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Finally got around to taking decent pics. Sorry if this is posted in the wrong section.

Hi all! I'm a research scientist who studies paleoclimate, climate change, oceanography, and archeology/anthropology through stable isotope geochemistry. Stuff about me. My grandfathers pretty much raised me. Both were WWII veterans. My grandfather on my dad's side was a BAR-man in the USMC with the Pacific from 1942-1944. He was the embodiment of the Greatest Generation, I loved the man to death. He essentially raised me: he taught me how to shoot a rifle, how to fish, and gave me my moral compass and innumerable life skills. I miss him every day. He fought on Rennell, Bougainville, then was assigned to the First Provisional Marine Brigade, where he fought in the Second Battle of Guam, losing sight in in his right eye to a Japanese Grenade, sending him home. The Brigade would go on to Iwo Jima. The grenade probably saved his life. Yes, he was tattooed. My other grandfather was a total badass, as well. Field Artillery in the battle of Kasserine Pass. He was captured by Rommel's troops, and was a POW at Stalag III-B in Furstenburg. From which he escaped. Twice. Ratted out both times by refugees. They used to trade red cross cigarettes to the guards by making them give a salute and yell "Heil Roosevelt!" My dad was a 3rd generation Marine, of the Full Metal Jacket era. He was also a real POS of a human, and being in the Corps did that part of him no favors. He told me, to quote, that if I tried to carry on the family tradition, he'd kill me himself first. So, having grown up in Florida, I pursued what interested me. I'm not the kind of person who could ever have a job just to pay the bills. I get totally enrapt in whatever has my attention and interest. So science was a natural fit. I went to school for way too long. I paid my way through undergrad (chemistry/marine science) working in a boatyard, at a public aquarium and TAing/tutoring. I did research and taught more to survive through getting an MS in Oceanography and a PhD in Geoscience. Now I wake up and get to do what I love every day. So my main fascinations are the history of tattooing insofar as to be tattooed is to be human. Then, secondarily, American Traditional. As a scientist and person who tries to be an autodidact (and has sailed in the South Pacific, and was raised by Veterans), it's impossible for me not to be fascinated by and deeply respect Sailor Jerry. And as a general person who loves tattoo history, Paul Rogers, Cap Coleman, Amund Dietzel, Thom DeVita, etc. etc. etc. I am not a tattooer or artist. I don't have a visually creative bone in my body. To me, good tattooing is an ultimate and purely human art form. As human as paintings of mammoths and ungulates on cave walls. It's a truly special, endemic form of tool use that pushes the human brain out to the max. As a final note, the university I work at has a very conservative student body and is in a very conservative town. It's also too hot for long sleeves all year, so all of my past and future work is necessarily coverable by short sleeves, and preferably shorts as well. Thanks!

Thanks everyone! My current work is all from Mike Pain (gave me my first, second and third, great guy), Shanghai Kate Hellenbrand, and Chelsea Kotzur. My future collection desires and wants so far are a ribcage wolf's head with arrows from Tony Hundahl, a full back work from Kelly Edwards. I also love love love Katja Ramirez and Steve Byrne's work. I REALLY would like to someday travel to Modern Classic and get a girl head from Valerie Vargas. But alas, despite what Fox news tells ya, they don't pay us much, so each work is a long time coming

I'll be there. Look for the sketchy kid who probably smells too loud

I do it for the fame, and the sex.

Well, looks like I'm on my way to being employed again! Yay! This means I can start getting tattooed again at my snail's pace of 1-2x/year. ;)

I can pick you up one since we live in the same area (and I'm pretty sure work in the same area too). - - - Updated - - - Battle Royale to pick up a shirt for Ross.

looks good on you... by Matt Dunn, Rabbit's Den, Milltown, NJ about 2 weeks healed - crappy pic fully healed on the other side... by the same artist... also crappy pic - gotta say my pics of my tattoos never do them justice...anyway

My Raijin and Kirin by Dave Cummings at PSC, in Montreal. It's all don except for some background to tie in my rock of ages below it. Stokes.

