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Get small tattoos in small areas of the body so they don't look like they're drowning in a sea of flesh. Or put them between big tattoos.

Soooo what about the longer, more detailed first part of that great advice then?

The only upshot to not being able to climb Rainier this year because of an injury is that I can now go ahead and get tattoos again. July 31st. Greg's never done a morph before, but I was talking about how I wanted one, and he jumped right on it. Probably gonna involve a dragon. I can't wait! ...I have no idea where we're putting it.

Jeff Rassier flying Cobra. Done at Blackheart in January. Pics taken Yesterday. Tough to photo...wraps around the arm a lot.

Probably September. Been waiting to get a good healed picture.

Just emailed back and forth with Scott Sylvia and nailed down a time for a big ass snake on my leg at Pagoda City.

Me and my girlfriend got tattooed yesterday by Marcus Kuhn while he's guesting in Paris at Laura Satana's shop!

So this got started today. Kelly Edwards. Three words for getting all that line work in one sitting: Fuck. That. Shit. Worth every second of pain though!

Picked up this cool little fella from Tomas Garcia while he was working a guest spot at Acme Tattoo in Staunton, VA. Tomas is a really cool, humble guy. Do yourself a favor and get tattooed by him if you ever get the opportunity.

Already some tough stuff this month, but I'll give it a shot. Here's my arm from Grez at Kings Avenue. All healed up.

Shao Lin Monk backpiece made by Steve Batt in his private studio in Edmonton, Alberta 32 hours, Dec 2014-Jun 2015

Awesome. Thanks y'all also thinking about Brenda Flatmo. Sent from my XT1058 using Tapatalk

@jimmyirish I am certainly not an expert on any of this stuff, but I do know a local tattooer here who got a one point from Horiyoshi 3 while she was in Japan a few years ago. @taaaro has a one point from Horitoshi. So I wouldn't necessarily assume that the older guys wouldn't do something smaller. It never hurts to ask.

it's definitely a big step, but it hasn't really changed the way i live my life. it's great having the enrichment that tattoos bring me visible for myself to see at almost all times. i don't have to go to the bathroom and pull up a sleeve or drop trou. i get to see the work of artists i admire and pieces that remind me of the things i want to be reminded of whenever i look down. not much better than reminders of home, loved ones, one of my earliest memories, stay calm, life is short, death is certain, perseverance, and WAKE UP! All in a glance. definitely attracts more wandering looky loo eyes who don't get any of those reminders from looking at my arms. they're all mine! i might've said this in another thread, but now i realize why woman want you to look at their eyes and not at their breasts! hahahaha... i definitely notice folks stealing peeks at my arms mid-conversation. that's life changing in that it's made me more conscious of my own eye contact! O_O i'm obviously a proponent of forearm tattoos for those who are ready for it. now, different threads already address the bolder placement on hands, neck, face, etc. that's a different story.

sounds like the beginning an unplanned back piece

An actual tattoo will look different than sharpie on top of the skin, or tracing paper. After a while the tattoo will appear to be part of the skin. Even new, big tattoos have the appearance of being "ontop" on the skin when they are fresh. They will settle with time. https://instagram.com/livedintattoos/ Flip through this instagram profile of old, healed tattoos. Plenty of them are quite small, but you'd never look at them and think "That's a cool sticker".

This is what I did yesterday with Jereme Galloway at Time and Tide in Bloomington, IN.

Like a few others, my first tattoo was a big forearm piece. At the time I'd done my research, I knew what artist I wanted and sketched out vaguely how I wanted the design to look. I did consider that placing my first tattoo in a conspicuous place might be a bad idea..but coming from a (non-tattoo) art background, I thought that I wouldn't compromise on a canvas that would suit the work better, and it was a perfect fit on the forearm in my mind, so I went with it. I didn't consider a few things I would think about now, like how the tattoo would look with sleeves but the artist really nailed the placement. I think out of my 7 current tattoos the forearm one is the one that's really part of my identity. Big confidence booster when I first got it. Whenever possible I'd be rolling up my sleeves...which is now just an ingrained habit from doing it for so long. Haha. So yeah, I guess it was life changing for me. In some ways, I'm sure my family would have preferred if I started off with a less visible piece, so that they could ease into the idea of it. Workplace has never been an issue for me, though it's probably since I work in a relatively 'young' field in my office job - and inner city.

Thanks, @Cork, @Iwar, and @RoryQ. Freddy said he decided to go all black (as opposed to black and gray) to make it stronger next to the tiger. Great decision. By the way, I was getting tattooed by Freddy years ago and mentioned to him that I wanted to get a tiger and a baku or maybe a tiger and rooster from Lehi. Freddy said, "Just get two tigers. Two tigers would be bad ass." He was right (of course). It's only fitting that he wedged my son's name above one of those tigers.

Got this from Greg Christian at Tattoo Faction about a month ago and these from Tomas Garcia at Old Soul last weekend. all stolen from their IGs @Gregchristian4130 and @tomas_garcia I used to complain about not being in a great tattoo city like NYC, but being a 2 hour drive from cleveland and pittsburgh isn't really too bad.

Laurent for sure. Great dude at a great shop. My wife got his first "on the books for cash-money" tattoo and it rules. Be jealous.

Blackheart always has prints, shirts stickers etc. Defintley worth a visit. Some of the guys at Spider Murphy's have prints etc but they're not usually displayed. If you go, ask to see if anyone has anything available. If you are in Santa Cruz, go to California Electric (Thad Ritchey, Herb Auerbach and Stefan Johnsson). Beautiful shop and great tattooers. O'Reillys should be on your list down there too. See if Dan Wysuph has any of his "Oh California" prints. Also, go to the mystery spot. It's great. And cheezy. But great. Finally: SF FRISCO THE CITY Enjoy!

Freddy Corbin put my son's name on me last night. Simple, tasteful, and just right. I'm so happy with it.

Tomorrow is the day. My first torso tattoo, winged skull on my ribs. I can't wait. This shit is going to hurt.

Laurent did a ship in a teacup on my calf! Really nice guy too

Damn. There should seriously be a separate backpiece contest. Damn.

Fort Collins was a cool little town. Curtis blazed through our crab-turtle-Ray so I had a ton of time to cruise around.

Added some color. Quick session. Background in 2 weeks

got this from alex knierer: https://instagram.com/alexknierer/

Not this forum's cup o' tea, but here is my foot tattoo done by Matt Jordan from New Zealand. This tattoo was done while filming for an upcoming episode of SullenTV's "Tattoo Collector" I also got some more work on my back by Jess Yen at Ink n Iron but we didn't get pictures so I'll take some in a few days

Should really have thrown this in over the last couple of months but i'm a lazy fucker, so here it is now. By Marius Meyer, completed in May of this year (started in December of last).

This is my latest tattoo. Done by my girlfriend, on me, after I tattooed her. The technical application obviously needs some work, but I think she did ok for the first time running a machine. Haha.

I'll admit, I'm not aware of that many UK artists even though I love the shit out of a lot of the stuff that's been coming out of Europe in general. Maybe now I can add some more names to the list. @Joe Shit wow, nice find - his stuff is amazing.

"They're not tattoos, they're skin illustrations! Don't you ever call them tattoos! "