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I love that little scorpion, @hogg and @cltattooing ! Chill dude. I feel like you have all already seen this on the 'ole Instagram, but I had the great pleasure of getting a couple of peonies from Brian Kaneko this weekend. It was a great experience to get zapped by such a nice, funny and talented person, and it was also our first time at Adorned, which was also very fun! What a lovely space. Can't wait to go back there, and will definitely be getting more work from Brian! You can peep the tattoos on his IG here: @truenaturetattoo I am of course in love with the peonies, which I've been wanting forever! It's such a treat to look down and see them there. They are healing like a dream so far. I have to say, I love this finally tattooing my arms business - soooo much more pleasant than all that back/thighs crap I started with.

I got my first-ever hand-poked tattoo last night from our own @cltattooing: It's also my first scorpion. Let's be honest: I needed one.

@SeeSea just thought this one came out the best? Here's the one with the flash so you can all our lovely faces!

finally got the word, i'm starting my turtleback next week. pretty excited, been trying to align this tattoo for 2 years. the best part is that the back is really the last major piece of real estate i have open, so it will be cool to see everything start blending together as i enter the bodysuit club booya!

A weird thing about this place is that you've seen multiple pictures of my butt before you've seen one of my face.

Oh shit @Pugilist! That's you? Didn't recognize you from his posting and perhaps I missed your post too. Wow! That's cool. Just really cool. Love it when people cap shoulders with flowers. Congratulations! There must be an LST Brian Kaneko Peony Club started.

If you don't belong, don't be long. This industry doesn't need any more leeches.

Buncha mysterious people sitting in the shadows.. Good to have a few drinks with you guys and finally meet in person!!

@SeeSea @Fala @gougetheeyes @MrsGougeTheEyes @ironchef It was super fun hanging out, glad we were able to make it work!

Here we go, done by Darcy Nutt at the RVA convention this weekend. Couldn't have asked for a better experience, she is top class in every way possible! There's some weird shadows and lighting in the pics, cause they do the piece no justice at all.

This back killed my entire running year. That, and some pelvis problems which contributed to long term overuse injuries, my base is gone. So depressing!!! I'm allowed to start running a couple miles at a time now when I can sneak it in. Shaking my head. BUT! When my back is finished, which at the latest is Jan 2, I get to start training. Next year's big race - a team of us won the lottery for the Hood-to-Coast 197 mile relay in Oregon! I've never run a relay, but I am soooo excited! Anyone else run long relays?

My suggestion is Kiku (Instagram) But if it's gotta be more black than greys...then any of the Horitoshi family.

Thanks to everyone for the awesome advice & encouragement! I am proud to say that my back piece is now finished!! Woohoo! Did my full back in three days! Here's a pic for those interested :) Artist: Erin Chance, Guest tattooing at: Sacred Tattoo, Auckland, New Zealand

I'm sure yours is going well! Sending you vibes! I finished today, here's the final photo.. Hope it brings motivation! We did a final 9 hours today to finish up :) So happy! Full back in three days - boom!

I trust that you gazed longingly, @Cork.

It's funny because while it seems a lot of people worry about looking balanced, I've always been more attracted to an asymmetrical look. For example, maybe having a 3/4 sleeve on one arm and a full or half on the other, with the opposite side ribs done on the short sleeve side, etc etc. I'm still early on in my tattoo experience but the more time goes by and the more I take in the culture, the less and less I care about uniformity and the more it's just fun to get tattooed.

It's done. It's actually done. The last session was the worst one I've had to endure. Major touch ups to the wind bars/clouds, double lining, basically every soft spot got hit in one day. By the end I was definitely spent, but so stoked. Dana was very pleased with how this came out, and that makes me happy too. He wants me to show up to the Baltimore or Philly conventions and do the back piece contest. This took a year and a half, and it was an amazing experience.

Sorry no pics. I got a chance to look through a pile of Dana's secret stash of Roper pics, some are pretty good. I also got a chance to scroll through Bloodwork Bodies. Man, that book is amazing. The green dragon is in the book, I had to steal a clean pic for you guys. Not to mention it was good to catch a glance at @hogg's ass on more time.

Forearm filler and a Snakehead Done by Greg Woodrow - Taunton Tattoo Co, Oshawa ON, Canada

@polliwog If you can afford nice decent sized tattoos like your Chad eagle, I would think that you could manage a backpiece financially if you make it a priority and like @Lance said above, are disciplined about your finances and can work out a reasonable schedule with whatever tattooer you choose. A backpiece is financially daunting and I'd be lying if I said that paying for mine doesn't cause me stress and forces me to choose between things I want. Right now I need to replace my computer's hard drive because it failed, but that's not really in my budget right now because of my backpiece. And that's fine, because beyond essentials like rent, bills, food, etc., tattoos are my priority. It sucks sometimes, but it sucks more not having nice tattoos.

Tim Lehi oneshot

its already on the site so i guess i'll throw this in from jeff rassier last week

Last minute appointment at Kingsave NYC with Chris O'Donnell

I should just open a direct account where State of Grace and Horitomo can directly auto debit from me everytime they come out with more MonMon Cat stuff...

having the best summer in a long time traveling around germany with awesome company. Will travel around here till the weekend and then I hitchhike back north to sweden to hang out with @Johannes again. Never would have thought that someone started talking to on this forum will turn out to be one of the best friends i ever had. LST is truly something special

Yeah me too. I'm doing a guest spot in Bmore this summer so that should give me a chance to go up to NY and see that. - - - Updated - - - Skulls | California Academy of Sciences May 16th to November 30th. If any of you in SF decide not to see this I'm gonna slap you when we meet in real life. I'm gonna be making a visit later this year specifically to see this and bring a sketchbook. Tomorrow the admission is free.