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Counting down the hours at the airport bar. Appts with EQ tonight and SB tomorrow. I am very excite.

Went to Japan on the end of a 5 month Asia backpacking trip and got this beauty tattooed by Toni Aguera as a souvenir to myself. Toni does some really sick, quirky japanese stuff. His instagram is @kezamtattoos if you wanna check him out.

Yes! Yes, you of all here, need to get a monmon cat. Especially with that cool cat of yours. One day! - - - Updated - - - @TrixieFaux, awesome cat! I think it'd be cool now if you one day get one of Tomo to match. Black cat on one side and white on the other. And c'mon your cat's name is Tomo! How cool is that? - - - Updated - - - @BrianH, French bulldog Monmons! What a great idea! Oh dang!!!

@Pugilist has a story about how when she was getting her back worked on I asked Stephanie about tebori, because she's getting her back done by Shinji, and Steph then proceeded with an impromptu tebori demonstration with a machine on Pugilist's kidneys. I still haven't been forgiven for that one.

Well this has been a great experience! When I contacted SOG in March, I emailed some ideas/elements I wanted to incorporate along with a photo of my black cat and my leg. I referenced a couple of elements from his book like the cat's expression on one page, the skinny snake from another page, and peonies. When I got there today I finally saw his drawing and it was just perfect immediately! Love at first sight. He used machines only which was fine by me. I love the way the cat and snake seem to be eyeing each other suspiciously with narrowed eyes... And here I am on the hotel bed with my feet kicked up watching ET. Stella is beside me wearing her new monmon cat (t-shirt) nightgown. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

so, it is summer and i actually go out and do shit instead of reading n writing on this here forum....but i did book an appointment to git some tattzappery done next week. might even post a pic if i remember and shit. have a great summer ya'll!

I got the job I wanted :)

i was stuck on who i wanted to do my back for the longest time, but it all came together last year... seeing @ironchef's collabo put the light bulb above my head, then seeing instagram pics of jondix and chad traveling together in Nepal illuminated it. they're both the best dudes and i thought their friendship, mindset, and contrasting styles would make for an interesting collaboration. i knew they both frequently attended the SOG/SFO convention in Oct., so i sent 'em an email with the thought as soon as it hit me in April. lucky for me, they were both super into it! we bounced a few emails back and forth and they ended up drawing on a Philippine eagle on top of frontal skull in Chad's hotel room at 12:30am, after the first night of the convention. most of you can probably guess who did what. (photo taken by @ian) it was great to experience the magic happening right behind me... although i couldn't see what was going on, i could feel it and hear it. i've had individual artists draw on tattoos and an usually artist thinks and does what they do pretty quietly... but when both of them are drawing and thinking together, they have to verbalize those thoughts to each other. i had the pleasure of listening in on these two tattoo geniuses' thoughts as they shared. speaking of tattoo geniuses, another piece of magic happened... just as they were finishing up the drawing, Mike Wilson and a few other folks visited the room. Chad happened to be a little stuck on how to position a wing, so Mike chimed in with a perfect suggestion, getting in on the collabo! after that, i basically had to sit tight for 35-45 minutes while they attacked me and lined whole the damned thing. there was some artistic and technical discussion during the tattoo, but there was one last piece of collaboration to be done... i had originally requested to incorporate one of the symbols from Jondix's 108 Marks book. this was to be the last thing they were going to tattoo, but instead of going with the symbol i requested, they decided to collaborate and create a whole new symbol. they took turns drawing a piece of it and passing the sharpie back and forth to each other. when they were happy with it, Chad made it permanent. i've since had one more session with Chad out in Napa. Jondix won't be making it to the SFO this year, so he's trying to convince me to get out to Barcelona or London, but funds, the wife, and work schedule are iffy. i can't wait to see it come together, but i'm patient enough to wait for things to align. i'm waiting for the artists to share pics before i do.

On the train to the big smoke for my appointment with rodrigo souto to add flowers to my arm. Excited but very nervous since i don't know what it's going to look like! I'm in safe hands though so mainly excited. Sent from my GT-I8190N using Tapatalk

That battle royale piece was done on previous Kings Avenue shop artist, Brian Paul. He had the relationship and timing part down in order to pull off that sweet killer trifecta. That piece was the inspiration for me to ask Henning and Rubendall to collaborate.

I already have one tattoo of my cats, but someday a Horitomo version will happen.

The only thing keeping me from being an actual crazy cat lady (or, well, having more than 2) is my sensible husband. But I sure am crazy about the 2 I have and all the ones in my past. I was in the shop from 11am-4:45pm. The tattoo itself probably took 4.5 - 5 hours with one short break in the middle. Team LST! Anyone on the fence, get off the fence and get to SOG!!! I couldn't even picture how the design would look with all the stuff I had mentioned and he found a way to put it all in and make it so elegant and beautiful. What a talent. @Fala, I thought of you and felt bad about getting mine first... but you will get there!

