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@bongsau - Shad is super nice, and SO FAST! We got that snake done in 4 HOURS! 4!!!! Outline, shading, color!!! He does use bactine, as you mentioned, and that helps so much. He said he is going to be up in Canada, so I hope you get in to see him! This was a really painful session, all in all. The upper back is like hot fire. Not fun! I am so stoked to get to this point in my tattoo, though, and I can't wait to continue the collaboration. We were talking about a dragon on the rest of the back of my legs looking up at the snakes. !!!! Anyway, for those who might have missed it on IG, here is my new snake!

Not the finished product. But this is a peek at my latest piece.

Saw hello to my new tattoo, which I got done yesterday, pic was taken by tattooist shortly after it was finished. A tribute to H R Giger, a portrait of the man himself, it wraps around lower left leg and, was roughly 6 hrs, done in 1 session. I slept through most of it. Tattooed by: Tommygunn in Belfast City Skinworks, Belfast, Northern Ireland.

-shrug- fuck em

Hello friends. It's been a while since I've posted, as it had been a while since I've been tattooed. That ended today with the first sit on my back piece. Overall, I'd say it wasn't as awful as I expected, but certain areas were downright painful. Notably the bum. Next sit isn't for 9 weeks, so I've got time to mentally prepare myself for more pain. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

If you think that's bad, try hanging out on Redditt tattoos.

I'm so glad I found this thread. Although I never screamed during my back piece, it was brutal at times. I literally saw stars during the session that we did her face and shoulder area. I did this in 2-3 hour sessions. By Matt Dinovo out of Black Squirrel Tattoo in Omaha, NE.

Progress shot....pretty much finished the top half.

I don't have a one and I don't think I'll get one either, our relationship is rather, erm, complex. I do really like them though, this one from Bob Geerts (@bobeus on instagram) is rather nice, I thought.

Crappy tattoos get upvoted, good ones downvoted, and the mods think they are gods.

Time to disengage. He's a blowhard and he doesn't deserve further effort on your part.

Getting a little monster filler from Hector Fong tomorrow, weeeee! :)

All right. For those who've seen it all ready, for those who've been waiting, for those who don't know what the fuck I talking about, for those who don't care: here is my back now. Finished this Saturday at the annual Scottish tattoo convention in Edinburgh. Iain Mullen and Rudy Fritsch converged for the first time since we did the lines in June, to do some two machine shading on the lower part and add some extra detail. One more touch up session with Iain in Stockholm and then this experience is over. It's been a great ride on so many levels and if I were to explain how happy I am about the result I would have to invent some new words. Both Iain and Rudy rules and everybody who has the chance to get the chance should really consider getting something from them. I will post a longer write up on this thread full-back-piece-experience-thread.html shortly, perhaps tomorrow. Right now I have a bad fever to pull through. One good thing about getting tattooed is that, if you do it right, it teaches you how tough you really are. Peace!

So since pretty much forever, I'd been bugging my mom to get a tattoo. She can be really socially conservative and definitely came from the "tattoos are trash" generation. After enough bugging, it became pretty clear that she's never going to be tattooed, so I started bugging her to come with me to get a mom tattoo so she can be a part of the process and get a feel for how rad the shop environment is. That kept getting pushed back farther and farther until I realized again that it wasn't going to happen. So basically, I gave her the "you're going to be part of tattooing whether you like it or not" talk, and told her that if she wasn't going to participate as a third party, she can participate as a first party and tattoo me instead. So she did. :cool: isn't it terrible? I love it so much. It's supposed to be a bear, looks kind of like a weasel, 100% precious and motherly. Moms rule!

Was on a quick trip back home in New Hampshire and got this rad little gold bar ELEVEN with some crystals from Albie Rock at White Mountain Tattoo. I've known a Albie for awhile and have a few pieces from him. This was my first since becoming a tattooer. It was great to sit with him and get some wisdom from someone who has been around. This is my reminder that Good Enough is Never Enough. On a scale of 1 to 10, Experts get an 11. Most importantly, Be Dope or F@ck Off! Also, I must be getting old, because tattoos suddenly don't feel awesome! Haha

Come on man, spend a little time lurking here before posting. This isn't the place for what you want.

