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I'm not sure what brain bug got me started on tattoos in porn this morning, but somehow I got to thinking about it, and then I thought "well, maybe there are some good tattoos out there" and navigated over to (what looks to be) a well-trafficked porn site, and typed "tattoos" in the search box. Sure enough, I see plenty of tattoos. I'm looking at this girl's thigh piece when all of the sudden: vagina! I blinked and resumed looking at the tattoos, and then: butt hole! This kept happening and annoying me for awhile before I fully realized that I was watching porn and not looking at a tattoo website. Facepalm to the nth degree, because I totally knowingly went to a porn site to look at tattoos, and then got annoyed at all the T & A ruining my tattoo experience, and then realized T & A *was* the experience, and I had just trolled myself. PS - I also read playboy for the articles. ;) <drops mic> Val out.

I doubt anyone will beat that tiger/cobra but Zuck it.

Sending through a teaser of sorts . . . Just a small portion of my music themed leg-work by Hooper; The 6th and (hopefully) last session is June 1st, so I'll likely be able to post the fully completed leg sometime in July. Lower leg is healing REAL slow.

Dragon age is pretty badass. I'm waiting for Witcher 3. Besides that there has been a lot of hearthstone and heroes of the storm. That's about the only way I keep in touch with my old wow buddies (7 years wow free and counting).

I thought this back piece from Horimitsu with red lines is pretty badass looking. I'd imagine it would hold up as well as anything else. JAPANESE TATTOO Horimitsu: Japanese TATTOO Horimitsu style RED DRAGON

@SeeSea @Fala +1 on loving my hips and thighs because of tattoos! so much! and I can't really speak to "aging" at this point in my life, but I know when my mom's friends saw my tattoos they were like "oohhh, I can see how that covers cellulite right up". (and in my personal experience, tattoos sure as hell do!) (also I find myself favoring my more heavily tattooed side in the mirror anyway...it's pretttttty awesome ;))

what if you were alone with your last jar of peanut butter...

I just recently bought a PS4 for myself and the boyfriend. We only have two games so far, haha. He has the newest Wolfenstein and he got me the new Dragon Age for my birthday.

color to come Sheila Marcello Electric in Asbury, NJ

I'm new here and figured I'd post some of my favorite pieces I've gotten over the last ~year or so: Aaron Hodges at Spider Murphy's did both my thighs: George Hernandez at Sacred Tiger did my forearms and bicep: http://i.imgur.com/aksalIN.jpg Jay Watkins (frog) and Laurent Trelaun (ship) at Spider Murphys: And then a couple fun ones from Jeff Rassier and Alex Petty: Hopefully this wasn't too big of a photo dump for everyone! Looking forward to upcoming consults/pieces with Paul Dobleman and Theo Mindell at Spider Murphys as well.

fresh right inner bicep Thou Shalt Hustle! :cool:

You said you want to represent your fears. Your first two ideas, the clock and the compass, are good strong images that are positive. And in the case of the compass at least, represent something forward-looking to help you address your fears. For the third fear - being alone - you might want to choose an image that conveys you overcome that fear as well, rather than an image that just conveys that you have that fear. I think that's why the clipper popped into my mind immediately - it shows movement and can represent moving away from your fears. I supposed that's all I would caution - maybe avoid images that would cement those fears in your mind, and choose positive images that help you look beyond the fear to help overcome it. Good luck!