I did much research before deciding to do my coverup. After watching television shows showing what could be done, it was encouraging while at the same time, you don't want to trust just anyone. As great as the internet is, I have seem far too many bad cover ups although many were simply amazing. My first attempt at research was disheartening as after asking several shops, I simply got too much conflicting information, people simply too eager for business, or simply my gut telling me something wasn't right. Finally I saw some coverup work on a tv show mentioning an artist from Dallas. After a quick search I found that he was a few miles from my house. At this point I went to his shop, but he was on the road. Talking to the shop manager and explaining my situation, I mentioned that if possible I would like to do a Captain America tattoo. Once I said that, I was quickly able to set up an appointment with the owner/artist. Although very high in demand, apparently if you are wanting something that they want to do as well, I have found that artists can shift schedules if there is a type of tattoo that they want to do. Fortunately for me, I later found that the artist was a much bigger superhero fan than myself. Over the next month, I spent wakeless nights admiring his work and many of the comic stuff he has done and spend many hours downloading comic images trying to conceptualize what would work for the coverup. My consultation finally came and after asking me what I wanted, I kind of hesitated with questions as to what my limitations were. His response was, not to worry about it, just tell him what I wanted and he would make it happen. So, I gave him my top 3 comics. We set an appointment and I left trusting him to come up with something. It was kind of crazy committing to something without knowing what exactly I was going to get until I showed up, but I trusted my instincts and research. I was straight up blown away with the results and feel I learned quite a bit along the way. - Older tattoos are better candidates for coverups than relatively new ones - Non-recognizable shapes are easier to cover than geometric shapes I don't know why some artists try to just go for the simple black out with no detail, like a panther head. You do not necessarily need to go darker for coverups, blues rock! - You should anticipate going at least 2x the original size. Bigger is better - Detail will help draw attention away from the orginal tattoo, so some slight detail show through - At least for me, the skin where the old tattoo was scarred and bleed a bit more than fresh skin. These area scanned more. Anyway, if anyone has any questions, shoot away. PS.. I was still a little bloody on the yellow lines, but you get the results.

My three-year old daughter loves my tattoos, especially my sweet and sour babies. She likes wearing temporary tattoos. I sleeved her up one time and we had a blast. A very small part of me getting tattoos is to teach her not to judge people by their appearance. My father was heavily tattooed (WWII vet) and my mom would sometimes express her disapproval of them. My wife is the same way so I sort of see myself as balancing out those prejudices. If she expresses interest when she gets older, I will be there to help guide her. I will not encourage her nor discourage her from getting them but at least try to teach her about some of the potential consequences of getting them. I don't think I would bring her into a shop out of respect for the artists. She would have to be much older before I brought her in.

I been getting back in shape, I am going Free diving/Spear fishing this summer @ Puerto Rico.

Hooray for new jobs! I just completed and submitted a 100 page manuscript to my publisher for inclusion as a chapter into the next (30th!) edition of a very famous engineering book. Publication later this year. I will be the very first woman contributor in the book's 100+ year history.

How much are those shirts? And who among you will allow me to PayPal you to cop one for me? (@gougetheeyes, I'd assume a medium?) So stoked about this. I wish I could be there.

@MarvelAvengers just an fyi the post you quoted/ are responding to is ~4.5 years old. and you are also questioning the practices of a tattooer with almost 20 years experience.

Your thread was locked on the other thread for a reason. If you spent any amount of time researching contact dermatitis, you find that a person may never find what specific ingredient they have or had a reaction to. You would also find that one could have a reaction 1 time, but not the next. Your own documents provided on your locked thread were even titled "rare cases". This doesn't mean that the ingredient is a carcinogen, it simply means that your unique biology is not compatible with it. Anyway, I think there was no foul play here. Likley you had a reaction to a heavy metal used on pretty much all ink http://www.health.govt.nz/system/files/documents/publications/survey-selected-samples-tattoo-inks-presence-of-heavy-metals-july13_0.pdf

It's been raining here all day and it's only 40 degrees.. The bigger issue is that there hasn't been street cleaning in over a month.. so basically the streets are full of garbage. I parked on a fucking MOUNTAIN of fish spines the other day. It's.. not good. But uh yeah, C'MON BY!!

