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I got my mom two monmon cat prints for Mother's day and she loves them. She's a crazy cat lady and loves Japanese art so I knew she would. I showed her some monmon cat tattoos she said they were "adorable" and "if I ever got a tattoo that is what I would get" but "not the skull one though."

chest/stomach from kahlil rintye coming up later this year, along with scott sylvia back piece. woot

Just booked with R.H. Wells at the Montreal convention in September.

Here's mine by Jeff Rassier. I also posted a fresh pic in the latest tattoos thread but here it is healed.

Awesome! Stolen from Horitomo's Instagram. These two are so darned close to my two kitties I dream to have tattooed by Horitomo someday. (Me tattooed, not the kitties :-) )

What're you gonna get for "Smack My Bitch Up?!" hahaa :D

In your opinions, would it look weird if i put black and gray tattoos next to a colorful japanese piece? I'm thinking about something black and gray, maybe geometric, on my inner bicep or forearm. Here's what I have on my outer side.

RIP H.R. Giger

First session. Hopefully I'm doing this right. Still have more lining to get done and then color. I'm stoked about it. Wife thinks it is to big, but I think she will come around when she see the finished work. My 4 year old thinks it is cool. Already trying to touch it

He DOES do happy dragons, haha! I have been coveting one of those. :)

Yoni is a really nice cool guy too. I was complimenting a dragon tattoo he had on his instagram. He asked me if I wanted one. I said yes, but my wife used her veto power and said no to dragons because they look evil and scary. He replied, not my dragons, I do happy dragons. Kind of funny.

I have just started my back piece (with Richard Pinch in Aberdeen, Scotland) and I really wish I'd read this thread before I went! I booked an all day sitting, against the advice of Richard's receptionist, because I've done all-day sittings before on my arms and I thought it would be fine. It was not fine. 3 hours in, when Richard was lining over my ribs, the room started to spin, I broke out in a sweat like someone had turned on a tap, and I thought it was goodnight vienna. Head between knees, breathe, breathe, bit of chocolate, drink of water, breathe, breathe. We started again after 10 minutes but I never felt quite right after that. Still feel a bit sick this morning. Just made it to 7 hours, though, and I can't believe what he managed to get done in that time - he just does not stop. Before we started, he said I could take as many breaks as I wanted, and I said breezily, "oh, I'll just take a break when you do". How he laughed! I've no pictures yet but I'm ecstatic with how it's looking so far - is a crane, wings outstretched, flanked by two big leafy peonies. I'm going to get it extended downwards over my bum but it will be three hour max sessions for me from now on. I'm still not sure quite what happened with the near-faint episode: I've never got close to that before. Combination of the pain, and low blood sugar, and probably holding my breath I think. There weren't any easy bits either - it just felt like being drilled! Up there with childbirth in my own personal pain index, no question All that said I feel totally elated today.

some recent stuff

saw them totally sober on the through silver in blood tour at the point in atl which would've been 95ish i think. that place was tiny too. by the time i left i felt like i'd been doing drugs the whole show. edit: for this

Sorry for posting these pictures, DETH (from my own Tattooing the Invisible Man book)!! Found them on my phone and was thinking this thread needed them, enjoi:

I gotta agree with the sound advice already given above. Faaark the wings, go the full eagle. Not only are eagles the epitome of cool, they're timeless, and as a kick arse tattoo you will love it weather your 18 or 80. Ditch the superman idea, that'll go down as "the tattoo I got when I was 18". Full blown eagle, either smashed on the chest or across the front would both be shit hot. But in saying this, this will be your 1st tattoo mate. A major piece em blazed on your front is no walk in the park. But don't let that make you opt for a little piece you may regret later just to test the waters. Maybe...work out a killer half sleeve or something on your arm, then progress to a more challenging part of the body. But then, I also know fellas who have gone hard core, straight up tattoo number 1. Either way, the consistent advice here is choose well. This is my eagle smacked under my chest. Eagles are rad!

shitty photo but i got my second tattoo from tim pausinger today, turned out great.

Octopus by Yoni Zilber.

Noah has a variety of different things he does with his roses, so I think a little direction like you suggested is not too much control. As for your kitsune, it would have probably made very little sense to have the other hind leg visible with the way the fox is moving. It looks great!

I got a ton of stares from someone who knows me from my other life (work). Eventually I address the stares with a jokingly "listen mister my eyes are up here". I made the opening for him to finally open the floodgates of questions/opinions/whatever. It is funny to hear what people think sometimes. Apparently until I showed my tattoos "I thought you were an über conservative, military type person, but apparently I need to reconsider that". I died laughing, and literally almost fell out of my chair laughing. Apparently in "work mode" I really come across as a strict Christian type with super right leanings that goes to sleep at 9pm. Far from the truth. The more you know...