Wow - I haven't read this thread for several weeks and the last 7 or 8 pages have been pretty heavy. @beez - wow, first (((hugs))) and I echo what so many have already said. What a kick in the stomach. What's worse sometimes, is realizing after the fact that someone has been slowly changing their thinking over years and you've been out of sync with that, even though you spend so much time together. So for them, they are just verbalizing a feeling they've developed and carried over that time and it may come across as no big deal. But for you, that progression never occurred because you never thought it was an issue. My first thought was, what a douche bag. I'm really saddened that you had to go through this - you are a wonderfully thoughtful person and I enjoy reading your posts. It seems like lately in a couple of threads there are discussions of getting old with tattoos and using tattoos to correct the negative effects of aging. It probably wouldn't be feasible, but wouldn't a great thread be to show before and after pictures? My back tattoo completely obliterates any embarrassment I had over some unsightly sagging areas. - - - Updated - - - @ProudButUgly - what a story. Thank you for sharing that. There are so many things I'd like to say about what you wrote, but ultimately it comes down to your family at this point. I'm really glad you had this opportunity to work with your kids and show them both sides of the petty junior high school attitudes. They will carry this forward with them and hopefully be able to apply it to other situations where they see people marginalized. I hope all goes well with your wife and that your offers to cover up as she requests help her overcome whatever negative effects she thinks your tattoos have on her career, etc. So much of life is compromise, but she's probably not going to like dealing with all the blood on the couch after you chop off your legs. Sorry - a little humor, but I really hope this settles and works out for you both.

I'm healing my work in progress now. A 3/4 sleeve, I guess I never paid attention to my sun damaged skin before (rose colored glasses and all ) But DAMN Im noticing how the ink sits on the top of my forearm where I have 40 + years of sun damage. I can see all those shiny age spots peeking through my color are gonna need a touch up before we're through. But I'm so happy I waited till this point in life to start. I have much BETTER taste now days.

My red lines are almost 10 years old and they've held up perfectly - but I've not got any "olive' in my skin . . . 5 elements - inside Tattoo Picture | Last Sparrow Tattoo

@Mark Bee possibly!! This is my first guest spot so I might just get the bug and go everyyyywhereee!!! :D @CultExciter you are too much my friend!! Visit again soon! @sophistre I am way stoked!! Also I'm bringing Tegaderm with me so you don't even need to worry about scabs. :) Also whoa Mt. Rainier!! @polliwog thank you!! That means a lot to hear. I've been on LST for a little less than half my career now and definitely feel like everyone here has been instrumental in shaping who I am as a tattooer. As far as staying motivated and driven, I can't say it's easy for anyone. I am definitely inclined to laziness and probably hate about 70% of what I make. Just push through and don't give up ever!! Even if you hate everything that you make, as long as you enjoy the process and stick to it, growth happens naturally. @el twe No way, those are amazing reasons to miss getting tattooed! Congratulations!! Possibly a bit jealous...

No problem, I'll get you an update in about 6-7 weeks when the client comes back in. My work speaks for itself though, as does most professional laser operators. Because I'm not here to promote myself / business but rather as a resource for the community, I rarely post progress photos on here. Take a look at my website / social media profiles in the meantime though.

My first tattoo, done on Wednesday! Very happy with it, and I'm getting a black widow done on the other arm in about a month!

Most artists are confident in there work and thrive on and get inspired by seeing others work. It's almost a friendly rivalry like "oh they did that awesome piece, watch what I can do". I found in my personal experience, It inspires most artists to step up their game. The only time you would be disloyal to an artist is if you commit to have them design/draw an entire sleeve, start the work, then go to someone else to finish or change or add to it. That wouldn't be an issue if you were getting several pieces to make up a sleeve, as the thread is speaking about.

I haven't got a "mum" tattoo specifically, but the woman with the sewing machine that i have in my gallery was for my mum. She was a seamstress when i was little so i have a lot of memories of being surrounded by sewing machines. She cried when i first showed it to her, which is about the best approval i could have hoped for

Mine. Healed/hairy. By Bert Krak, done at Frith Street.

I think it's common for people to get "problem areas" tattooed to help them like those body parts more. I personally have never thought a tattoo made a certain part of the body look worse, if anything, it's a huge distraction from flaws. If you want it on your foot, go for it.

@TrixieFaux Awesome! Zzzzzzt. ZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzZZZZzzzzzt.