Throwing this here because I think this is a good place for it. Goshawks are incredible: This beautiful and terrifying marvel of nature is named Ellie.

Nguzunguzu. I did my PhD dissertation on the paleoclimate and oceanography of the Solomon Islands. They are smack dab in the West Pacific Warm Pool, one of the "heat engines" of the Earth's climate. They also sit under the largest perennial rainfall feature on earth, the South Pacific Convergence Zone. I spent a lot of time out there caving, sampling fossil corals, and hanging out in villages listening to villagers and elders tell amazing stories of the past, and depressing stories of the present; logging and overfishing are becoming epidemic. In the Western Province, tribal warfare and headhunting raids were often conducted between the small islands, with warriors transporting themselves in large Tomoko war canoes. One of the iconic images of the Western Solomons is the figurehead that adorns the prows of these canoes: the Nguzunguzu. A guardian God carved of ebony wood and painted black, with v or z shaped shell inlay. The eyes are always open, on alert. They are mostly either depicted holding a head or a frigate bird. Frigate birds are merciless, hardy, seagoing predators that will not spend the night at sea. They hold a place of reverence in the West Pacific. When I got my diploma, I got this piece on my chest. The flowers are Dendrobium laevifolium, an orchid species native to the remaining Western Solomons primary rainforests. The artist was Chelsea Kotzur at True Blue on Red River in Austin.

Lol symmetrical full back infinity with family written in only one end...

Booked all the tickets for my next trip yesterday. Flying to Barcelona since it was cheap, taking the bus the next evening to Toulouse to get tattooed by Guy Le Tatooer, meet up with two friends and have a good time. Two days later I take a long bus ride up to London where I spend one day before finally getting on the last bus that will take me to Edinburgh. On the sunday my backpiece gets finished by Iain and Rudy and on the monday I fly back to Stockholm. I get to hang out with my girlfriend for a few hours before getting on the night train to spend easter with family and relatives in the very north of sweden (above the polar circle). When I get back to civilized parts of Europe again I am moving in with my girlfriend, in her apartment in the city center. Spring looks like happy times. Edit: actually this was not something awesome that I did. I did however plan and book the trip and me and the girl did decide that we want to live together. That's pretty awesome.

Wow, amazing. I like that style of Gogue more than the stuff he is generally known for. Perfect example of less-is-more.

I have to look up gogue because that is perfect Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

@Isotope Dope intro, welcome to the board. Hope to talk to you.

unless they befriend a quality tattooer! if I were mike rubendall's buddy and he wanted to tattoo me at his house, I'd be down! ;) wait til she's 40 and get a body suit from Shige's daughter. imagine the potential progression by then!

That is insanity... I love love love it. The bottom mask is so damn good Is the whole thing shige? And can I be ignorant how do you get work from him? Fly to Japan/ conventions?

AND I JUST GOT ATTACKED AGAIN!! This time it yanked my glasses off my face!!! MY FACE!! Two weeks ago another crow dive bombed me and chased me for two blocks. It is TERRIFYING. Lessons learned: - Late May - Late June = fledgling season, and crow mothers are no different from mothers anywhere and will attack any perceived threat to their babies. Any perceived threat like walking under a nest you don't know is there. Walk somewhere else for the month. - Crows remember up to 200 discrete faces and also talk to each other. Don't piss off crows. - They like to nest in big, tall trees. - If you hear warning caws (I did NOT get a warning just now) then GTFO. Just do it. I like to walk and my walk to my chiropractor's office is usually quite pleasant but I think I will take the bus home BECAUSE SCARY BIRDS SWOOPING AT YOU FROM THE SKY AND FROM BEHIND IS FUCKING TERRIFYING! I dealt with this as a kid in Oklahoma. Kite hawks, anyone? My friends and I took to walking to each other's houses in the summertime with bike helmets on. One day a bunch of high schoolers in an open jeep drove up and started making fun of us for walking with helmets on....guess who got swooped?! Lesson. Don't fuck with birds.

What do you have planned for your stomach? Right now I'm just waiting for my income tax check to come in before I can make some moves. Once I get it, the emails or phone calls will start.

