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Finally finished. Now I'll start working out again. On Monday. I promise.

Another one by Brian Via, picked a drawing off his wall of stuff he wanted to do. Inner bicep and it hurt like hell, especially the stuff by the top near my armpit. So happy with it though.

Finally finished my back last night. Yup @a1steaks - back to running next week - congrats on yours too! I'm going to wait and post healed pics so I can show the sides too, but Sean posted the straight-on shot on his instagram. All sorts of funny milestones have been going through my head. The last 5 am drive home. I just took my last "first" shower. Coincidentally, the bottle of Dial soap is nearly out. It's the last week of smelling like Redemption. The last week of red welts from the painters tape on my stomach. The last week of really uncomfortable sleeping. I was somewhat out of my mind with exhaustion and chills at the end - I actually said goodbye to the massage chair. ::rolls eyes::

So I finally got my chest piece. So happy with how it came out. By Valerie Vargas of course.

Picked this up from Steve Boltz on Tuesday.

Making my second Smith St trip a week from Friday. Appointments with Eli and Dan this time. Excited as fuck!

Good suggestions here already. Google old maps and sea drawings. Also, ask a good artist/shop what reference materials they have. I got some "wind" filler on my arm based on old French etchings and I think it turned out pretty good. Here's one photo I found just using google:

I've been avoiding my ditches as long as I could, but a few sundays ago I decided it was time. jason ochoa at greenpoint tattoo put this rose in there and now that it's healed, I'm stoked to do the other arm. it didn't hurt nearly as bad as I expected and it was pretty much healed within a week or so using tegaderm. definitely a believer in that shit. if there's a thread discussing that stuff, let me know and I can share my experience. anyway, here's a healed pic:

It's not on me but I love this (by Grez) Have only got the lining of the central piece of my belly down at the moment, we'll finish it next session (all being well). I don't think I've got any photos though. Shall rummage.

Just got this from Eli yesterday. I think I have Smith Street fever!!

Hi everyone! I'm Kaos -that's right, it's a nickname, but pretty close to my real one. I'm a long time tattooer, the reason I registered here is for networking, getting to know more people in the industry, as I feel a bit isolated from the rest of it. I was born and raised in Hungary, but I'm living in London, England, moved here long time ago, but why?!....don't ask...:) I'm coming from an artistic family, so to start tattooing somehow was an obvious step for me. In drawing or painting I was always after replicating my subject as accurate as possible, fantasy drawing, or character design was just secondary. I love it, don't get me wrong, but my little heart was always beating for realism. So (what a surprise) I started to call myself realistic, or -just to sound better : portrait tattooer. Although I'm tattooing over ten years, I'm still developing my technique, trying to learn more about tattooing. Looking back to my past, when I thought I am the king of tattooing, I can only see a pathetic excuse of that....:) I had to learn not to be happy with myself, but become a perfectionist, which means no perfection at all, but at least pursuing perfection! Now I know, with every day I can gain a little more, if I pay enough attention, and don't let myself settle on a certain level. So here I am, age 40 and still wanting to grow, become someone, become a better artist, a better person. Thanks for reading!

Hey thanks for the input!! I keep thinking about a Dragon or possibly 2 on a dagger or sword. But I also want something similar as a back piece later on, so I keep looking for something different.

Uncle Billy's is only about 1.5-2 miles away. They have outside seating, awesome bbq and they brew their own beer, too. Validated parking in the rear.

Thanks, @pidjones :) 5 hours of more black, shadows and whites to make it pop. And it's over!!!!!!

Marley, listen, it's ok. It you really wanted it, you should have gotten it. Our sarcasm shouldn't dissuade you from your dreams. :D But if his arms broke into birds, it really would be keeping with the whole "Fly" theme.

maybe 1 or 2 heikegani crabs

Welcome to LST! You could do any of those things you suggest (rework, cover up, leave it). It just depends on how much it bothers you. I do agree that grey ink was a poor choice made by somebody. My suggestion would be to not worry too much about this one and get an all new, awesome tattoo somewhere else on you (not by this artist!).

Nice work @a1steaks You must be happy to be finished. I swear too when my back is done I am going to hit the gym again. Crappy thing is I still am paying $9 a week for my gym membership and I haven't gone in a very very long time.

Awesome work!!!!! You have a new fan bro. Welcome to LST.

For healing certain spots, I had great use out of it too. http://www.lastsparrowtattoo.com/forum/tattoo-after-care/4795-tegaderm-saniderm-tatuderm-healing-process.html

Yeah you definitely need to leave and pursue other options. The idea of undertaking a tattoo apprenticeship from someone who doesn't tattoo is... nonsensical. By the sounds of it, you have too much potential for this clown and he doesn't deserve to have you around. It kinda just sounds like he wants a shop bitch who will make him easy money, and that's not what tattooing is about. I know it's hard to have the confidence at this level to put your foot down and say "hey fuck you man! I'm leaving!" (you don't literally have to say fuck you ;)) BUT YOU SHOULD! Even if you have to keep learning and studying on your own time, it will still be time saved not learning bad habits and bad business practices. And yeah what Kevin said, go hang out at other shops, be polite and respectful, keep your ears open and your mouth shut. Get tattooed! It will work out :)

Take ibuprofen and drink a lot of water throughout your day, you'll be fine. It's going to suck but you can definitely work and it won't affect your tattoo.

Everything is awesome! Everything is cool when you're part of the team Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Getting something by Jeff Zuck in a week. Really excited.