I'm not getting tattooed right now but @DJDeepFried is! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I remember being really young, listening to my dad's old eclectic mix of an 80's weirdo records, and reading comics and d&d books. My brother watched me when I was young so I used to skate with him and when he went to the comic shop to play magic I sat in the front and read whatever I could get my hands on. My parents would never let me buy comics. We actually weren't allowed to go to the comic shop. Weird. Whatever music taste I have independent of my dad's started developing with RATM. That was when I started writing and drawing. I draw less now but still write. Then the ambiguous "they" got worried about me so I got stuck in band which I guess worked out. I started playing trombone and then picked up guitar, started listening to a lot more music. Then in high school I started a pseudo-psychedelic desert jam/cover band with some friends and I've been in that world ever since. Everyone raps now, but. Dust blows forward and dust blows back. Whatever textbook sub-cultures I was into were basically me becoming attached to things my dad remembered from growing up in east LA. Mostly kustom kulture and motorcycle stuff I saw from afar. There were communities of people around everything I was into but I'd hardly call them sub-cultures. More like packs of desert refugee kids. As far as whatever paved the way for the passion... I'm still too young and destructive to care too much. Tattoos have been around my whole life and I always thought they were cool, I dont know if me reading comics, skating, playing magic, liking punk rock, or being into old cars and ed roth had anything to do with that. All those things definitely influenced my taste in art and what exactly is visually appealing to me though. I guess it's a question of correlation and causation.

Vanity have anything to do with body art? NO! Really?!? I had a schoolmate in High School that although very thin and attractive otherwise, she had very thick ankles - I thought they were sexy as hell! Just wait, Curvy Girls are the fashion trend now - cankles may be next! If you really want to see what a tattoo would do, let me suggest two options: 1, get someone to take a couple good unobstructed photos of your ankles and then Photoshop some tattoos onto them, or 2, Henna - my tattoo artist also has a henna artist in her shop. It doesn't have to me a traditional Indian or mid-East design to be done in henna. Whatever your idea, have an artist do it for you and judge by your own feeling (and other's comments if you care). But, either way - if you do get it, you MUST post the photos here!

Thanks for the advise guys. This is just a case of me following my usual route and over thinking everything. As I've said elsewhere, I make conservative life choices and as a result, I've missed out on opportunities in the past. Deciding to get tattooed after all these years was a concious attempt to combat that tendency. Ironically, I've never regretted ANY of the crazier things I've done in life so what I'm trying to protect myself from, I'm not sure.

Compromise, just go to Spider Murphys and get tattooed by everyone there. Oh and Stuart Cripwell. Btw, good advice above. Not much needs to be added.

I had a couple of little fillers done by Nikki Balls from Tattoo Paradise in D.C. while she was in Toronto at The Pearl. I got a pig and a heart. Filling in them sticks. I met Nikki a couple of years ago when she tattooed an octopus on the inside of my bicep. Good people.

Put another 4 hours into my bakpiece. Went and trained the kung fu class with a bruised back 24 hours later. Then my wife went away for the weekend...and I couldn't reach the tattooed spots. So...dry healing it is lol !

I've been tattooed by dozens of people, and I wouldn't trade those experiences. That said, after seeing this arm by Paul Dobleman, I wish I had given him a full limb:

I recently completed my right sleeve (an 18 month project), and with two exceptions it was done by multiple (5) artists from the same shop. For the most part, it chronicles my time I spent caring for my wife as she battled and lost her life to brain tumors. The folks at Envy Skin Gallery "get it" and made me a part of their family. I cannot thank Billy Hill and Company enough. Fuck Cancer.

My newest, I call him my Paleolithic pony. My back is to be dedicated to important events in human culture, and he's the first.

Loving this mate :)! - - - Updated - - - Done by Ryan Evans :) Sorry for the craps photos, there is a video on my Facebook and instagram pages. 8.5 hours, puff adder with an ant on its nose tip, always loved that photo so thought I would get it done, still in progress :)

Got a small filler from Grez yesterday.

Well first post so why not submit my tat. Done by Rocky Lasure at High Noon Tattoo. Still healing a bit.

Coloured in today. Looks awesome.

Pics! - - - Updated - - - Death to false BBQ!

