I really was, and went ahead with the piercing. (Which maybe to adult me is a little creepy, but 17 year old me was glad for the attention and aid in my rebellion, or whatever it was...my individuation...) The subsequent trip, a week or two later, I went to the tattoo part of Andromeda with my fake ID, and that's when I got my first tattoo. My friend - the same friend from earlier - and I were going to get an Alice (on her) and a White Rabbit (on me) but of course we just really wanted tattoos, and didn't really care, and the ones we wanted were time and cost prohibitive, and so we saw these really cool kanji characters on the wall...BOOM. Le first tattoo. (Hers was for "courage". Damn, but we 17 year old white girls are predictable). Anyway. So instead of the cool rude boy tattooed on my hip, it's a straight from the sheet kanji character, but kind of an awesome story, looking back on it. The attached is a pic of my first tattoo...it is 14 years old!!! And that spot in the middle...I remember when the chunk of color fell right out of it...I bumped into something sharp when healing...and thought "Oh I guess you CAN remove them" ahahahaha. The POV is me looking down on it, I guess making it upside down in the pic. *my assumption based on the fact that 17 year old girls could do it...

+1 to this entire thing And @beez I agree, the Op Ivy is awesome and should never be covered. Also, I realize this is the kind of post I usually hate, agreeing without adding anything, but you've all said it so well and laid down some very solid advice already. Pretend this is a witty and useful sentence. EDIT: not gonna lie, "junkies runnin dry" came up on my spotify right after I posted this reply. And yea, I did reword that all to rhyme repeatedly... sorry.

Yes! May the 4th be with you.

Here's the tattoo I got from Danh Vu at Inkman: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otcZ_o_SaFY&feature=youtu.be Thanks for the help.

Horitomo - for a monmon cat of my cat. I saw the drawing at our consult last week - it was AWESOME, exactly what I had pictured in my head and then some.

@beez You like leopard print?? Get the fuck out! :p Also Radeo was the first person I thought about with this thread Just posting to echo the other sentiments about how I would have never gotten any of my first tattoos if I had the option to do it all over again at this point in my life. I don't hate any of them, just would have gotten better shit. You'll probably feel the same way, but that's your call! Definitely urge you to start small. A back piece is no joke for your first tattoo, and especially at 18.

If it's really just about looking more like a jaguar, and not particularly about wanting a tattoo as such... Less permanent, less painful, cheaper? Not something I'd ordinarily suggest, but in this case I don't feel like it's any odder than this conversation already is.

@beez You should never cover an Operation Ivy tattoo. To the op, all I can suggest is to heed the advice of many in this thread, and "age" this idea.

It's taken me a while to get round to posting but... here is the result of LST peer pressure ;) Instagram Done by Rodrigo Souto, Black Garden Tattoo, London, UK. I'm thinking about asking him for more flowers around it too. What do you think? Meanwhile... I got a little carried away... Instagram Dominique Holmes, The Family Business, London, UK. To be completed next month, plus I'm having a matching doodad on my foot. It's the same flower with a pattern that matches the ruff. I blame you lot for all of this. :rolleyes:

I haven't posted my newer stuff lately... By Jeff Rassier at Blackheart Tattoo during Sunday Walk-In day.

Yaaaaaaaay! Thanks, everyone!!❤️

Determined to turn this month into a ridiculous rib piece battle.... Uncle Allan. Conspiracy Inc, Berlin. All healed up.

Since it's on Instagram, and I haven't posted in this thread in a while, here's my snake from @cltattooing . So happy with it!

This is a healed shot of my somewhat Ed Hardy inspired gorilla rose situation, tattooed by Chad Koeplinger. An hour and a half to outline and do most of the black. Three hours to finish. Two fun sessions!

@El Dolmago and I went to The Pearl today and each got ladyhead tattoos from Glennie. Mine is the cowgirl, and hers is the profile with butterfly wings. You can still see the blood oozing out! Fresh.

It was such a good show! Really impressive body of work

I saw this on FB today and it made me cry. The picture alone should just melt anyone with a soul. Yes, I am a complete sucker for the animals - I am owned by my cats. https://www.facebook.com/southernoregonhumane/photos/a.119308142503.100524.113353777503/10151949017917504/?type=1&theater

I fully back this tattoo.

