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Got this today from Antonio Roque in Frederick, MD. I am totally amazed by it...and even my anti-tattoo mom likes it. :)

frog got his color on just a few days old with regard to the color crappy pic but you get the idea by Sheila Marcello @ Electric in Asbury NJ awesome shop - and Sheila does amazing stuff going back in Sept for more :)

Done by "El Hoper" at Black Snake tattoo in Leon Guanajuato, Mexico.

A heavy Chad Koeplinger cover-up/blastover from two weeks ago, photo from today: Tony Hundahl eye/flames filler on my elbow. Works great together with the Lehi tattoo I think. Never too much flames, hehe.. Tattoo from Saturday last week, photo from today:

Healed tattoos from earlier this year - Rose on shoulder by Chris Garver, Dagger by Oliver Macintosh Both artists were awesome, can't wait to get more.

Round 1 of my eagle/dragon. Tattoo By Chris Garver (thanks fairgreen) at Invisible NYC

Round 1 by Chris Garver Invisible NYC

Booked in with Koeplinger for late august. Stoked :)

What I got from Charlie Roberts--smile now, cry later, die whenever

Wow man, that is dope. I'm into it. Kudos brother.

@jimmyirish It's cool and inspiring to hear about your practice! It's so fascinating and fruitful to bridge the gap between body and mind, and to go deeper into both. For me, and my short trial with hatha yoga, the postures were not tricks in way that I wanted to compete with others. It was more like they coaxed me to keep trying and to feel good about myself when I "landed" something. The patience, humble attitude and work ethic I all ready had from 12+ years of skateboarding. But yeah, I hope to get back into it. I moved out of my old commune house that I shared with four friends, and now that I live with only my girlfriend I have more space and calmness around me. The yogic meditation I can really recommend. I'm on the last of my 8 weeks course now and soon I'll be on my own. I feel that it's been a great learning experience and a good challenge. While you should not try to analyze and tinker with your own philosophy while you are meditating, I feel that the practice taught me a lot about my life and how to have a positive attitude towards all sorts of things. You find yourself discovering patterns of thoughts and behaviors, that you have while trying to meditate but also outside. And many of the things you need to learn focus on while meditating, and the thoughts and expectations you place on it, I feel has helped me a lot in thinking about my life journey. I don't know, it sounds like new age bullshit, I for sure would have thought 3 months ago, but after having had these experiences I can understand what I just wrote.

^^^Well I know what I'm doing tonight!

Thank you! I went for shorts pulled right down and a vest in the end and then changed into a dress after she'd finished. It's lovely and warm at the moment so I can wear loose dresses whilst it's healing :)

@Killercook76 WOW!!!!!!!!!!! So. 4 days and then IT BEGINS. Very nervous, very excited. The drawing is out of control, I almost cried when I saw it and left the shop a mess of nerves. I'm told that Kahlil is gentle and efficient so that's some small iota of comfort. Hopefully the age-old tactic of building it up in my head to be the worst thing in life serves me well. Yeah, super excited. I'll be sure to DM pics to the LST folks on instagram when the first session is done but I probably won't post anything here (sorry) as I'm sure it won't go over well.

Some bangers on this page! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

@suburbanxcore Yeah that wolf is so good!

Just to follow up on @Cork's comment, it's @CultExciter who has that O'Donnell that wolf, and it rules. I can't wait to see it in person.

I like the idea. Koi are always getting a free pass in the tattoo world so I think it is great that someone is willing to put them in their place by putting an arrow through one :) One thing you might want to think about is placement. By putting a medium/large sized piece on each shoulder you are limiting your options for a potential future cohesive full back piece. Maybe think about getting this koi as a rib piece or half sleeve. Or go huge with it and have a koi back piece surrounded by animal skulls.

agreed. and of the remaining likeable 1/3rd, I don't want to be around them 2/3rds of the time. and that 1/3rd of tolerable time with likeable people usually occurs after consuming 2/3rds of a 6-pack.