Everybody's doing awesome stuff! Congrats to all you guys. I was just trucking along until a week ago. My job is basically a floater style position, but I heard a spot may open up at one of my favorite sites to work and that they had plans to put me in. It also pays way better than what I make currently, so that's a plus! My girlfriend also found a little guy in need of a new home, so last weekend we went out to meet him - a ten month old english bulldog/pitbull. As soon as he saw us he came wiggling up to give us some of those bulldog specialty kisses, and we knew he was coming home. Was rough with the established home dog until we started picking up toys and treats to avoid fights, but so far things have been better each day! On top of that, another appointment of calf sleeve work on Saturday with Nathan at Exile 2! Hopefully we will finish it out, but no guarantees. We still have about a quarter to shade and then all of the color to do. Fingers crossed!

Not sure how realistic you like your realistic tattoos. Myself, the hyper-realism, and even most of the photo-realistic stuff is not my cup of tea. They look really cool, but not my style. My personal preference is toward the realism built upon a traditional "framework", for lack of a better term. Darcy Nutt is really good at tattooing what I described above - because pictures are worth way more than my crappy descriptions. One of my personal favorite artists, and a super chill lady - I hope to get more work from her one day. I think a black and grey realistic owl would be cool. Have any idea what kind of owl you want?

done by tony hundahl at the oklahoma tattoo convention one shot drawn on

Soooo, I had a thought recently that Hubbs should let ME chose his back piece tattooer and subject because I was the one who was going to see it ALLLL of the time and vice versa. He didn't go for it. But isn't that just the most practical and wonderful idea y'all have ever heard? I could wake up to a giant Horitomo Kanon EVERY morning! I'm certain it would make me a better spouse.

So sorry @beez. This was incredibly insensitive and shallow, and it must have been heartbreaking coming from someone you “thought” you knew. He could have let you down easy without playing the tattoo card. He could have politely declined your offer for a date. Or, he could have respectfully said said, “I’d like to keep our relationship on the friendship level.” But instead he stuck in the knife, choosing a rationalization that basically slammed every door to the future. If he had thought about it for 15 seconds, he had to know he statement would hurt you deeply. Perhaps the sting of the tattoo thing that you are feeling could be because he didn’t just reject you, he also chose to attack something that is central to your being, part of your physical body and your persona, that you can’t - and wouldn’t - change. I tend to be super-analytical, so here goes… My theory is that although plainskin people know that tattoos are permanent, I don’t think they fully understand the psychological meaning of that. To many of us, our tattoos are not just pictures on the body; they are our body, no different than our hand, or ear, or breast. And in some ways tattooing may be even more meaningful than those “natural” body parts, because we chose to make them part of our body, forever. I think that untattooed people may have difficulty understanding what that means to us. Perhaps they think that since we chose to put them there, they are not really legitimately a part of us physically or psychologically, and thus fair game for for criticism. This is consistent with the classic insensitive comments many have heard, ad nauseam. Consider the statement that your “friend” made, but change one word (I hope I don't offend, but I’m trying to make a point). Most (but sadly not all) people would never say “I could never marry you because you breasts aging would be a problem for me.” But they will say (as your friend did), “ I could never marry you because your tattoos aging would be a problem for me.” But to we tattooed women, our tattoos are as much a part of us as our breasts.

You are clearly a beautiful and intelligent person, and that sounds very hurtful. My partner was sitting across from me on my laptop as I was reading your post - knowing that he doesn't like tattoos, I asked him what he thought about your friend's statement. He looked baffled for a moment and then said, "What the fuck? Why would anyone say that?" So this person doesn't need to be into tattoos, but he does need to not be an asshole about it. In a broader sense, I think we're deluding ourselves a bit if we think we have any idea of what our partners are going to look like as we get older. Not to be morbid, but accidents happen and limbs are lost, faces are scarred - people have stayed with their lovers through much worse than an aging tattoo. Yet, for instance, the Internet loses its shit if a woman ages the "wrong" way (trying too hard to look young, looking too old, etc etc etc).