Yes you are correct. It should have been free hand. I should be able to pick up sarcasm since I have a black belt in sarcasm fu. He free hands a drawing directly on the body using multiple colors of sharpies. Mostly yellow and orange though. I used to be a decent artist (not tattoo), but what he sees from those few lines to work with takes a special kind of artist.

Yeah man what this guy ^ said. It's just a commonly mis-used term and we just clown on that, not on you.

Who needs a drawing, I just start making lines wherever. It'll work out I'm sure.

Also, the spikes in the back are fins!

I found with the line work on the back, those big long sweeping lines picking up all those nerve endings was fucked. Good times :)

In my opinion @finegentleman, it could look really cool!

It's such a personal decision. And while I don't think that it's essential that you consider every year of your life following this one - you may want to question "is this something I can live with?

My daughters did that when they decided to go for short hair.

^yes

a crash test mannequin holding a bent bumper

I was 18, it was three days after my birthday and i was finally at the legal age, my artist is an old family friend who works at tattoo paradise. I'm part Irish so i wanted something uniquely Celtic that few people would get and found an old drawing of a Celtic warrior with a la tene tattoo sleeve and thought it was perfect so he designed a variant for the first piece to go on my shoulder. I wasn't scared, mostly excited, but i didn't know what to expect. The guy is great with first timers, he explained everything he was doing and when he started he told me he was going to do a quick line so i knew how it felt and then when i was ready he'd really start. It was very painful, naturally, but he helped me get through it and we had some great conversations so all in all i had a great time. i have to say the worst part was the healing afterwards being sore and having to be careful when i slept, and i survived the dreaded itching and was able to carefully scratch the untouched skin in and around the tat. To me it's very special because it was my right of passage to become a man.

Hold up Hoggy, I want to talk about parallel parking. Parallel O Parallel plan driving routines for your newbie drivers as per experience. In the beginning we arrange the drivers for 0-3 days experience.

It's in my gallery. Skull/chalice combo. I tried linking you, not sure if it worked. - - - Updated - - - Nice!! How hard was it to get booked in with Lehi?

This next Thursday getting koi fish in traditional japanase style, half sleeve. Originally was going to start June 5 due going on a cruise to Alaska, but coud not wait. Just no swimming on the ship. Already thinking about possibly extending the sleeve to shoulder maybe chest or back. Artist Katja Ramirez.

Got this yesterday from Lehi

For that, she gets the bird. ;)

Never got around to posting this yet... From Eli Quinters guest spotting at Temple Tattoo in Oakland, CA. In between Tomas Garcia and Forrest Cavacco tattoos.

I didn't know they had a new one, I'll have to get that. The first one was great too...it really continued on what Tom G Warrior was doing on Monotheist, which also ruled. That was a WAY better reunion album than I think anybody could have reasonably expected. I saw Triptykon when they were touring on that first album. They fucking killed it.

I finished this painting this morning. A friend commissioned it for her two year old daughter who loves Snoopy. It was super fun to do and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. The skeleton is for size comparison, and because skeletons make everything better.

working with a little colour again, bottom two are for rose whittaker

yes i am, my name is slugggg, although it's private at the moment so i upload a lot of other crap onto it too, so if you dont want to see all that stuff then i also have a tumblr for just my drawings slugstuff.tumblr.com but it is the instagram that gets the most frequent updates/more progress shots some more from the last few days, along with a year or so over due thank you painting for ash davies ive been at my parents house the past few days so i dont have any of my colours, which is kinda annoying as i actually feel like using them for once..

Me and a buddy of mine managed to catch chad koeplinger while he was doing a guest spot at Pearl Harbor last week and we got these wicked rose morphs done. Mines the shark his is the panther. Chad killed it!! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

This is getting into a lot of things... meaning vs. no meaning (personally I don't care either way but sometimes when people insist on the meanings of their tattoos it does sound cheesy to me), content (too much lettering & bird silhouette explosions vs. battle royales or skulls)... whether people like their tattoos or not being all that matter... But a bad tattoo is a bad tattoo and everybody knows it. Look at the "worst tattoo ever" thread or whatever it's called. Shaky lines, blow outs, bad proportions...those are bad tattoos. I think it's kind of pointless to make fun of the subject a person chooses to get. But, take music--put two people next to each other, one who is tone deaf and can't sing and one who can belt it out from the soul... nobody would say the two are equal. If someone wants to get a lot of text, whatever, that is up to them--I just hope they get it done by someone good. When I was getting my tiger worked on a couple weeks ago, Shawn Barber was next to us doing lettering down a guy's side. It was a LOT of lettering. He did a great job, the guy was stoked. Could I read it? I don't know, probably not, I don't think it was even in English, but in that case I do think all that matters is the guy got what he wanted. I don't think it would have been any cheaper than getting imagery though. Text tattoos seem to take just as much time and effort--they still require excellent line work. As for getting something because it's cheaper, I think that is just sad. It's your skin for crying out loud! Save up...pay as you go...it's worth it!

This one is mine, Panther Reaper from Grimey..