This is why I have tattoos I can cover. Once I got over my need to please everyone at the ripe age of 30, I realize I dislike probably 2/3rds of people I meet.

Finished up with Hooper this past Monday. 6 sessions overall. Will post pictures to the squidpants thread once it's healed. If you can't wait there are some photos posted on his and mine instragram!

I would rock a Graeme trenchcoat.

Come on, man. At least let me finish my back before you make plans to turn me into a trenchcoat.

I was wearing this hat at a restaurant in Portland and the waiter knowingly asked, "Japanese maple?" as he gestured towards the hat. I smiled and replied, "good eye. one of my favorite tress!" takes one to know one. the hat also happens to match my arm.

Not sure if it's still around, but there used to be a company that made products out of human skin. Belts, shoes, etc. Apparently, because our skin has such small pores, it makes the most amazing leather. Basically, you agree to donate your skin when you die, and your family recieves payment after the skin is delivered.

What, no books made out of real human skin?

got my neck done by chris conn - - - Updated - - - also started my back with bryan burk

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.

tattoo update: slept like dead last night, angry red gone though still a bit red. My ankle is swollen to fuck. Though it is easier to walk on today and it looks fucking amazing :D

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.

Session #8 ...a respectable 2.5hrs (27.5hrs total...what the seriously?). I was a bit anxious about this session. It was the first session that deviated from our regular routine (Mondays @12pm, take the day off work, wake up early, workout/train/stretch, eat big-large, pack my thermos and meal). I worked a really intense half day at my day job in engineering. Slammed a coffee, ate a sandwich, arrived at 3pm and ate a bunch of rice and beets. Steve took some time to draw-on the dragon into the monk robe directly. Dragon was quickly outlined. Coloured in with gold and yellow. The robe was coloured in with a dark cherry red. I made it through a heavy 2.5hrs on the spine, shoulder blades and bbq-back-ribs. Damn, my right side hurts more than the left! We were both happy to call it for the day. I'm still bruised from the section below 2 weeks ago too... I'm feeling very connected to the details of this piece. The symbolism of the good luck dragon in the robe - I've been part of my kung fu school's dragon team for the last 10 years. Before Sifu passed, he reminded me that the Dragon is the signature form of his kung fu school and to keep his legacy going. It is with great honour that I carry the image and power of the Shaolin monk on my back. And as I was getting this work done, I drew strength from some of my junior kung fu brothers and sisters who are presently over in China training at Shao Lin. We came close to busting the needle bar at the end of the sitting, joking about my iron shirt technique haha. No seriously though, you could hear a nasally phase shift in the sound of the machine response, sounded like a jews harp! I'm back at it in early-June for Session #9 ...likely the final session in which Steve will tackle the robe trim details and skin tones and eyes on the monk. Then it's time to relax and enjoy what is looking like a busy exciting summer for me. Go lake swimming, camping and burn my shirt in any fire pit that crosses my path haha. Steve and I will regroup in the fall after the ink has settled in for touchups and we will hit ALL the black again to really saturate the shit out of it. Then the real fun begins...filling the remaining small openings in my suit with fun little tattoos. "Eric, I'm bummed we are almost done! I'm never gonna see ya again...I really enjoy tattooin ya man!" Shout out to Steve Batt in Edmonton, AB. One of the most underrated and skilled tattooers in Canada...seriously this cat is on a different level, constantly striving to improve and progress his drawing, composition and tattooing. amituofo :cool:

I find it a lot easier to sleep on tattoos covered with one of the adhesive -derms. I imagine re-wrapping with plastic wrap and medical tape that first night would help a lot, too. Obviously check with your tattooer about aftercare first. It still swells but at least you don't have to deal with the raw feeling of fabric rubbing against abraded skin. Sometimes I take Benadryl to fall asleep and I wonder if this would help with the inflammatory response. Almost all of the tattoos I've gotten so far are on my preferred sleeping side because I'm an idiot.