First off, congrats on your first tattoo!! I've read through the whole thread and I have to say that some of these replies have kinda pissed me off. As a tattooer, I see a couple of sides to this thing. From a responsible professional standpoint, I would never do someone's first tattoo on their neck for all of the reasons that everyone has already been so quick to mention. From a personal standpoint, fuck yeah!! That's really cool to me that you went with what you felt like was right for your first tattoo. The only reason that getting your neck tattooed off the bat is so heavily frowned upon in the tattoo community is because of the prejudice and general hassle that it will cause you on a practical level from regular people in the daily world. So to see the same sort of prejudice and heckling coming from folks in the tattoo community toward another person who is now in the tattoo community, is like a major fucking bummer. Like obviously the tattoo may (or may not!) make the dude's life more difficult in some ways, do we really need to be compounding that too? Like is everyone trying to make the kid hate his first tattoo? Yeah I definitely think that was a quick and heavy decision, but I also think about where tattooing would be without people like the Great Omi who left the Royal Navy to file down his teeth, tattoo his whole body, and join the circus. All because he wanted to and didn't give a fuck what people thought about it. And this post isn't directed toward anyone, just my thoughts on the scenario.

I like the idea a lot. Are you planning on having the tattoos stand alone or will you have some background tying them together? For designs, I'd suggest looking in books. There are so many good ones out there: the Sailor Jerry books, that Zeis book (the Scott Harrison page in there is something else), the Flash From the Bowery book, the Dietzel and Burchett books, Flash From the Past/Revisited...there's so much out there. Lucky's Tattoo Museum has a bunch of flash you can look at online to give you inspiration. There's so much neat stuff out there and there's probably a lot more variety and diversity in classic flash than most of us imagine. I think the biggest challenge with this idea would be doing traditional tattoos in a realistic style while still keeping the feel of traditional tattoos. If that's what you're going for. There's a bit in that Brian Bruno and Mike Rennie interview that really sticks out where Brian is talking about advice that Ed Hardy gave him about drawing: if you're drawing a tiger, you don't want to replicate a photo of it, you want to draw it how it makes you feel. I think that idea basically encapsulates one of the main differences between realism and traditional (loosely defined here) tattoos, and I wonder how bridging the gap between the two will work. Sometimes the most exciting things that happen in tattoos come from pushing boundaries and trying things to see how they'll work, so yeah, I love the idea.

dragon from me ^_^

A couple that are relevant here is that 1) lines will thicken over time so if you have a lot of dense linework like in the reference images above chances are that they're going to bleed together over the course of your life; 2) the nature of skin is that it is going to age, your muscles will slacken, your skin will sag, etc., etc., and this is all going to impact how your tattoo will look. A well-designed tattoo is going to be drawn and placed in a way that will, to an extent, take this into account. I am not convinced that a design based only on very precise linework is going to age well. well and add any element to the sea like a whale or a ship, as mentioned above, be sure to somehow figure will be boring. Just for example of styling:

The lady and I went down to Dedication Tattoo for their 2 year anniversary party yesterday, they had a huge sheet of designs to choose from drawn up by them and their guests for the day and we had a lot of fun just getting spontaneous tattoos and hanging out at the shop. Bryce Operandi put a rose on my elbow, and she got a butterfly girl head from CJ Fishburn. CJ talked her into doing black and gray and I think it looks rad. Elbow wasn't as miserable as I expected either so that's a bonus.

In Qld, Australia now, it's common to be refused from venues for having hand, neck and face tattoos. Especially on the Gold Coast. The way I see it is that these venues are mainstream. Fuck mainstream. Never wanted to mix with them fuckers anyway. Give me a dingy blues club any day of the week.

this is a great quote: "I have two cats. I'm the furthest thing from a gang member."

Sorry to be one of those nerds that instagrams his food, but this shit is the bees knees. Good life choices.

OH NO - (((hugs))) so sorry to hear that. Oh boy my heart is going out to you.

I and my husband have a one cat :) big fluffy cat which name is Belfegor (abbreviated - Belfik). Animal was take from street and brought to home where we fed and treated cat. And if Belfik like that: Now like this:

When I worked for a printing company, we'd proof their art, but gently ask if the spelling was correct. Marketing departments sometimes play with spelling, so we were never 100% sure if it was a mistake or not. If we didn't ask, the claim was usually going to fall on us.

...a TED speaker asks: Juan Enriquez: Your online life, permanent as a tattoo | Talk Video | TED.com I thought it was an intriguing talk only because often, the negative reactions to tattoos have to do with them being "forever," and "what if you change your mind?", etc. It made me think about the young people I've known who've passed away -- their Twitter feeds, their Facebook profiles -- their online selves are frozen in time. The girl who passed away 12 years ago, would she still like those same TV shows she talks about on Twitter, or be comfortable showing those Facebook profile pictures? In the grand scheme, it doesn't f^cking matter -- those things show who she was at that time, and I don't think there's anything shameful or regrettable or embarrassing about that. We're all humans, and we all grow and change our minds and adopt new attitudes. Everything we leave behind -- tattoos, Facebook pages, message board posts, blogs, pictures -- is just a big, fat smearing of evidence of how we've personally tripped through life. Like the slime trail a slug leaves behind. Yes, you can quote me on that last one. I know it's elegant as f^ck. ::sips tea, pinky out::

I love that, @cookietruck. So rad that you got an Irons design from Bob, too. I got this from Ben Grillo yesterday: He applied it with a single needle and a shoehorn. The photo does it no justice; this is far and away my most detailed tattoo. I can wait to see it healed.

got an old man tattoo from an old dude.

I got tattooed by Eli back in January. I dont think I ever posted it here.

Just got tattoo today by Eli. The whole crew is super cool and the atmosphere was great. Here is the panther he did

New panther from Aaron Coleman, mostly healed.