I'm on a short break after 4 hours on my back piece. More hours to go. Get something small first and test the waters. Really.

I think his work looks really solid man! I think you made the right call, you were excited by this guys enthusiasm and you went with it- judging by his IG your gonna come out of it with a great tattoo. Congrats on getting sober, I know from family experience its a hell of a thing...and good luck with the tattoo! Make sure you put some pictures up when its done. All the best

I saw a bunch of stuff for the Ladies show on IG and it looks amazing. Take pictures if you can!

As I said on Instagram, those are beautiful and timeless. Congrats, @embers. Are you freaking out because you have your hands done, or because they're so nice? Or both?

Ugh just looked at a bunch of cheetah stuff...I wish it was cooler. radeo suicide, with her cheetah singlet tattoo...I want to like it so much more than I do!!! All I can think is "whyyyyyyy?" :/

Lesson learned

Thats a great tattoo! Too bad about the nastiness in between but it looks amazing.

@keekatzz - it's clear you have your mind set on this, and I can appreciate it, and I echo previous advice to see a good tattooer as suggested above. That can only give you more information and not less to help you decide if this is the best way to help you feel like the jaguar. I agree and disagree with this. I have one small tattoo, although I'm not sure it's even large enough to get a taste of things. But I, too, have dreamed of a single large piece that would be my only other tattoo. I jumped both feet into a full back - a sea scene of creatures I had photographed underwater. I found an artist who's done sea scenes, and he spent quite a bit of time explaining to me that what I wanted (and how I wanted it) wouldn't make a good tattoo. I couldn't visualize why not. He even took a picture of my back and used Illustrator or some drawing program to give an example of something that would work. (To his credit, he did an amazing amount of free up-front work for me because he was really into it.) Anyway, he finally helped me see how my idea could be done in a way that would be realistic, convey what I wanted, and also age well. I don't regret jumping into a full back (although I was spectacularly amazed at the pain and had many oh-shit moments of how-am-I-going-to-sit-through-a-full-back-of-this) although I could have waited longer to get the design. I was just lucky someone with a good eye got ahold of me and set me straight. The point of this story is that I thought I knew what I wanted and I thought I understood how it would play out on my back, but I needed to be educated. My guy didn't ignore that, but made my vision work. The folks around here believe that an awesome panther (or jaguar in this case) is the solution to all life's ills ( :D ) but I think you don't have to be so obvious. I like the pattern you selected, but I'd suggest you think about if you really want that repeating pattern all over your back. I can imagine using that pattern for part of your back in conjunction with something else to break it up, but still convey that you are the jaguar ... like a jaguar looking to be camouflaged in foliage or something like that, with fan leaves and big drop shadows on the spots. Let the pattern flow underneath some other design element and use the pattern as a background to give more interest and depth to the piece, and perhaps convey an action that the jaguar is taking - slinking, hiding, etc. Idunno, I'm not an artist but you have me thinking of things that I would find more interesting to see than just seeing the pattern. Maybe you get it designed so that you can start it (e.g., upper back) and decide in the middle if you want full coverage after it settles in, and the initial part could be a complete design by itself if needed (h/t to @CultExciter). Anyway, my $0.02. And ... I came here thinking this would be my only tattoo. This back piece will take a while, but I already have #2 queued up in my mind :rolleyes: - - - Updated - - - Not unless you share! - - - Updated - - - Bad assumption. You can anticipate one injection and get over it. Imagine hours upon hours of anticipating the next time those needles hit your skin, and the "hurt like the dickens" goes on for several seconds. Then you get another handful of seconds for sweet release from the pain, only to anticipate the next round of pain. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Some people apparently aren't bothered by the pain, but if you go full back, you WILL find many areas that you will come to dread. I'm not saying this to scare you, ... well, yes I am. I'm also not trying to sound mean, just been-in-your-shoes.

You can also never have too many Chris O'Donnell tattoos!

I just had a deer skull and cobra tattoo started by Chris O'Donnell. It takes up my whole lower right leg. Third snake tattoo. You can never have too many.

