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here is my finished panther and roses tattoo by Jebb Riley, done at Congress St Tattoo in Portsmouth, NH. (finished last friday) I keep forgetting this is actually a coverup. The butt / thigh covers up an originally well done celtic knot that was touched up HORRIFICALLY by another artist after I moved from miami to NY in 1995. Lived with it for almost 20 yrs before covering. Not sad to see it go. Very difficult to photograph as it wraps around my arm and starts at the top of my shoulder, ending below the ditch in my elbow. Jebb did a nice pic stitch so I stole this from his instagram. Still, with the glare, and the bleeding, this pic doesn't even come close to doing justice to it. Started in July of 2013. Panther outlined right before my second and last session on my chest with Chad Koeplinger (he was running late, so why not?). Sessions were spaced very widely apart due to me starting my backpiece with Chad last year. Jebb has been very understanding. Total time on this is about 9.5 hours. Jebb Riley is a super great tattooer and and even nicer dude. Super stoked with how this all came together.

I recently finished a short documentary that profiles Norwegian tattooer Morten Transeth. I also added English subtitles to the best of my ability, so remember to switch captions (CC) on if you need 'em :) Go to http://instagram.com/morten_transeth to see more of his work. Thanks for watching!

Few hours of shading progress yesterday by Will Lollie at Empire in Asheville.

All healed up for now. 2 sessions in with Chad

@exume I love that piece. It's absolutely bad ass!! Here is my contribution. Also by Chad. Finished about a year and a half ago. I went a bit smaller. One heck of an experience. Some very rough moments for sure!!! Chad is the best though! 2 sessions.

Oh, nice! Going to watch it straight away. I like his stuff too. Edit, a bit later: Well done, in every way! Blue Arms seems like a real power house of a tattoo shop, absolutely have to visit next time I'm in Oslo. Are you planning to do more of these? Actually I've been thinking for a long time about doing some interviews about Swedish tattooers, but only with photos and text since I don't know my way around video editing well enough. I very much enjoyed watching this, @Iwar So cool to see some, non-bullshit, tattoo media coming from other places than the States. We have a plethora of great artists in Scandinavia that deserves to have their work known. Another Norwegian I would like to see something similar about is Marius Meyer. I'll post this video on my tattoo-blog thing so you reach to some more people!

@Iwar That was so great!! I saw you post something on your instagram but didn't know you'd done it. Really nice man, perfect way to start my morning! Can we expect more? Are you the new Norwegian tattoo ambassador?

I'm excited to announce that sometime next week I'll be going for a consultation with either Cole Dunn or Brad Ausbrooks at Carter's. If things go as planned, I should have my first tattoo by the second week of February. I think this will be a great gift "to me, from me" for my birthday. I can't wait to post pictures when its done!

Aw man @marley mission, that tattoo makes me happy. Whyyyy are frog tattoos so great?!

So many great tattoos!! Haven't been on in a while, so it was pretty awesome to go through a whole bunch of pages on this thread and see so much amazing shit going down!!!! @mmikaoj OMG!!! ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?!? Jaw dropping...just stunning man. I just finished my big arm panther and roses with Jebb Riley. I'll post pics soon. Super happy with it.

great stuff in here, as always . got something new today, photorealistic :

my back piece by Chris O'Donnell

It's official: I need to stay off this site for a while! Not only do I have plans for my first tattoo, but I'm starting to get ideas for other ones! This is a dilemma I wasn't expecting...

very nice thank you @Iwar

That was a really nice job. I feel like I know Morten after watching it.

Really great!

Beautifully done, my friend.

Very nicely done. Thanks for posting this!

Great video! I agree with @mmikaoj - no-nonsense and getting the real essence of the guy. And the music and cinematography were also very nice. Feel free to do more :)

Been loving some of front pieces from Matthew Houston at Salon Serpent. A couple of killer stomach rockers in there, too.

1st = Do you know what "style" of tattoo art you want? next = Keep in mind that whatever you end up picking - it doesn't have to be a "traditional" representation of a memorial tattoo. Anything that reminds you specifically of her or something you two shared and which brings a smile to your face will work best.

Not sure how well this will upload from my iPad, but Grez posted this one today. Edit: should be more clear. This is not on me. I wish!!

Thank ya, @Lance! Sets may be my next thing for a bit. We'll see ;) That and I am just realizing...I have no snakes :eek: ! I'm hardly a proper tattooed person!...must remedy this year...

done by Chris O'Donnell at his private studio happy new year to all

Well I was waiting to post a healed pic of my finished Seth Wood thigh, but since I can't seem to take a decent pic of my own leg, here's when it was half-fresh: http://s16.postimg.org/lelsgz5qt/Untitled_1.jpg I started it at Temple in Oakland in June and finished at Saved in NYC in December. I live in North Carolina so both locations meant a trip for me. Really awesome experience getting to see two different shops and travel all across the country to get this done, made some awesome memories, hung out with friends new and old, and just overall had an adventure. Seth is an awesome dude as well and I hope I can get something else from him in the future. (posted this in the contest thread too, hope it's okay to post it twice!)

Thanks for the thoughtful responses :). I think this might be a step for him because my other tattoos are on my legs, not near such an 'important' area haha. @pidjones I think it is the placement that is his main concern, as I already had two tattoos when I met him, as well as my septum and several other piercings. I've never really looked 'plain'. His mum is a little conservative but his family wouldn't really affect anything like that. And thanks @marley mission, it sounds like a good idea to have a discussion about exactly where is issues with the tattoo lilye and hopefully we can work something out. I definetly have plenty of other ideas that I can focus on first haha. @scubaron I got my first tattoo on my birthday in August and I have three now, I don't think it's excessive if you have lots of ideas; I have so many ideas that have been going through my head for ages and the only thing slowing me down is the funding.

