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yesterday i got this kali from robert ryan while he is guest spotting at old soul. was awesome to get tattooed by one of my favorite tattooers in one of my favorite shops.

Oni Head by Stewart Robson guesting at Blackheart tattoo before the SFO convention. This shot is from today, healed. BOOM in your face, @Cork you're not the only one with a massive Japanese tattoo this month, haha!

@chrisnoluck Fuck yeah! Here is what I got from my friend Adde Ramstedt the other day. Felt so good to get the other foot done, never more (still need to do sides and toes...) Adde just moved down to Berlin and will be working at Lowbrow Tattoo Parlour for about 6 months. I encourage anyone to visit Berlin, hugely inspirational city with many things to experience and explore. While you're there, get tattooed by Adde too ;)

Just got this done by Tony Nilsson(stole his Instagram pic)

Just finished up my second session with THooper on Monday. Have some serious crankle action going on today. Next booked for 2 days in a row in early Feb. Wife also got her 1st tattoo started yesterday, with Joey Ortega. They'll also finish up this one in Feb:

@daveborjes Don't remind me. I have an ass and back of thigh session coming up on Saturday. I didn't find the shading to be all that bad, relative to the lining anyway, which was awful, but ass tattoos just suck. I had a choice last session between the ass and the ribs and I went with the ribs because it seemed more pleasant. THE RIBS. I am starting to understand how and why a lot of people don't finish backpieces because they require such a massive amount of dedication. They are hard-earned.

@blackdots I feel that the bars should be poorly done. I've wanted some on me forever, well before I started getting tattooed, and I'm wondering if I should handpoke them on myself because it seems kind of wrong to have them done well.

I haven't posted in forever, and I guess I never entered this one from Steve Byrne that I got over the summer in Austin. This is still the best photo I have of it, but it healed nicely. Arm is just about done other than very small gap fillers. Based on this World War I German propaganda poster about the dangers of Bolshevism that I saw earlier that day in a World War I exhibit in town.

I finally get to give this a shot! Dana Helmuth, 95% completed at Read Street Tattoo in Baltimore, the rest done in his private studio.

I'm not sure how everybody else started, but I didn't do much research into getting my first tattoo, as I was a 19 year old kid and just wanted something. I got the black flag bars, but the black was poorly saturated and the lines were a little shaky. After that, I got some stick and pokes and some more mediocre tattoos. One day, I walked into Name Brand Tattoo in Ann Arbor because I thought that they would have a Friday the 13th special. They didn't have the special, but I decided I wanted to get something anyways. I ended up setting up an appointment with Cole Dunn, and I had never made an appointment for a tattoo before, so I was pretty confused right there! The idea of a consultation also confused me, haha. I guess from there I saw that traditional style tattoos could look pretty nice, as I always had the impression that they were formulaic and lame with no meaning. I'll never cover my early tattoos though! How did you all get educated about tattoos and different styles?

I did a couple shitty stick and poke tattoos on myself when I was a dumb young punk rock teenager (all have since been covered). But I was 19 (the year 2001), walked into the shop in the town where I went to university, and gave a print out of the Rocket From The Crypt logo to this really nice fellow named Andrew Conner and he did it on the inside of my arm. I got a couple more tattoos from other folks, but then, four years later, I was reintroduced to this Andrew Conner fellow, and we became friends. He tattooed me a lot out of his private studio, and then he moved back to that same shop where I got my first tattoo. He opened my eyes to what good tattooing is, taught me how to paint using liquid acrylic/watercolor, taught me how to use an ink nib, and has become one of my biggest inspirations. My first good tattooer changed my life and is the reason I am even making tattoos now. He isn't my "teacher" but he has taught me so much and supports every step I take.

I spend all my money on tattoos, got none left over for music. The only album I bought this year was the new SWANS but honestly I haven't even listened to it yet because they're a band that requires undivided attention for extended periods of time and I haven't managed that yet. I'm lame.

Throwing the hat in. Newbie getting his second tattoo, 4 months after his first. I got this skull and dagger from Luke Wessman in NYC @ Wooster Street Social.

