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Heading to Oakland, California to see Freddy Corbin at Temple tattoo to get inked for our 25th wedding anniversary. Appointment is noon, Tuesday. Daniel Higgs did the original wedding tattoos at Realistic Studio in San Francisco and Freddy was in the shop watching and making comments while he was doing us. Daniel doesn't do tattoos any more. So our first choice is Freddy to keep spiritual continuity. The wife and me are getting a "25-XXV added somewhere . I am also getting a "Dragon" mixed into it... I'll keep you up to date. :cool:

Tattoo by Eckel - - - Updated - - - Tattoo by Chris ODonnell

part 2 of of my Marvel Avengers themed tattoos by Clint Cummings. Still a bit swollen, but decent quality pic

Anyone who follows me on Instagram has seen this, but here's a little teaser shot of my arm from Grez. I said from the beginning that I wasn't going to post progress shots much because I love that feeling of just seeing the whole completed piece, and I'm amazed I mostly stuck to that. Haha. Now that next month is likely the last sitting, I can see end in sight and can't wait to share it.

I don't think I posted the lithograph I bought from Trevor/Ed at last year's London convention. But here it is - Nurse Mercy.

Got this done by Steve Byrne at Rock of Ages the other night.

So as of a month or so I have come to remember that kid that came here with a neck tattoo and we just burned him to ashes because of his life limiting decision. I have come to learn that while it matters what placement your tattoo is at, the reaction and stereotyping is the same. I wear tanks and shorts allot, Texas is hot as shit and so is where I am from so I wear tanks and shorts when I can. When I went to Canada I got allot of stares and questions around the office I was visiting at about my leg tattoos. Nothing uncomfortable but it was funny :) Everywhere I go I get at least one person asking me about why this and why that about tattoos. Occasionally I get the "That's fucking RAD". Lots of staring and mumbling, and when I make eye contact people get nervous and walk away... My wife and I just laugh... My wife tends to study my surroundings and enjoys telling me how people are reacting around me about my tattoo. Some people don't know I know Spanish (I look Italian so they tell me) and I can hear them talk about me... Yesterday I got called a thug because of my tattoo and that bother me and told that person a thing or two about tattoos in Spanish, They quickly got surprise and apologize and walked away. Last night again my friends dad who I was helping load 2x6 to his truck called me a thug because of my tattoos. Some people cant even hold a conversation without staring at my tattoos and I dont even have many. LOL!! To me all this is funny, Because I am learning quickly how some people are just ignorant and they can't differentiate from amazing work of art to a gang related tattoo and in the other hand I have learned that tattoos are not for people who do not like attention. Do you get to experience any of this?

yup! XD and I only have my right sleeve done until recently ( around 2 weeks ago) when I got my lower sleeve done , people not seem to care , now it seems like people think they're entitled to tell me how much of a mistake i made since its visible in a short sleeve shirt. Mainly from die-hard christians in the area that im forced to associate with/be around, But I've never been called a thug haha , more or less the most common insult is hipster/or anything along those lines, because people assume you can only get tattoos if youre trying to look cool or badass. Its almost as exhausting as the random people who come up and lift my sleeve without even saying anything as if we've been buddies for life or sumit XDD

Often on way to get tattooed or way back from. More so than wearing shorts or short dress to show leg ones off. Still get some prejudge towards them. Though did make me laugh, cause when was outside of fave pub on Thurs night after getting inked, two men (not bouncers they just asked what got done now lol) said "I don't know whether to look at you or read you." is funny, but on flip side of that am aware of looks and whispers that a woman is so heavily tattooed, but *shrug* their problem not mine. All that aside, I have changed people's views on heavily tattooed people. Had more than a few people come to me and say so, which is lovely.

I have one tattoo I designed myself a few years back. Here's a photo Its not faded the photo just has poor lighting

Haha that's a rad idea. At least for special occasions. It's funny, I just remembered us talking about how he always wears the same socks, so we positioned the tattoos to be at his sock line, since it's always the same.

yeah i get comments now and again - i think though that people that hate on tattoos or tattooed people are typically haters in general and thus...not worth my time

Also just to clarify, I have every intention of asking the artist do whatever is necessary to make the idea a good tattoo. I don't have so much hubris that I think that I knew how to drew something that would make a strong tattoo as-is.

Just got home with this one. Still swollen...

This will be my view of the Monaco Grand Prix tomorrow:

i know this story all too well! i was able to convince my wife that Ed is one of the rare artists of this day and age whose work will appreciate over time. luckily she's a fan of antique road show! "imagine our great great grand kids bringing this to some art historian someday in a couple hundred years and blowing them away! 'this is an original Hardy lithograph from the 20th century!'" currently hurts the wallet but strengthens the soul.