I think we both just stepped into the same hole. I believe that @Graeme is referring to a common confusion - "fonts" are for displaying letters on screens and on printers and not for putting letters on skin, and he is thrashing us for misuse of the term. What she is looking for is hand-drawn "script." If she really wants words in the tattoo, then the advice to get very readable script is the right way to say it. I've seen some script that is beautiful and very readable. Now, if @Ashley76 wants entire lines or paragraphs, then the tattoo will get pretty big to make it legible, and then yeah, it will completely overshadow the flowers. And since she wants a medium sized tattoo, it could be hard to make it readable. So @Ashley76, the message is - if you want to get words in the tattoo, let your tattooer choose a script that will work with your overall goal.

I recently expressed the desire to get a small traditional style crystal tattooed on my chest, pretty much right in between the 'girls' to my boyfriend, and he scrunched his face up at the idea. When we met I already had two on my thigh, and recently got another above my ankle that I had planned since before we started dating. I have always planned to keep getting tattooed, and never really considered his opinion before when it came to getting them (it is a relatively new relationship and I have only recently begun to discuss ideas with him). I feel the way that others who have posted on the subject do, that while I retain ownership of my body if its something he's going to hate looking at I don't want to cause a rift, but at the same time its something I really wanted to di, even before I met him.

When it comes down to it, every tattoo is unique because even when you get beyond things like design, placement, application, the tattoo itself is just an indelible mark that means much more than what it appears to be: that tattoo is going to be associated with the process of getting it, the conversations you had with your tattooer, the stories and jokes that were told; that tattoo is now part of your life, it's going to age with you and become part of your story. That's why tattoos are one of the coolest things in the world. I met a guy a little while ago who has been around tattooing for a good long while and has collected a lot of wisdom over the years and while he was telling stories, he made the observation that one of the things about tattooing is that it can mean all sorts of different things to different people. I guess that's what it comes down to: while the idea for that particular tattoo isn't in itself original--the idea is directly and shamelessly lifted from Ed Hardy and has gone through various moments of popularity since it was originally conceived--I came to the idea through trying to learn about tattoo history and draw inspiration from it, and I got the tattoo from a tattooer who does tattoos that I feel capture that looseness and power of Ed Hardy's tattoos and art, and I think that makes my tattoo totally different than somebody who wanted a copy of a picture of a tattoo they saw on the Internet, even if the tattoos look similar.

Upper inside of the arm tonight. Feels like burning. With Greg Whitehead, as usual! A fun panther-leopard with a Tibetan shell. Starting to close in on it with this arm. Room for two modest/smallish pieces and then just filler after that. Crazy.

Just got back to the hotel in Oslo after having Marius Meyer blast me for 4 hours or so. Shout out to @Iwar for being an awesome tour guide, host, driver... really the only way he could have made me more welcome is by offering some hand relief. Maybe on the next trip!

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.

Was lucky enough to get some work from Chris Conn last night. 1st session, halo and color next time. Ill try to post a better pic later. By the way.... one of the nicest guys I've ever met.

Finished another session tonight. Just banged out the stripes. I am so psyched with how the face is coming out. Have black in the tail up top then color hallelujah ! Cork man you should be beyond proud of that thing it's awesome. Edit: sorry about the sideways pics

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.

Got this German Kaiser wolf today by Murray Sell at Flying Tiger Tattoo in CT. I love it and it's definitely unique.

Torso progress. 3 days back to back at the Bay Area Convention of the Tattoo Arts this past weekend. Sorry for the harsh convention lighting. Will get better pics once healed. Thanks for looking.

I got this from Stewart Robson at the Bay Area/SFO Convention :)

Well since Stewart posted it on his instgram.....I will repost it here. Mine is top left. I will post a bigger pic when it heals.

I haven't posted this on here yet. Session four on my back, we shaded my butt and thigh.

I had a fantastic experience at Diamond Club last night with one of my favorite tattooers, Brian Kaneko (truenaturetattoo on Instagram). I got this peony: Shad, Junii, and Dr. Claw were there, too, which made it even more fun. But the best part is that @Iwar wanted to get something from Brian, but couldn't get an appointment. He asked if he could show up during mine, and I said, "Of course!" He walked in right after I got there, so I introduced him to Brian and Shad. They all started laughing, then Brian said, "By the way, I tattooed him earlier today. I had a cancellation." So now Iwar and I are not only banhammer bros, but we're botan brothers, too.

Finally back at it. This one from Xam at Seven Doors, taken from Instagram:

Got this chest eagle off Steve Byrne last week Don't think I posted these either Fudo of Stewart Robson Leopard off Valerie Vargas Scorpion off Valerie too And this mad skull off Andrea Furci

Most of you saw this going down via Instagram but here's an AMAZING peony I got from the fantastically talented Wendy Pham aka Wenramen. This was on my inner thigh and it connected my Henning front thigh piece to my Rubendall rear back thigh backpiece. I don't know what possessed me to have my inner thigh brutalized but the results were OUTSTANDING. I'm so happy with how this turned out and Wendy is just AWESOME!!! ASIANS....still smiling even after the beating I took ;)

Too excited about how cool this looks to not share it. Please excuse the redness and peeling. This was the progress from my second session with Henning. About 11.5 hours total now. One more short session needed to color the tiger and the last few leaves.

Right now, as a professional, my tattoos are in places that can be covered by shorts and a tank top. I consider myself fashion-forward, and tattoos are a great way to cover scars and flaws that I can't correct through exercise or other body modifications, and it's a great enhancer and conversation piece. I'm slowly branching out into more tattoos to where if I went out in casual fun clothes instead of business attire, maybe you'd spot one. ;) But overall, I like to keep it classy, highbrow, and visually interesting.