Its been a busy month for me, got my 3/4 sleeve finished and was incredibly lucky to get a cancellation eagle with Valerie Vargas. So here is the first one... Valerie Vargas, Frith Street Tattoo, London.

I've been with my partner for 17 years. He has no tattoos and no desire to get any. He really likes my tattoos and is very supportive of me with getting more, so I'm pretty lucky in that regard as I've only started to get serious about tattooing my body last year. I would love it if he decided to get tattoos and we would embark on this journey together but I respect his decision. I did manage to drag him along to the Rites of Passage tattoo festival last weekend and he was pretty amazed at what he saw, so all in all I think I'm pretty fortunate that he has taken it so well! None of my girlfriends (or even male friends) are interested in tattoos so I do feel like I'm very alone and would love to have someone I could share this with. One of the main reasons I joined this forum really.

I wear all my tattoos proudly, even the subpar ones I got many years ago. I am who I am, and if you don't like it - too bad for you, cuz I am pretty rad. Tattoos or not. =) Cheers.

In terms of the people staring, or judging us just for having tattoos, I know for me one thing I am learning is NOT to have a chip on my shoulder...like, expecting people to stare and judge. I had two situations recently that made me realize--I'm the one judging them by thinking they are judging me! I saw an old lady at Trader Joe's. She was looking at me real funny and I was wearing a short sleeve shirt. I assumed she didn't like my tattoos. To my surprise she came right up to me, reached out her hand to lightly touch my arm, smiled and said, "Oh my! I thought that was a real baby at first, hahaha!" I was holding my daughter's doll in my arm the way you would hold a real infant and I guess it just freaked the lady out at first and then she was laughing about it. I started laughing and said to myself, man you just judged that lady as being uptight about tattoos and she wasn't AT ALL! Then like a week after that, yet another old lady was shopping at Albertson's supermarket. She was taking up a lot of room in the aisle, her cart was in the middle and she was on one side, not leaving me much room to get by. I tried to squeeze through, she glanced up and had a grumpy expression on her face and I immediately jumped to, "She's disgusted by my tattoos." No sooner did I think that when her face softened into a big smile and she said, "Oh look at me taking up the whole aisle, like I'm the only one in the store!" I laughed and told her not to worry about it as she pulled her cart out of my way. I walked away thinking what is the matter with me? Why do I keep judging these old ladies? It must be because of my mom. She is the only one who has ever actually said anything to my face about her disdain for tattoos. I need to get over it. Older ladies looking conservative, wearing mom-jeans, whatever, looking your way, looking grouchy....they don't necessarily hate tattoos! Some are curious, some think they are cool. I definitely receive many more compliments than disses, and seem to run into friendly people wherever I go. I'm trying to embrace it, and not expect people to not like them any more. If they don't like them, whatever, that's their problem, but I shouldn't expect them to not like them.

That 60 mile radius...... :) I know we have strayed way off topic in a little @irezumi but this thread has some really cool info in it that I wish more people on this site would check out! You've added a lot of really good info....thank you for that!

Yes, I co-sign 100%. This same line of thinking and appreciation of tat family lineage is how I got meet Thom, Higgs and Bubash, and was lucky enough to get tattoos from Thom and Dan. I'm hoping to get the time & money to get something from Nick as well this year. - - - Updated - - - Not precisely 'lineage' but more like crew/family pictures from a 20 year old magazine. Close enough to be post-worthy. I'm sure some of you have seen it but I'm fairly positive plenty of you haven't. Horiwaka family, no names were listed or mentioned. TC picture and GTC pictures are definitely my favorites, especially with Harrison throwing what looks like mystical esoteric gang signs. Kind of wandering off from the thread title so here's this, from a different 20 year old mag.. I posted it somewhere else a few months ago, so if you've seen it already then yeah whatever. Ed, Nick, Thom & Tux

Progress on my leg by Dotwork Damian. Left is fresh, right is healed.

Here's some of the recent ones I've done.. If you want to see more, my instagram is @lesterSlester

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.

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.

Boom!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JCZT_51GA0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWHplp10kQM