Here's another one by Franz at the Okey Doke.

5th session on my back last night. I'm guessing we've got 3 more. Hoping for permission to post a photo or 2 soon. Next session is July 17th, and August 14th after that.

Thank you, and to you also @Pugilist. What an awesome website, right? ;) I just had NO IDEA how mainstream monmon cats are these days. :)

So I'm going to be the dork at the beach wearing this next week since my new tattoo pretty much runs the length of my left arm, and I don't want to risk irritating it with sunscreen while it heals. And no, I won't be getting in the water, at least not from the waist up.

I think the idea of being covered in birds is AWESOME, but then I am also obsessed with cranes as tattoo subject matter.

I was talking to my lawyer not too long ago and the subject of someone I may know came up (one of his high-profile clients...) that was huge into the drug scene as a international smuggler. Sure I knew the guy in school.. turns out the guy is dead. I thought a bit and realized that anyone I knew that was associated with hard drugs is now dead. I'm glad I knew when to call it quits.

Us poor girls are currently suffering through hotel room service breakfast in bed, *sigh*...how could you! [emoji477]️ [emoji6] Not looking forward to the long drive but we can do it! [emoji123][emoji133] [emoji594][emoji168] Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

A bunch of people on here have probably seen this all ready but here is what Rudy Fritsch and Iain Mullen did to my back today, took approximatively 2 hours all in all I have a new found respect for people with back tattoos as of this session. Shit is brutal! Only a small portion of it felt all right. I had to struggle really hard at times. I was trying to surf the balance between consciously being there with the agony and discomfort and zoning out and into my head as much as possible. Divine moments of pain, that's what I kept thinking, while also trying to breath slow and stable. Getting tattooed by two tattooers working simultaneously is a good idea though. It's only about 1,568 as painful as getting hit with only one machine but it's about twice as quick! Most of the time the machine working at the most tender spot would be my focus and the other one was mostly irritating. You do get some crazy synergies and some combination of spots gives you new concepts of what pain can feel like. Recommended! Also very happy with the result so far, of course, hardly any need to say that right? Very rememberable afternoon at Imperial Tattoo in Stockholm

That's funny. Grez is actually doing my arm next January, and I originally thought about looking into him collaborating with Justin Weatherholtz. Ultimately I decided against it for a few reasons, but I think it could be a very cool idea. In the battle royale thread, there's a killer Rubendall/O'Donnell/Grez back piece.

My Ron Wells piece from last year needed touch ups, and as I'm in Canada and kinda 'po I couldn't just drive to him to get it done. I emailed him asking if he had any plans on travelling this way, and if not if he'd suggest someone to do the touch up instead. He asked me to wait until the Montreal convention, but ended up doing a guest spot in Toronto last month so I got it done then. Moral of the story? Ask your artist. It's his work and should really be done by him. Also, my experience with local artists is that you get in much sooner for touch ups than you would for a new piece. The wait shouldn't be crazy long. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Beautiful tattoo, @TrixieFaux! This, however: Instagram DO NOT WANT.

Yeah, I'll probably go back to the birds again. I love them so. We'll see!

bearded trouble makers

Machine. At one point @DJDeepFried stopped by to visit and asked Horitomo, "So just machine today, no Tebori?" Horitomo looked at me and said, "You want Tebori?" with a little grin... I was like, "Nah, I'm good!" I would have gone either way, he chose machine and I am more than happy with that.

Getting something from Adam Shrewsbury tomorrow while he guests at Lifetime in Denver

Contact the person who did the tattoo to see when a touch up is possible. Start there

I don't think the two are necessarily in contradiction. Read this article by JoJo Ackermann, especially the part where he talks about how he can do the same design on ten different people and have ten different tattoos at the end of it. Take a look at the sheet of roses that Adrian Sanchez posted on his blog here and notice how different they all are despite them all coming from the same line drawing. And this is even before we get into placement, how these tattoos go with your other tattoos, and so on and so forth. Basically, even if you pick a tried and true classic off the wall, you're still getting a unique tattoo.

Drove up to SOG w/ @TrixieFaux to get her monmon catted now I'm jet setting to NYC for a reading of a script I wrote leaving the poor girls to drive back down to LA solo because I am a terrible husband and father but that's how we do in Hollywood, baby!

Starting my back & ass-piece tomorrow. Collaboration between Iain Mullen and Rudy Fritsch. Very happy that this is going to happen!

