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This happened yesterday... It wasn't until this morning I figured out I didn't have photo before tegaderm got put on. Outline/black shading done in April and the rest finished yesterday. Artist: Tony Caporusso

Congratulations, @beez. That's wonderful news. In other wonderful news, I'm celebrating with millions of others, today's historic USSC ruling granting marriage equity.

Got this about a month ago from Jeff Zuck of Name Brand in Ann Arbor. Definitely going back!

I have a rare weekend off, and I kinda want to score a walk-in with someone. Filler jams!

some good points made on this thread already. i agree that you definitely should not cover it up or get it removed. love it and use it as a sign post for all the future growth and learning. it's a cute fox, but there are lessons to be learned. your tattooer, as an artist with a client relatively new to tattooing, should have provided more direction and suggestion. however, as an evolving client, you get to learn from this one. in the future, i would: - turn the fox around, so it's facing forward with your body - shrink it about 15-20% so it doesn't wrap around as much. some (lazy) artists might not care enough to go thru the extra work, but the artist and client would both be happier in the end. there may be artists out there who think of it as a business and just want to get you in and out of the door as quickly as possible so they can work on other things or the next client or the next drawing that they're really into. perhaps they don't take as much time as they should with each client. once they stencil is placed on, they just hope you're happy with it so they can get the ink in and get paid. it's up to the client to say... "nah. let's move it" or "can we make it smaller?" sometimes this can be a pain in the ass to the artist if you do it too much*. but in the end, you have to be happy with the outcome and stencil placement is about the last time you can make those decisions. *in this case, your artist would have had to wipe the stencil, shrink the image, confirm the size, make a new stencil facing the other way, and re-place the stencil. that isn't a big deal at all. but at each of these steps, the artist should be asking if it's all good and you, as the client, have an opportunity to speak up. if you want to read up on some things LSTers have learned on their journeys, check out this tread: http://www.lastsparrowtattoo.com/forum/general-tattoo-discussion/6025-cool-stuff-youve-learned-gotten-into-etc-thanks-getting-tattooed.html even after all this advice that you asked for, you might still want to get it covered. consider that it might be a bit difficult to cover and the tattooer will have to go much bigger to do so. if they don't do a solid job of covering it, you might still see bits of this cute little fox reminding you of all these lessons anyways. surround it with great tattoos and use these lessons to empower yourself.

It's the fountain pens isn't it? You've joined a fountain pen forum and you're leaving us for them!

Damn right. It's been a very bittersweet week here.

Lucky Strike Tattoo in Edmonton, AB hosted their annual summer slam party this weekend !! It was a super fun time. Lots of tattoo show n tell, good tattoo talks with fellow collectors, jello shooters, moonshine, parking lot burnouts, picture machine flash jokes and got drunk with some new buds. I hadn't even cracked my first beer (4pm) and Scotty's like "it's a friggin tattoo shop take your shirts off". Got to check out some wicked tattoos in the flesh...Lucas Ford fudo backpiece, Steve Moore backpiece, a bunch of Steve Batt tattoos, a Steve Byrne ROA in progress backpiece (!), Bailey Robinson, Koeplinger, OllieXXX, Smilin' Dave and of course lots of fresh and aged tattoos from the Lucky Strike cats of new and old (Sam Sheinin, Bobby Tripp, Miles Kanne, Scott Rusnak, Brent Smith, Chris Iwaniuk, Myke, Julie). Anyway, got this super dope photo of Scott Rusnak and some fellow clients in the bodysuit club. from L-R ... Steve(?), Scott Rusnak, Derek, myself. Too bad we didn't get a backside shot... IG @ scottrusnak one of the most underrated young tattooers in Western Canada...he does really bright and vivid Trevino-esque Japanese style tattoos with attention to the details. Highly recommend him. IG @ lucky_strike_tattoo great local shop, quality artists and a really fun place to hang. some bongsau facts...30% of my tattoos have been completed at Lucky Strike, 40% if you include the Electric Tattoo days from 10 years ago!

Started some dot shading last weekend. Quick 2-hour session with Thomas Hooper until next time, which will be in August. I need to take a month or so off so I can swim with the kids over their summer break. Once we're done with shading this section, we're gonna hammer out whats going on in the lower belly area and right ribs. crap...sorry the pic is loading horizontally. I'll see if I can fix that.

Oh what the hell. Might as well post my finished back piece. A year long process has come to an end and I can't wait to start another piece! Done by Stacey Martin-Smith at Golden Age in Austin, TX.

Isn't there room in your life for pen forums AND tattoo forums?!

Just confirmed with Victor Chil August 10th in California. Woot!

I love this placement (and I love the tattoo). In the future I'm planning something similar, but also including chest. I'm not worried the tattoo and my eventual saggy boobs - it's not like I'm going to be streaking about naked in public when I'm 80 (although things could change).