Lol nope - no immediate plans to add more caddyshack tattoos but... i def wouldnt rule out another david o'keefe based piece i got another piece scheduled for april (stomach) and that might be it until the fall

Good discussion. My six year old likes to go to our tattoo shop. They let her feed the fish and give her press ons. It's fun all around. She's pretty young so she will say she wants to wait until she is 30 to get a real tattoo. I guess we will see. My wife and I will talk to her more about this as she gets older and our plan is to start saving money for her (if she is interested in tattoos) and let that money grow. The longer she waits the better tattoo she will get. It will probably backfire though when she waits until she is 20 and gets a full back infinity sign. So it goes.

Whoops - editing

I think enough has been said here so I'm going to lock this thread to avoid any flame wars. We pride ourselves on having one of the most civilized and respectful boards on the web, and we appreciate everyone who upholds these high standards of civility with their posting. ;)

I would tell her to go slow so she doesn't end up with lots of garbage on her by 19. No text, no 25 lines of poetry/ prose/ stories/ song quotes etc. No neck or hand tattoos. Who knows if we will even cross that bridge My little girl rubs my arms its very funny that she is noticing that they are different and doesn't get why it doesn't come off.

this hot stuff by OllieXXX is sexier than the devil himself

I am training to climb Mt. Rainier at the end of August. It's a three day climb. It's kicking my ass! It is also severely cutting into my forum-browsing and tattoo-getting time, the latter of which is probably the saddest thing.

My friend, Jay Ryan, does some screen printing workshops at his studio in Chicago (the bird machine) and my wife and i went up last year for a weekend visit. We were lucky enough to get to do it on the same weekend when he had a show opening at Rotofugi of his paintings. Also, Aaron Horkey was Jay's special guest at the workshop and the print we made was a collab between the two of them. It was very awesome to be able to learn the screen printing process, watch Jay and Aaron cut rubylith, and take turns with 8 other workshop students manually pulling the screens and working a semi-automatic press. The print is titled, "Ouroburos".

My initial two second reaction was aww.....wait... I love my kids. I wouldn't do that. What would they have done if their child had been born w/Down Syndrome...or missing a limb...or dwarfism? I had a coworker whose son tipped over a candle and ended up w/horrendous burns over quite a bit of his body..so to make him feel accepted by others...they what..should set themselves on fire? I don't get it. Seems more about the parents, look what we did out of love for our child..which strikes me that A. birthmarks will ruin your life and the entire world is completely unaccepting of everyone everywhere. And B. tattoos are the equivalent of "ruining" your body. I'll stick to teaching my kids empathy and compassion for others and "different, not less".

Maybe they'll all get lasered together when she gets older, so she won't have to feel different then either. I think this is about making the parents feel special, rather than making the child feel accepted. I don't think they had the foresight to think about how the child will feel about it when she gets older. My guess is she won't like it. There are better ways to go about making a person feel accepted and loved. Making a big deal about of their faults, or "blemish" as the article says, is not the way to do it. To me, this is sending the message that how she looks is more important than her other qualities. And since she doesn't "look perfect" the parents are going through great lengths to make sure she doesn't feel bad about it. It doesn't sit well with me that the mother says she was "heartbroken" and that she "sobbed and sobbed knowing my baby was going to permanently marked for the rest of her life." It's just a birthmark! That baby is still beautiful! And beauty isn't everything anyway. I dunno, maybe I'd feel differently if I had a birthmark. Or a child, for that matter.

@dcostello totally crazy you're getting on a plane and coming into town for this. And you too @CultExciter, stoked to meet you! We'll have over 50 pieces to bid on, doing a limited run of t-shirts and a limited print run of the piece Nash did for the flyer. Without getting too long-winded, this project has really picked up steam and it's been a very humbling experience. The response has been incredible.. to see how the tattoo community has gone all in for this, and to see how positive everyone's reaction has been. It's been stressful but super rewarding and I'm already looking ahead to next year, thinking of what else to do, how to improve it... @ShawnPorter had some good ideas, too. Also have to thank @CultExciter once again for helping me out with getting flyers done -- dude, you were a life saver. We've gotten a little press, had a nice little piece up on Inked mag's blog which you can read here. (Disclaimer: didn't realize it was gonna be a straight up Q+A otherwise I would've tried to sound a little more intelligent with the As.) Attached a few photos for your viewing pleasure for those that don't have Instagram, since most of the online presence has all been through that. T-shirt design by the very talented Matt Arriola, a piece by Tim Hendricks and the last image is by Cheyenne Randall, who goes by Indian Giver on Instagram.. really talented artist who is one of the few non-tattooers that's part of the show. A bunch of you probably know his "shopped tattoos" work that blew up a little last year.. but he's also done some great work with Shepard Fairey and Honor the Treaties, an art advocacy group for issues facing native people. Check those guys out, too, really awesome stuff. The show is less than a week away so I hope anyone in the area can make it out!

