Leaderboard

A brief update here: @Pugilist was spending some time with her mom yesterday (who still doesn't know that either of us have any tattoos at all) and she was trying to push Anna to get me to cut my hair because I "look like a bum". Then she said that at least I don't have holes in my ears. Oh, how little she knows.

My latest and greatest tattoo on my left knee, Had a very personal battle getting this one almost tapped a couple of times. Artist is WT Norbert so stoked to have him working just down the road from my place

ok ok - now I know this is the heavyweight division - the best of the best - major league back pieces - epic sleeves from legendary artists from around the globe - tattooing black belts - you get the picture - but I figure - you only live once - so here is my first ever entry into one of my favorite monthly threads.... Whatever...by Jamie Sawyer outta Immortal Ink in Clinton, NJ

The winner of Tattoo of the month January 2015 is @graybones with this fantastic Seth Wood piece. Congratulations!! Please PM @steve1461686340 with your shirt info (size and male or female) along with your address. New contest will be up shortly!

This is awesome. Enjoy.

First piece on my legs by Matthias Boettcher in Lowbrow Berlin. Happy man

I know! Plus I just google mapped it and apparently Richmond is only a 10.5 hour drive away? AND we have friends there AND good eatin'. I am seriously so into this idea.

Like I said, LST meetup. I'm close to both Towson and Richmond y'all!

few more split sheet with Handsome Jake couple of new efforts

Healed photos of my last tattoo. Angel Tyrael (from Diablo) with Giger Wings. Got this finished in December 2014. Done by Tommygunn in Belfast City Skinworks, Belfast, Northern Ireland. Showing the wings wrapping around my leg.

Thank you!! I'm honored and excited to wear my LST shirt! :D

Done, 2d sleeve by Shige : View image: IMG 5047 Next is back in November (or maybe earlier) to complete my mandala. Cheers

@Graeme Your thread made me laugh and feel a little nostalgic at the same time. You see, I'm rapidly approaching my 49th birthday. February 13th (which also falls on a Friday the 13th for the first time in ages! WOOHOO!) will mark the 30th year since I got my first tattoo. The tattoo shop was inside of a biker bar in Waynesville, N.C. It was named J.B's Tattoo & Tavern. You could get anything you wanted... As long as you picked it from the flash on the wall. He used an acetate stencil, graphite powder and Speedstick deodorant to transfer the design, and I remember very clearly that he didn't use gloves (this was 1985 after all). I've been hooked ever since, and that tattoo is still there. There's also an appointment already scheduled to mark this little milestone.

Tattoos were invented sometime in the early 2000s. 2003 I think. There was no tattooing prior to that.

Wow, that snake and roses is so cool. Here's a little one I got yesterday from Kurt Melancon at a fun Sailor Jerry birthday event at Leviticus in Minneapolis. Obviously not on the same scope as some of these but it's a quality tattoo and fun to share.

That was my favorite bit too. Along with Tony Polito's "MO-RONS". Haha ! Classic. Yeah this is a gem. Such cool perspective.

Richmond is dope. If you guys do a roadtrip/meet up, let me know. I'm having a baby in the spring, so life is going to get hectic, but I have off all summer, so I'm sure I could get away for a day or two. It'd be cool to see this with people that would really appreciate it.

Always heard nice things about Richmond VA.

@Graeme - road trip???

I've been seeing a lot about this on Instagram. I've gotta find an hour to check it out soon.

I'm definitely going to try and check it out in Maryland and/or Richmond. I'm glad it made it to the east coast.

Ironically, I'm a 90s kid too. The term "sick" is engraved on my mind.

I can only relate to the sternum and ribs. I banged out 6 hours on the ribs in one day. It hurt but wasn't extremely unbearable. The sternum hurt enough for me to see red, literally (didn't hurt extremely bad though), but out of anyone to believe, I can believe you.

I like the 1st & 3rd examples...I would make the skull bigger than it is in the 3rd picture. Instagram Does nice skulls...

I don't post anything to Instagram but I follow a shit ton of tattooers. Lately, @BrightandBold and @Americanatattoos have been hosting the most awesome 'takeovers' by some veteran tattoo artists that have shared some fascinating history and insight. I'm not a tattooer, just an enthusiast. I would highly recommend following these pages if you are into tattoo history. I've also been introduced to some amazing artists I would never have heard of otherwise. Check them out.

Don't tell me that people walked into a shop or picked up a phone, talked to a human being, looked through a portfolio and then made up his or her mind and booked something (or not), because that's obviously crazy.

Tattoos were only available in boxes of Cracker Jacks, lick 'em and stick 'em. The cool people always had theirs on straight. I'd get my mom to buy one of those multiple packs and save up the tattoos so I could put them on all at once.

I had a dream where I was booked in with one of my favorite tattooers. I showed up to the appointement, he was a nice guy and everything seemed okay. But I could figure out what I wanted or where I wanted to be tattooed. The tattooer got a bit annoyed(understandably). I never decided, and didn't get a tattoo. Extremely frustrating.

I'm just here to point out the hilarity of motsimus' comment followed by the comment in Myles' signature.

East Coast!!! Venues | Perseverance | Japanese American National Museum Traveling Exhibition Sites Current/Upcoming Venues Towson University February 5 – May 2, 2015 Asian Arts Gallery Center for the Arts Towson, MD 21252 Web: towson.edu Phone: 410.704.2787 Virginia Museum of Fine Arts May 30 – September 27, 2015 200 N. Boulevard Richmond, VA 23220 Web: vmfa.museum Phone: 804.340.1405 Morikami Museum and Japanese Gardens February 23 – May 22, 2016 4000 Morikami Park Rd. Delray Beach, FL 33446 Web: morikami.org Phone: 561.495.0233

@CollinK very nice.

Here are some recent ones for me... Got this guy from Alan Berg Started this with Mat Welch and snagged this Bert Grimm horse from Miguel Olascuaga

I had the dream tonight where I was going to learn to make tattoos and I had a kit and everything ready. In my dream I had to do the first tattoo on myself but realized all the reasonable spots to start (reachable parts of my legs) where all ready covered with tattoos (as they are) so I began by going over them with really bad lines, just free styling random shapes. Horrible.

So today I got to exchange a few emails with Brett Osborne Instagram He will do my left arm cover up. I am going a bit traditional on this one. Still working on what I want.... But is going to be on the arena of a koi fish.

Ha! I remember the first step in clearing a shop (for friends or what not) use to be the smell. Perfection Tattoo had a certain smell (looking back, I think it may have been Green Soap?) and if a shop did not have that certain smell I would tell my friends "Noooo WAAAY! Don't go there" :p ...But really, there is a "good tattoo shop" version of the hospital smell and it indicates rightness. I don't know how to explain it...anyone? Also, I remember the good old days of xeroxing reference material at the university libraries to take with me to my consultation. Two copies...one for my folder and one for the tattooer's :D

The crazy thing is how people traveled to get tattooed w/o the Internet. Big yellow phone books, handwritten correspondence, etc. Rubendall getting tattooed by Leu immediately comes to mind.

Maybe they called their moms when they were scared?

Sounds like foliculitis. I had that before when I had my legged tattooed. I just had epsom salt baths and dry healed. I would refrain from using any cream or lotion, likely making things worse.

Whoa, with all the awesome tattoos posted in the Lowdown thread recently I'm surprised no one's posted here yet. I'll kick it off! Here's my thigh by Seth Wood, started at Temple and finished at Saved.

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..