I have an appt with Steve bryne in august

Here you go guys! Sorry for the wait :P haha

Haven't started a new thread in awhile, so here we go... As I mentioned awhile back, I have appointments lined up with Grez to finish out my right arm (so far I have my shoulder and inner bicep complete). I have a list of images/themes I want to include and tackle it as a mish-mash of smaller designs. Actually @TrixieFaux 's sleeve by Kim Saigh has been a big inspiration. I love Grez's bold style and definitely want him to complete the images and give him as much creative license as possible. However, I was considering making it a collaboration with Rose Hardy. Lately, I've been digging her lace-like filler pieces and geometric designs. Anyway... enough of my incoherent rambling (I truly hope everyone understands what I'm getting at)... so my question(s) are: Do you think this is possible? (Obviously I'm going to run everything by Grez at our consult, just want to nail down some ideas first) and what is the etiquette with collaboration pieces? Has anyone gotten filler tattooed by a different artist? Also, I'm hoping this thread can be a cool discussion on collaboration projects. I think we all agree @ironchef takes the cake with his Henning/Rubendall back piece. Anyone else have large scale tattoos from two (or more?!) artists? What was the process like? Thanks everyone!

Ha she told us that story when we met up last month! As for kitties we just about came home with brother and sister kittens today. They did their very best to charm @Mark Bee

I love that rash guards are fashionable now. It's like the acceptable (and SPF-sensible) adult version of wearing a giant t-shirt into the water as a sullen teen, which I did often.

I am absolutely, unashamedly a Crazy Cat Lady too. My fiance and I have been wanting to travel to California for a few years now, I think I'm going to have to try to tee up an appointment at SOG when we do.

I'm still working out the idea, for a while I was thinking about a crane (or heron) with a pine tree as part of the background, but have rethought that for a number of reasons. One being that I already have birds in my preexisting work, and I am not sure that I want to be covered in different kinds of birds. A couple of years ago I was all about having a deer and peach tree and was ready to start working on it, decided to hold off and do other work, and now I'm all "naw, I don't want no birds or deer, I want a dragon!" I am undecided as to whether or not I want to go with water/wind bars because I like the negative space that is created - although the whole protective element from being totally covered is super appealing, and water and wind bars are gorgeous - we'll see. Would be Japanese/Tibetan - I love the flow of lines and movement. I'm not ready to start working on my back, will continue to plot and fantasize in the meantime (and work on getting more tattoos.)

Anyone who is ashamed of their cat-loving predilections does not deserve a monmon cat. :)

I am super interested in this topic - I've had a few ideas for collaborative pieces from tattooers who work together, etc., and always wonder how these things take shape. They are so amazing when they do. I would love it if folks who have this kind of work on them would tell the stories of how it came about! Thanks @Hands On for sharing - you are a lucky dude!

I get the guilt too, but I justify it since I finance them out of my spare money, even a few bucks here and there adds up. I'm pretty frugal about spending anything on myself otherwise. I dug deep into my tattoo stash last year when my son's car needed a repair and he was a bit short. Never told my wife, I just did it for the kid. Rob

Hey @MadeIndelible no preaching or judgement but look into Refuge Recovery a brand new book by Noah Levine that lays out a Buddhist approach to sobriety and was specifically designed to avoid all that Higher Power and God talk. Noah's been clean for twenty plus years and he's helped a lot of good people I know including me with my own path.

Disclaimers? Recognition? Copyright infringement? Lawyers? Please. If you're good word will get out. And people will try to copy it. And they won't be able to because they don't have the talent and haven't put in the hours and in general just don't give a fuck. And for exhibit A I present Mike Roper.

Holy Crap @TrixieFaux!!! What a frightening experience to have. I'm glad you were there to get him away from the outlet and @DJDeepFried was able to get him help quick! Sounds like good news, he's home and doing well. Phew! On a lighter note now, I truly hope when you see your monmon cat design tomorrow, it will have Raijin swooping about banging on drums with lightning bolts being tossed everywhere. I mean with that story, how could it not?

I tried on a bunch of these the other day and laughed & laughed. Maybe they look amazing on people who are 5'10" and willowy. This tattoo keeps getting larger and larger in my head and will probably end up on my thigh now, but I did find a pair of comfy non-harem pants just in case.

FTW Oakland http://ftwtattoo.com/ She is @cltattooing on Instagram.

Been a while, My latest paints. Really like this one.

been busy moving to a new flat, my instagram is now public. @slugggg if you fancy seeing alot of progress photos/snaps of mundane scenes in london etc. thanks

that's who's gorilla's we find ourselves repeating...

don ed hardy Ed Hardy's Tattoo City