Dude, I'll see you there!

You're welcome: Random Wild Crow Tells Guy "F**k You" - Video

personally I think that second link looks like a mess of random stars and lines... but that is what fireworks are. So, maybe it's great? I understood what yours was when I saw it immediately, I think you have some buyers remorse and cannot really admit that. This is how you should fix it :D http://38.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lswtybVsZk1qfp499o1_500.jpg

You can't learn to swim by reading a book. To expand on that again, tattooing is best experienced first-hand. Many times, here on this forum, in the shop I work at and conventions etc, someone has mentioned that they wish there was a book that had all the information they were looking for about a particular subject at that moment. It usually doesn't exist. You have to find it yourself. With regards to tattooing and "tattoo culture" We're living in a folk art culture. We should embrace the folk art tradition of oral storytelling and first hand knowledge and be relieved that we not (yet) shackled by the literary bounds of other art movements, cultures and historical societies. But to be more on topic, in a general sort of way... I'd stick my neck out and say that any style of tattooing (until maybe around 2000-2010) is influenced by the popular culture surrounding the people who get those styles. Sailor Jerry cribbed movie posters and other advertisements for many of his designs between the 40's - 70s. Mike Malone used objects and paintings he found in Chinatown as reference for many of his popular designs. It stands to reason that Charlie Wagner would have used Edwardian style filigree ornamentation (from a variety of sources, jewellery included) in his designs. The dotwork thing is slightly separate. During the first decade of the 21st century tattooing entered a more post-modern, referential phase where most styles of tattooing referenced or were influenced by earlier styles of tattooing. Except dotwork. I consider the work of Thomas Hooper, Xed Le Head, Jondix (I'd extend that to Duncan X) to be the only "new" style of tattooing since biomech in the 90's - but that didn't seem to catch on outside of tattoo culture the way their work did. That's why I still bother to get involved when someone refers to dotwork as a "fad". While it is imitated ad nauseam, we've alive to witness the birth of a new tattoo style that was influenced by disparate artforms outside of tattooing to the point where it works and it's possible to have a coherent bodysuit of that style. Pretty exciting stuff.

There was a thread about "dotwork" a while ago and I got fairly involved and possibly upset a few people. Check it out, I think I already answered the question posed by your thread title. Also, the word "fad" is inherently insulting in modern usage - but you knew that already. While researching tattoos, tattooing, tattoo styles, tattoo history and tattooers is interesting and probably fun. It's still kinda like researching swimming. Most of it's value comes from being involved, taking part, doing it, getting it done and having it be part of your life. Then again... On a long enough time scale, ALL tattooing since Ed Hardy opened the first appointment-only studio is a fad. Sailors going to war, getting tattooed in Honolulu was a fad. High-Society Europeans shipping esteemed Japanese irezumi artists over to tattoo dragons on them in the 1800's was a fad. Internet forums will be seen to be a fad. Finally, tattoo customers stressing about being period-correct like vintage clothing aficionados will be seen to be a fad of the early 21st century.

"I don't understand how being so called anti establishment means not taking care of your own body. WTF." This is such a problem in Austin-makes a 105 degree day that much closer to Hell

They're not mine to charge for, Pete. I'm just glad they're getting seen. I've had people send me stuff in trade; drawings, books, etc- but I wouldn't feel comfortable making money from them. Speaking of- Cliff Raven. 1974. This video features Cliff tattooing in New York & Florida. And generally not wearing pants. There was no audio originally, so I decided to leave it silent for now. Enjoy-