I was very fortunate, my first tattoo was made very well and started me out on the right track. It is a black/grey St.Christopher with a colourful background of clouds and water to cap the top of my shoulder, which is now tied in to adjoining pieces. I had a couple of pals with a few nice tattoos who told me not to screw around. Just book an appointment with this dude named Steve (TheGangOfOne). Appointment was scheduled months in advance for the week in between finishing university and my 23rd birthday. I remember nervously asking Steve to redraw a couple times which he obliged ("look kid, I'm not drawing the Last Supper. You want a tattoo today or not?"). It was a very positive experience, except for the car accident on the way home aftewards (ironic for a St.Christopher tattoo perhaps)! When I asked how the tattoo would fade over time he told me tattoos look better as they age. I was puzzled. He said to come visit him in ten years and tell him otherwise. Eleven years later...he started my backpiece for me last week, the last puzzle piece! And i still get a lot of compliments on the blue ink, holding strong, really rich colour. I just smile and say the tattoo is a decade old.

So much this ^ . All my new stuff is from recommendations in the metalheads thread so thanks to all of you who post in there ! Here's my very short list . YOB Clearing the path to ascend EYEHATEGOD Eyehategod Electric Wizard Time to die

@9Years That's blatantly a @Stewart Robson tattoo I muttered to myself before I'd even scrolled to your description .

This is done but its not done. Its going to be part of a larger space piece and my artist does not want to do the space background intill the rest of the pieces are done. So it looks a little odd, the circles in the bubble will be stars eventually. In a few weeks I will get Bart in a spacesuit on the other side. This is by Rev. J.R. out of Vicious Ink in Rochester Hills michigan.

I will forever recall the video of Oliver Peck getting his hand tattooed by Hooper. So funny. Imagine Mick jumping around like that.

Was searching through the forum and couldn't find a thread on this specifically. In the process of extending my neck tattoo's up onto the back of my head and maybe in the future extending these to the front of my face. Just to a nip the inevitable 'the face/head is a huge step', 'will change your life/appearance/people's opinions of you' in the bud, I have over 200 hours of work currently on me including hands, neck and one below my left eye, I know what I getting into. any others out there with face/head tattoo's or thinking of getting them? if you do have them what's the pain like? what was the experience like? if not but are planning to get them what designs/styles are you looking at? Lets have a discussion.. Cheers, Oz

Godflesh-A world lit only by fire tryptykon-Melena Chasmata tombs-savage gold Dawnbringer-night of the hammer high spirits-you are here pallbearer-foundations... a bunch more I enjoyed but cant think of. Need to listen to the YOB more....but i enjoy alot of albums that came out this year. Music has been great the past few years.

I started getting tattooed when I was 32, and I went to all of the shops that I was interested in to check out the books of the artists and get a feel for the vibe of the shop. For whatever reason, I hadn't found LST yet, but I did enough homework that my first tattoo came out really nice.

@beez The work on my back was done about 6 weeks ago. It's mostly healed but I started a new job recently and have been dressing up more (dress shirts and ties) for it. I think my skin was like, what the hell is this and just had a flare up. I've dealt with this before in the past but never directly on the ink itself. It was always on the outside non-tattooed areas. My girlfriend said the ink looked fine, just texture wise it was a bit bumpy. Knowing that I have sensitive skin and not full aware of what the reaction is, I decided to err on the side of caution and slathered on a some Benedryl topical cream and also took a Benedryl pill before sleeping. Woke up and it was much calmer (not itchy) and the bumps settled down a lot. During the day it's little cream and one Benedryl pill. At night, I put a little more cream and take two pills. Hopefully most of it clears up by this weekend. Luckily as we're all taught to never pick or scratch at our ink, I'm fairly confident things will heal and turns out well.

Also taking up oil painting as a hobby. Those paints are expensive! @kylegrey reminded me that I've heard the YOB and Electric Wizard albums too. I really like the new YOB, the Electric Wizard album is solid, not their best, but still good.