Always pay in cash and never had any qualms carrying cash with me. I agree something symbolic about paying cash for tattoos, it feels right. Personally, wouldn't feel right paying with a card. My tattooist only mentioned price once and that was with the Giger portrait, he asked if had a budget, told him tattoo fund was at max and he laughed and said no budget then. He knows how much I have in my max tattoo fund that have with me (subject came up when first started seeing him regularly last year). Though never have reached anywhere near that. I have a plastic envelope which I decorated that I put money in for tattoos and, top it up when get paid. It is just for tattoos, that way I know what I have. The remainder from each session stays in it, so just need to top up. Yes am that fucking organised. I find it makes things easier when getting regularly tattooed. I decorated another plastic envelope (differently of course), to keep money for hotel stays in. Because I travel to see mine, 50 miles and public transport is shite after a certain hour, I stay first night in a hotel. So the money for the hotel stay goes into my hotel envelope. Even if not getting tattooed hotel money, goes into hotel envelope. My OCD likes to be organised. We don't tip over here, but I am a crafter and have plans on making him something, just to say thank you. Even though I gush that I fucking love him after every tattoo, but you know what I mean (I hope!)

I forget what happened to inspire the remark, but at some point I cracked a joke about my arms being ripped off, and my friend said 'hopefully not the expensive one.' It was the first time I realized that one of my arms is actually worth more than the other one. What a strange thought.

Ok, I'll type up a quick little recap with some pictures of the weekend. I'll be honest: I didn't really take a ton of photos. There were some people there taking pictures of absolutely everything. I felt weird doing that, so I tried to just get a few that were representative of what was there. I'm sure more will surface, but this is everything I took. Also, I didn't go to the lectures, but when I got there on Saturday for my 12:30 appointment, the lecture had just ended. The place was absolutely mobbed when I went up, and Ed was signing books and posters for a long line of people. He ended up leaving fairly soon after that was done, but Trevor stayed there and showed art and chatted with anyone who had questions or wanted to buy stuff. By all accounts, the lectures were incredible. Rubendall said that they'd be up online in the near future, and obviously @Iwar posted that teaser above. First and foremost, I'll start with some of the art. Ed had a few different collections of things. These first ones were my favorite. They were all paintings, with an etching or rubbing over the top, in a way that almost reminded me of some of the Devita stuff they've had there before, but with Ed-styled paintings underneath. Very cool. In that same collection were two incredible tiger paintings. I would've killed to buy these, but they were sold already and I'm poor as fuck. Haha. He also had a lot of crazy morphs. Below are two of them, and the panther/snake morph on silver had about six others that were similar. Grez actually bought the one posted below. There was also this collection with the "pig thing" and a bunch of drippy/bendy/wild panthers. My buddy was about to buy this one, but his wife was NOT having it. I think the real highlight was going through a ton of original stencils and drawings that Trevor had in a binder. He didn't have them out for the longest time, then when I saw him take them out, I bolted over. I only took one pic, but there was some amazing stuff in here. I just pored through a ton of it with a few people and each thing was more amazing than the last. Here's the flash they were tattoing from as well as the Hardy gorilla my buddy got from Grez (bloody eyes and all). Grez was beyond excited to do it, as he'd never done that tattoo in all of his years. He told us stories about getting tattooed by Ed, as well as one about Ed freehanding on Brian Bruno towards the end of his career. Next time I get tattooed by him I'm making him take his pants off to show me. He said he would. I think that's it for now. I'm sure more will come to me, but I wanted to share a bit of what I saw.

I think being able to pay by credit card makes a lot of sense and I can think of more good reasons for that as a form of payment than cash-only, but I am somewhat attached to the idea of paying cash for tattoos. I guess it's mainly for symbolic reasons that I like cash: I am paying for this tattoo with money that I have worked for and saved. It's not on credit or on a payment plan. I guess a logical extension of this is that tattoos are a status symbol, and I'm not sure how comfortable I am with that idea personally, but it's a thought to add to the discussion.

From Mike Rubendall's youtube page: This video journal was the introduction from Day 1 of the Ed Hardy Lectures, "Pictures of the Gone World" at Kings Avenue Tattoo. It features Ed Hardy's works throughout his career, some of which have never been made available to the public. It also features never before seen clips of Ed's personal journey.

The backpiece is done (for now at least) and i couldn't be more happy with it. Unfortunately i managed to pick up a chest infection which put a bit of a dampener on my trip to Oslo but there's no taking the smile off my face right now. Pretty much all the colour is fresh as well as a couple of the darker parts of the skull so it'll look a lot different once everything has settled down i'm sure. I don't mind admitting i barely made it through this session, definitely the hardest one i've had (certainly not helped by illness) but i'm so fucking glad we got to the end. By the legendary Marius Meyer. Now we await the healing process.... Also that left arm is looking pretty damn bare isn't it... fuck.

My name is Mickey Frost and this is one of my last works.

If they are equally tempting just pick one and move on. If you know that you're getting all of them eventually then it doesn't really matter.

Matt Dinovo- Black Squirrel Tattoo, Omaha, Nebraska - - - Updated - - - I can't seem to post the right picture of this tattoo. The full picture is in my profile. Thanks for looking.

If I didn't think most newbies would take it seriously and/or offensive, we should have an "Ask @Graeme" thread where you propose your new age idea, and he comes up with a badass traditional alternative.

Cool thread! That first piece is killer, but her right hand and left arm looks a little bit strange to me. Maybe just the picture, or maybe just me... I don't know. The piece as a whole looks really bad-ass though! Most of you have already seen my front piece, but I found a better picture of it on Marius' blog a while back, so here's to those who haven't seen it already (sorry about the insane size of the photo)

this thread just makes me angry

LL Cool J duh.