I've gotten one pit done and my other pit by James Tex sometime in the future (if he stops flaking out of conventions!!!!). The one pit I got done was a piece of cake, probably one of the easiest sessions i have ever had, but I believe that has to do more so with my artist being one light handed mofo than anything else. it goes in pretty deep into the pit, but not all the way. When I have my next session with Carlos Torres at the Bay Area Convention, he is going to complete the rest of the pit, black out my nipples, and black out my bellybutton. Not really looking forward to those...

Wanted to revisit this again. For all my anxiety when I started this thread, it's actually worked out pretty well. I've been a lot more relaxed when I've gone in these times, especially b/c I felt such trust w/my artist at our first session. When I went in last month, he asked what I wanted to do to expand the piece. We'd talked about doing more flowers and adding wind on the left side, coming up to meet the water and flowers on the other side, but we'd not discussed specifics. I said I didn't know what to do w/it really, how much space to use, how it should move toward the center, or if it should be off center so more water/flowers on one side or more wind/flowers on one side etc. It took about 10 seconds to decide on a mum, b/c I don't have one yet but I have peonies and cherry blossoms. I told him just to do whatever he feels would be best, and he did and I'm loving it. It's bigger than what I thought I wanted and I love that too. He told me to think about colors for the frog redo and for the mum for this time coming up (sunday)--I emailed him a couple pictures for mum color and am leaving it pretty much up to him. It's pretty freeing now.

Day after tomorrow is color time for my mum and frog piece. Not sure how much will get done..and I guess it doesn't matter since it's all part of the bigger piece in progress.

Oh sweetheart, just wait. You have no idea. @TrixieFaux - I like the sports bra idea.

I don't think I'm busty enough to have to worry too much about that! For those it does happen to, they probably either a) don't care since saggy boobs are saggy boobs whether you have a tattoo to hang over or not, b) stop wearing revealing clothing, or c) sports bras help pull everything back in place and they only have to be saggy in the shower... ? :D

Hi ladies! So yesterday for the first time I wore one of those sports-bra tops to my hot yoga class instead of a full tank top... This was helpful in getting a better idea of what my body was doing during postures, and good for the heat. But more importantly, I started wanting a tattoo centered on my sternum... Yoga class always makes me think of what tattoos I need! Good idea though, right?! Not this exactly, but this type of placement:

I've recently taken back my arm from ugly scars, and let me tell you, it feels so good to have a part of yourself back! Welcome here.

I also don't know you but this kind of wise advice from a stranger is a gift. @Sick speaks truth. PS: Your tattoo is fine. Seen better, seen much much worse. Don't cover it, get more.

Look, Heather. I don't want to come off as rude...but from your rhetoric I get a deep sense of indecisiveness and not really knowing what you want. Together with the fact that you don't have the conviction to stand by what you do want [ like this fox, you wanted it now you're like, maybe i should cover it up...after what? 1 month? ] you are too easily swayed by your own insecurities and maybe the opinions of some jerks, assholes or simply people with a different opinion than yourself. What I mean by all that is that, I think you should really really focus on figuring our what you really want in life, from yourself as a person..good, personal and RIGHT tattooes will just be a side effect of knowing yourself. Trust me on that. Press pause, stop obsessing about this fox for a while and look at the whole experience as a starting point to a much needed maturity. If you don't, you'll just cover it up with something that you really don't want either and it's just a vicious circle that will only get you more confused and depressed and neurotic. I might be wrong in which case I apologize, just something I gathered from your posts. a few question to get you started: 1. Why did you want this tattoo in the first place? 2. Why something origami-style?

Healed photo of my back that was finished last year in September, and a fresh one to the left. Both by Marius Meyer

Welcome! Congrats on making the decision to take back your arm - you won't regret your coverup if you find a good artist and have a good discussion. They have the eye to look at what you have and make something awesome to cover it.

After 7 years of hustling, freelancing, not having my shit together, and then getting my shit together - I GOT A FUCKING JOB YO!!! AND A REALLY COOL GOOD ONE!! AND I'M A GOOD GUY/ WHITE HAT!! Because it's for a large corporation I don't think I should say much more here in a public forum, but guys: I work remotely, full time, full benefits, and a 401fuckingk. I have not had these in my adult life!!! I AM STOKED!!!! You know what this means, right? More money for more tattoos. :D

I'm speculating here, but I don't think that the sweat gland damage is significant. Here is my train of thought... The main function of the sweat gland is to keep you cool. According to the Wiki, the sweat glands in your armpits don't have that function. So if anything, people should be more concerned about sweat gland damage on every other portion of your body. Speaking from experience, I still sweat all over. And I know that my tattooed skin sweat glands still work, because during healing, if I were to break out in a sweat, the fresh tattoo would burn with the sweat. @mmikaoj any pics of your pit? Also I may say that it's a great spot for shunga, but I don't think I have the balls for it. Ironically I was considering a tanuki.