@beez - This is shitty on so many levels, I am so sorry. My husband is currently plainskin, but by August he no longer will be but... I've been getting tattooed for a few years now, and when I started I was partly concerned that this would be an issue with my husband. Thankfully, he respected that this is my body and he loves me for me - no matter what my body looks like. He's also very pragmatic in that he knows we'll all look like we're 80 regardless of tattoos or not - something like this is not an issue. For me, it would sting so much more because it is a choice to get tattooed. You love the you with tattoos, so he's rejecting your choices, your body, your life. It's much more hurtful than saying, "I just don't like you" because it is so specific. It's also saying, to me, that he wants someone who would be willing to change (or deny) their essence in order to be with him, that he wants his partner to be who he wants them to be (in order to love them) and not who they are (wrinkles, tattoos and all). Big hug for you.

I had my Chad rose morph copied, maybe not line for line, but very substantially, by somebody on here (I'm not going to name names) and it really bummed me out. It wasn't even so much that it was copied--and to be clear here, I'm not talking about the handful of people on here who have gotten rose morphs from Chad or from other tattooers, I'm talking about one specific tattoo--because having tattoos copied is pretty much inevitable in this day and age when so much is available online. What really bummed me out about it is that it was on somebody from here. I don't know the interaction this person had with their tattooer: did they bring in a picture of my tattoo, did they say they wanted that sort of design and the tattooer found a photo of my tattoo? This is the sort of thing that happens all the time and it is what it is, but I guess there are a couple of things that really bother me about it, one being that this forum should be educating people and giving them knowledge so that they aren't doing things like bringing in photos of other tattoos and wanting more or less exact copies of them and that this happened just underlines the fact that a lot of people are here not because they want to learn and get better tattoos, they just want to take from here; that somebody thought it was okay to copy the tattoo of somebody they interacted with. It's not just taking a picture from instagram and handing it to your tattooer. Plenty of you people here have tattoos that I am jealous of because they're so rad and I wish they were on me, but the right thing to do in that case is draw inspiration from that, not straight-up copy it.

@misterJ Ha , ha I've been saying the same thing about our society for a while also and I guess I'm probably your age or older . Then again if you read the book "Hagakure " the Samurai were saying much the same thing in the early 1700's , so go figure .

^ I agree, I hate how fetishized tattoos are. Not even just on women, probably half the pictures of guys with tattoos are the smoldering model types. Most of the time when I try to google certain designs, I feel like I'm looking at soft-core porn. I've always thought tattoos are more for the individual getting them (not in the upside-down "IT'S FOR ME!" way :rolleyes:), but this hyper sexual stance on tattoos makes it seem like you get them to get ogled by strangers. I feel more beautiful with mine, I don't need to dress like a porn star to express that.

Can I just like this specific part a googol times? I mean, I've always loved the look of tattoos, but being a fat girl used to think they'd be a waste on me. It was like, putting art on an ugly canvas was disrespect to the art. But that kind of self-loathing that I've gotten past is now turning into a tattoo design.

I was struggling to articulate what was bothering me about the hipster tattoos tumblr earlier, but I think I've figured it out. Of course you shouldn't always make assumptions about someone's motivation for getting tattooed from looking at a picture. Cumulatively, though, sites like the one linked above create or maybe just feed a perception that sex appeal should be paramount for young women who get tattooed, or that getting tattooed is chiefly a way to enhance it, above all else. It's like thigh tattoos, even the most beautiful ones, only exist in tumblr-land to set off the thigh's slimness and unblemished (white) skin. I'm trying to get over some sort of bullshit that's somehow lodged in my brain that says that women like me don't get certain kinds of tattoos in certain places - like our lumpy thighs - lest we draw even more attention to our bodies. I've spent my whole life trying avoid that kind of appraisal. Anyway. We're all going to have faded thigh tattoos surrounded by veins in 50 years anyway, whether we started out as tumblr-worthy sylphs or not, so fuck it.