I think that for many people tattoos occupy more "lifestyle" cultural space than "artistic" cultural space. Not sure if I am making sense but my guess is that that is what a comment like this is born from. Obviously your advice was good and the person will either take it or not.

"You're probably right - it doesn't take much talent to blow away the work of most scratchers."

I'm about 3 months into my apprenticeship. Last week my mentor says "Set up a machine and draw up some small designs right now, I have someone coming in for you to tattoo in about 30 minutes." "Are you sure this is a good idea? Who is coming in?" I asked. "Just some big biker guy I know." I was shaking so bad that I could hardly get the machine set up. Hell I hadn't yet been taught how to use a machine. I wasn't sure if this was for real or a joke, but this is definitely the kind of thing he would line up just for the sake of fucking with me. I imagined some gnarly big dude he met at the local dive bar. I'm sitting at my station frantically drawing a spider and a skull and I hear the back door ring and my mentor say "Hey man come on in, he's just finishing up your drawing." I walk over to the station shaking and see a grapefruit sitting on the chair.

They get in that ass, larry. All the way in that ass! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEhk5N32Tec

I saw Chad Koeplinger while he was in town the other day for rose #4. Done at Rock of Ages in Austin.

Well that was a brutal last session but damn the result is worth it:

This backpiece by Shige, Yellowblaze, is one of my favourite tattoos. I loved it the second I saw it, the scale of the design, the placement, the execution, its all fantastic. However it seems like many other people also loved this design and wished they had it, but instead of taking reference from it, creating something new, adapting the design, they just copied it, line for line. This isn't the only tattoo I have seen copied line for line - I am sure it happens all the time. I KNOW it happens all the time. I also saw it happen to a member here who had a beautiful dragon done by Shige, his tattoo was copied by a Korean artist called Gen. Every time I see it happen it makes me disillusioned - I have met artists who are genuinely proud to reproduce other peoples work, and see no problem with it. They say "If its on the internet, its fair game". I HATE that kind of attitude. It hasn't happened to any of my tattoos, but I know it would make me angry. Is imitation the sincerest form of flattery, or is this unforgivable plagiarism?

Getting 3 hours done on my knee today. By Dave Richmond in Kirkland WA.

Edmonton! For 1 day! That's all I know! He is going to Arizona after this and then Canada. I know that he told me when, I just can't remember!!!! I'm so sorry - tattoo brain made me spacey. I think today is his last day at DC - maybe give them a call and find out? I said "I know someone in Canada (from the internet) who wants to get tattooed by you," and he said that wherever he's going, the shop owner said there were a couple of people who wanted to talk to him about his next visit there. He's gonna be in AZ for a few days so you might try hitting him up on instagram or something to see exactly where he's gonna be. @ironchef you FLATTER me!

I'm not going to add much to the thread here and this certainly won't count towards my tally of "thoughtful posts" but since I don't get to call someone a bell-end very often (unless I'm talking about David Cameron), I'll bite. The guy's a bell-end. Send the OP a PM offering to discuss it with him privately and leave the thread alone. Also:

@beez that is awesome. I saw a teaser put up on the Diamond Club IG, and was waiting for it to show up here. Looks great!

most of the time "people are wrong"

Hooooly cow. All of these amazing backpieces are starting to make me jealous. Not jealous enough to start yet, but...yeah. So good.

Holy cow, @beez - that is stunning!!

If they use tape on a bandage the tape glue (thankfully never on the tattoo) seems to linger for weeks. Probably in part due to being so close to an area I'm not really looking to scrub very hard.

Ah no way! My appointment is at 3, stop by if ya feel like it!

I'm happy to say I just finished my 30+ hours full backpiece. I alway get lost in my tattoos so this time I kept a diary of each visit. As I read through it, I realized most of it is pure whining.

Oh for shit sakes. You are so right. I'm glad I've yet to utter those words out loud, ha.