My first "good" tattoo was in Tarragona, Spain at a tattoo shop out by like ...damn it wasn't the beach, but it was a beach not too far from there....I think I still have the card from the shop...It was my last deployment in the Navy and was actually a good port visit too! Damn....that was back in 2008/2009...im getting old yo! I drew it up and brought it in, it was also the first time I seen how some art needs to be redrawn to made "tattooable", the first thing he asked was 1. Did YOU draw this and the 2nd thing was Can he re-draw it, because it wouldn't make for a good design on my darker skin...I didn't care his work was good lol, so I said "Hey man do your thing! It's just and idea of what I want!!" ...it was a good lesson...especially with me being black, I didn't understand how uncluttering little detail and just repositioning things makes for a more readable and better looking tattoo...This was actually now that I think about it, an INVALUABLE little tid bit of info that I still use today! He also swapped me a flash/poster for my drawing...a British kid (well he wasn't a kid but he was no more than 20) wanted my drawing ...or a version of it...pretty good port yo

Ahhh, fingers crossed for you on that one, @ironchef.

My first is just healed, but I think it is 'good'. I waited until my late 30s, and went to one of the better shops in town. It is 'just a walk in', but it isn't poorly chosen $75 flash. My favorite part, by far, was showing my artist the reference, and having him come back with a drawing of exactly what I'd had in my head for months. Now it is on my body. Awesome!

Tattooing got me back into drawing all the time like I used to in High School. It's also got me into more types of history and styles of art, history and symbols and the strength and meaning in images mean REALLY peaked my interest. Basically tattooing made me fall back in love with art and creating. I have a real deep appreciation for that good shit now...well I always did but it's deeper now

I like this, but not I'm not going "like" this. Jerk. And look at all that open space around it, what an amateur.

Hope you feel better soon @ironchef! Contact dermatitis sucks!!!

That Iron Chic record is dope, but was last year. I thought it was this year too and originally had it on my list. I'm still kinda narrowing down. I have about seven set so far, but about ten others in contention for the last three spots! Haha.

Fucked Up - Glass Boys (slow version!) Long Knife - Meditations on Self Destruction https://soundcloud.com/noisey/sets/long-knife-meditations-on-self-destruction No Problem - We're Already Dead We're Already Dead | deranged records SLATES - Taiga Taiga | SLATES Ben Disaster - See You Next Spring SEE YOU NEXT SPRING | Ben Disaster Sleaford Mods - Divide and Exit http://sleafordmods.bandcamp.com/ Chronixx - Dread N Terrible "...and Guardians of the Galaxy - Awesome Mixtape #1 Soundtrack

If you need reassurance, just watch the end where Hooper is getting his done. Takes it like a G.

Ya right. Might take a good week healing, and drinking plenty of Mead to help in it's recovery. :) - - - Updated - - - Good. That's what's getting me in tune to take this bad fucker on! - - - Updated - - - Haha. No, I give them a miss these days, and the smokin' I find a good alcoholic beverage cures all. In mass over consumption, I mean in moderation of course. :) - - - Updated - - - @Cork, dude! I wish ya didn't post that!! :) @daveborjes, mate!! Ya never mentioned this part! Now I'm fuckin scared. If Oliver can handle it, then...surely I will. Right?...right?

I love that video; I show it to just about anybody that mentions palm tattoos

trick is to forget about the tattoo for a month - hate that haze too

Had a massive 20 min session today. Added some more Germanic Runes.

Hi all, been slacking on my updating on here so heres some bits and pieces: Most recent thing I've had done was continuing this, was cool to chat to Brad Fink briefly prior: one session to go, hopefully soon although it will be hard not to get something else by Andre. Also got this from O'Donnell back in July: Both shameless instagram thefts.... As usual this thread has blown my mind with the awesomeness that LSTer's choose to get...