Got some healed pictures of this one recently: Lighting isn't great but but you get the idea. And to think I told myself I wouldn't get more band tattoos.

Done by Greg Woodrow, Taunton Tattoos - Oshawa ON Canada

From last Saturday at Great Lakes Tattoo in Chicago Nick Colella -big-ass eagle (chest) Mario Desa - rose of no mans..tribute (ankle) Frank Willian - pocket knife filler (inner arm ditch) It was a good day.... besides getting 3 killer tattoos, I got to hang out and bullshit with Chad Koeplinger and Robert Ryan and the rest of the GLT crew plus it was Robert Ryan's "The Radiant Name" art opening downstairs. GLT is probably the nicest shop I've ever been in and everybody was super nice and fun.....

Chris Conn, done yesterday. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Bit of heavy heart this week. As I'm sure some of you have figured out since I've been hanging around LST that I'm pretty heavily into kung fu (duh, I got a Shaolin monk tattooed on my back). Well, there was something pretty tragic that happened in my city earlier this week. Some nut-job who had a hate-on for jews fired 50 bullets into a west end neighbourhood (where I grew up), through a door with a high powered rifle as the police were kicking down the door. He ended up killing the officer who was at the front of the battering ram before shooting himself and setting his house on fire. yeah i know crazy. The killed police officer happened to be a student and friend from our kung fu school. Anyway, we were approached by media to put off-duty-Dan into context and share our memories of him. Our Dragon Team will be using our blue Shaolin robes and blue belts as a tribute and way to honour our friend Dan. Dan had actually just joined the dragon team a few weeks ago. Anyway here is the story CBC news just ran: Const. Daniel Woodall remembered fondly at martial arts school - Edmonton - CBC News News Edmonton (Late Night) - June 11, 2015 - News Edmonton (Late Night) - CBC Player I've had a pretty negative opinion of police when I was younger. Because the only interactions I've had is when the police say "you can't skateboard here", "where's the pot boys?", "pour it out, you can't drink beers in public", "here's a ticket for running that stop sign". Yknow petty dumb young stuff. But Dan showed me that a copper has an off-duty side too...someone who I could talk tattoos with (we had both been tattooed by the same guys and he was gearing up to start a Guan Yu backpiece), talk soccer with (he was from the UK, he said "ya can't cheer for 2 teams from London mate! Arsenal FC all the way!"), have beers with and talk about his tales from the Hate Crime and Gang Units, talk about awesome kung fu movies (The Lost Bladesman!). We were a bunch of punk rockers training kung fu with a cop and having lots of laughs in the boys locker room. He changed my perception of the police. So maybe that isn't a shitty thing I've been doing recentley but a positive thing moving forward. Anyway wanted to share, thank you.

D'aww. Come on over and get some tattoos! :) Edit: Oh hey, @cltattooing put up a picture of what we got up to today.

https://instagram.com/p/3P_YuSTBGZ/ All done. :o We stuck with flowers for fillers in the end, even though we did talk about a frog. He took some shots from other angles, but didn't put them up. Maybe he will later. I'm a little sad about it being finished, so I can't imagine how you backpiece people felt when it was over! ...but I might get to find out, because we may have chatted about it a bit today. We'll seeeeeeeeee. :cool: I get a day to bang around Powell's Books tomorrow and cap off the night with Mad Max, and then I get to be tattooed by @cltattooing the day after that! Definitely a great mini-vacation.

I've been back to look at this 20 times now I think. What kind of style would this be called?

I like having general idea like "I want an eagle" or "I want a dragon" but that's as far as I go. I like giving the tattooer as much freedom as possible because if I'm seeking them out and traveling to their shop, I trust their abilities and I trust their advice. I wouldn't seek out an artist from a shop across the country just to micro manage every detail. I want their tattoo. Plus, I want them to enjoy doing the tattoo as much as I will enjoy having it. If they tell me "Dude, I was excited to do this thing when I heard what you wanted." That, to me, is exciting and gets me pumped up to get that tattoo. I think the highest compliment I can get on a tattoo I have is the artist that did it saying they love it. That, to me, is the best compliment ever.

My last couple of tattoos have been made under these spontaneous circumstances. That's how I've ended up with a sweet ugly ass electric eel (sharpied on), a technicolour lizard and a sailor jerry frog. After getting a lot of "project" tattoos as I call them (bigger multi-sesh pieces) these little random bangers really showed me a flip side of the tattoo experience. I like the excitement, live for the experience...and that adrenaline rush when you get home to the wife and say "uh so yeah i got another tattoo this afternoon"...LOL

I have a dragon, so I must be safe!

Remember reading someone, somewhere, saying that every time you get a tattoo you should ask yourself why it's not a dragon. Don't have a dragon myself (plenty of space left though) but it seems like valid advice!

We really need more Zeke Owenses.