Holy shit. I just did an all day sit for my back while on the rag and hot damn it was horrible! Last sit was no problemo but this made a thousand percent difference!

Not that I've ever tried it, but; if you've lived through child birth, you shouldn't have anything to fear!

got this panther a couple weeks ago from curtis pettigrove and the pilot lady about a month ago from harriet heath

Up to this day nothing can beat this for me

Bum progress. The ass and thighs are just plain nasty, and I don't recommend that anyone get them tattooed. :) Done by Mark Armstrong, Sacred Art Tattoo Manchester

Made quite a bit of progress today with Fil Wood at Black Crown in Leeds https://instagram.com/p/0dTv7zmzSG/?taken-by=fil_wood

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

It's been a while, but I just recently got back to reading the forum and looking at what other people are posting as far as new work. By way of jumping back in, it seemed like posting what I've been up to since I last participated in this thread is the right way to go. This might be a bit of a long one. Sorry. Sometimes you're in New Orleans. Sometimes you end up with a butterfly. Brent at Uptown Tattoo did this one: Jake Miller from Cathedral Tattoo in Salt Lake did this little ditch guy for me: I did a bit of a run of appointments at Great Lakes Tattoo. Erik did this one: Nick did this one: And Matt did this one on my calf: Javier Rodriguez at LTW in Barcelona made this crazy tiger head for me: John Raftery, who is also at Cathedral in Salt Lake now, did this snake while he was still in New York at Fun City: Ben Haft at Fun City did the tops of both of my thighs with a sinking ship and a rose of no man's land: And finally, Mike Suarez at Hand of Glory in Brooklyn was able to squeeze me in on Saturday and do this on my shin: I picked up a few little bits of filler here and there, too. Next up is getting my left knee done, I think. All of this has really just motivated me to start thinking about back/chestpieces. Further down the rabbit hole.

I feel like I'm doing a double post because I already submit my last tattoo for the February contest but I guess it would fit here too! ^^ So here it is! Done by Valerie Vargas at her shop Modern Classic Tattoo in London. So Stoked of this one, it's more awesome than I was expecting (I knew it would be massive but for me it reach the perfection!) Here a video to show how it fit on my knee: Video by Valerie Vargas(valeriemodernclassic): Manu came to @modernclassictattoo a... | iPhoneogram

Finally get to post in this thread!! Screen capped right off Instagram. Karl Lark/Bert Grimm? lady head flip by Jason Phillips at FTW in Oakland, CA. Ribs are brutal. But I'm stoked on the end result. Felix by Adrian Sanchez at FTW in Oakland, CA for their 14 Year Anniversary Party. I've always wanted a Felix tattoo. It fit perfectly in the spot.

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!)

Yesterday, by Trevor @ Liberty Tattoo Seattle.

Just got done with my chest/half sleeves from Horitomo at State of Grace. Took me a couple of years to get it all done since I had to fly there and book back to back sessions. First, here is a pic of my fucked up tattoo that I got when I was 18. Horitomo touched it up and incorporated it with his art. SOrry not sure why some photos are posting sideways, I have it upright when I loaded them. [/img] [/img] [/img]

My super cool new filler piece from Paul O'Rourke at Love Hate in Cork, Ireland. First time at the shop and was blown away by how good it is - also helped that Paul is a seriously nice guy. I definitely will be back. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

It is funny that the 3rd picture even copied those two dark spirals on the shoulders that look like the might have been existing work that Shige had to work around. (please correct me if I'm wrong)

This is an interesting topic with a lot of grey area. As a tattooer, it's pretty disheartening and insulting when someone blatantly rips off your work. As a client, well.. I was talking to Mr. Campise about not putting my piece online as to skate around the biters and he laid it out pretty simply. Nobody is ever going to do the original justice, and it's pretty much just free(albeit really obnoxious) advertising. Nothing can ever outshine true authenticity, and whoever ends up with the copy ends up walking around with a permanent bummer. So that's kind of where I sit on that matter... It sucks, it's inevitably going to happen, don't do it if you tattoo, and don't get down on it as a client.