You could call it a rule, or you could call it a design principle - so the tattoo flow looks right. If the head faces backwards, the tattoo will always be in conflict with the wearer, moving opposite to the body. Rules are meant to be broken! But if you are breaking more rules (or principles) than you are following you lose a lot of the focus on the piece. That being said, I have a tattoo where the head of a dive bombing eagle faces backwards, but the momentum and body of the eagle fits with the flow of the body with the placement. I think it works in the context of my surrounding tattoo works and also on its own.) To the OP, if you put the beak on the shoulder, the body of the crow will remain static and the beak may twist awkwardly with the arm. It may look distorted if the design and placement isn't correct. But if you find a legit artist, they can tell what they can make work and (hopefully) will make your crow design look like it was always meant to be there on your body. The tattoo becomes part of you. Tattoos need to look good on their own, but more importantly tattoos (and placement) need to look good on the wearer, to flow with the body and move through life. ---- ps...and trust me, after you get a bunch of rad tattoos on your chest/back/torso, you'll be going shirtless more often than you'll care to admit! haha

For me, part of getting increasingly heavily tattooed is understanding and accepting that not everybody likes tattoos. It's tough when that negativity comes from your own family, but that's all part of what you take on by getting tattooed. For my part, my family has been more or less fine with it. I know my dad doesn't like my tattoos but we don't have a super close relationship so we've never talked about it. My mom always wants me to say that my latest tattoo is my last one, though I don't really see how it even matters at this point. She's coming more and more to accept that getting tattooed is just something that I do, but there are tough moments for sure. My parents were staying with us but were away visiting NYC during the Montreal convention a couple of years ago and they got back to the apartment just at the moment I got out of the shower the day after having my shin destroyed by Chad. My leg was super beat up and swollen and my mom saw it and immediately burst into tears about it. I guess a large part of that had to do with what @bongsau said earlier in this thread about our parents not wanting to see us in pain. At the same time, though this has never been said to my face, I know that some of my extended family has been pretty hostile about my tattoos. One of my uncles, a retired former career air force officer, a really straight-laced type, asked my mom flat-out why I look like a "goddamned biker" and have so many tattoos. I couldn't have asked for a better response from my mom. She told this uncle that I have so many tattoos because I like them. So yeah, she doesn't like that I have tattoos, and she has asked me what she did wrong as a mother to make me do something like this to myself, but when it comes down to it, she doesn't think I'm a bad person for it and has stuck up for me. And that's great with me. My in-laws don't know that either me or @Pugilist have tattoos at all. We see them in general a couple of times a month. It's all long-sleeved shirts and pants around them even during the hottest part of the summer, or hiding if they stop by unexpectedly. We say that they need to find out eventually, but if they do find out it's going to be a huge fight so it's best to just keep them covered. I think even when they do find out we're both tattooed, we'll still both keep them covered around them out of respect.

I haven't watched Inkmasters before, so I have no idea who people who made that rule or "tradition" up, but I would just find a good solid tattoo artist, someone who is recommended by the fine people of this forum, and let them do it they way they desire. Do you have an artist yet?

@Cork, so nice man, congratulations!

The winner of Tattoo of the month "November" is my Norwegian homeboy @Wilhell with this crazy face ripping Oni, by none other than the great Tim Lehi at Blackheart Tattoo, San Francisco. Congrats dude! Please PM @steve1461686340 with your shirt info (size and male or female) along with your address. New contest will be up shortly!

eh some of us like those too

Really? A beautiful back and grey sleeve won this summer, and several of the most active posters here get mostly or exclusively black and grey tattoos, though not necessarily in the style of the Jun Cha sleeve above. There's a slant towards color traditional, but to say that the forum has "little appreciation for B&G" doesn't seem right - there are definitely folks on here who are knowledgeable about Chicano tattooing, among other styles. There is a huge repository of info. on different traditions here if you dig around! Not trying to pick a fight, just scratching my head a bit.

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.

Wow, are you sure? Thanks so much!! @KBeee

Help us welcome @Pugilist as our newest Moderator! She has had a solid presence on LST for the past two years and we look forward to having her on the team!

Aw, you guys are making me blush. And @TrixieFaux - no banhammer, only jealousy! I want to hear all about it!