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meh ok here is a pic :) from the amazing Steve Boltz totally good time talking mostly golf turns out Steve is an avid golfer and pretty good I'm neither but I love stogies and beer with friends and lets face it - thats more important than a decent backswing ;) anyway - funky fish on my bicep...

Thank you for calling this out - I think what you are doing is the best/only thing that we can do short from changing our hashtag. If everyone here flags the spammy posts as spam on instgram it should help get them taken down sooner.

Thanks a lot mate, Ye that's the beauty of tattooing and many other things in life, we all like different things :)

So I went for my appointment with Tomas Tomas today. Trying some different styles :) Had me toes done lol, wasnt a lot we could do really with just toes but I think once it settles down and its the same colour as the snake, should fit in great. He showed me a vid and said this pattern is from some tribe from the Amazon. Now all I need is some animal skin leather pants ;p Hes a fucking awesome crack :)

started studying History at the University of Leiden, the netherlands, this year. This grands me acces to their library. Just found out they have about 2000 books about tattoos from one quick search. Everything from tribal studies to russian prison tattoo research. My life is now complete, holy shitballsmctitfuck this is awesooome!

i think give another 3 weeks and you'll have a better idea - i see what you mean in your description but i would def encourage you to resist overthinkin this piece - its dope - love it...and keep going with some more ink - every tattoo has imperfections but i think once you get your head straight on this one you'll be stoked to have it on you

Healed pics of my Darth Vader tattoo, done back in August this year on my left calf. Also showing merge with tattoos either side of it. Done by Tommygunn in Belfast City Skinworks, Belfast.

OK, so this is going to be a bit hard to follow I'm sure.. A few weeks ago I mentioned to Iain Mullen that I wanted to get some kind of geometric dotworky type of tattoo and I wondered who he thought I should get it from. After just a second he said "Xed Le Head! He's the originator of that whole style". And I thought: Yeah, that would be cool! Out of this short trade of words came some thoughts that later began to formulate. I easily find myself soft to the idea of getting tattooed by well known tattooers. I'm not the type of person that show of my tattoos or brag about them to friends and strangers. Pants drop and shirt goes off in tattoo shops when tattooers show interest in seeing what I have, but that's about it. Still I have some notion of wanting to get work from big name tattooers that I admire. Of course the style of the tattoo goes first, but even among tattooers of "equal" skill and in the same style I'd easily choose the one that seems most well respected in the craft. If the tattooer an interesting character it's also a big plus. I gues it has to do with the added "value" of the tattoo: the circumstances around getting it, the shop or convention, the mode that day and the person making the tattoo. I've always by interested in people so I want original folks to mark me too. I also have this belief that people who spent a lot of time and energy doing their craft will have a very refined taste. That their added years and position "in the game" will leave me with a tattoos that I will learn to appriciate even more as time passes, as I too go deeper into the culture. There are limits however. I wouldn't get a tattoo by Horiyoshi III or even someone like Bob Roberts or Eddy Deutsche, I think they lost it a long time ago. (Come on, send a lynch mob..) I was set up to get tattooed by Henk last autumn in Amsterdam but I don't think I care about it anymore. Getting heavily tattooed is a hard process, there is only so much skin to cover. I also think sometimes about WHY we go to the lenghts of getting tattooed by people from across seas for example. Hopefully we can be honest to ourselves and do it because we want this particular person to leave their mark on us and grace us with art, and not do it be part of some "I got tattooed by the Smith ST-crew club". (I got a tattoo by Eli Quinters by the way...) But what if everyone who wanted a particular style tattoo saved up all their money and went to the master of this style? Everybody. Would someone like Jondix have the chance to blossom if we all went to Mike The Athens? Would the tattoo world not have El Carlo if people where picky enough to only see El Monga? Maybe we should be less elitist and let the small dogs get their chance a bit more, to help push the art further? A tattooer that I know told me about one of his visible tattoos. It was made by one of the absolutely biggest names in this part of the culture, someone I bet a lot of you look up too beacause of his art (so do I). But this experience was so bad, the big shot tattooer turned out to be really rude and bossy/macho-y and this was one of the reasons that this guy now gets tattooed by friends almost strictly. And this is someone who loves tattoos, who looks up to Theo Mindell as his favorite tattooer and who really struggle to improve his own work. After all it's just tattoos, and if the process is not fun for you, why bother chasing "collectors items"? For a while I was really into getting only one piece per tattooer but this story made me loosen up a bit and now I get more work from people that I got a good vibe with. I kind of want to get something from Jelle Neleman mostly because he seems like such a PMA dude. His work is really nice but I can name at least 5 tattooers that do the same tattoos. I don't know.. I hope you got something out of this rambling. Feel free to write down your thoughts and associations! Bless

Hello all. My name is Valentin and i'm from Bulgaria, Plovdiv. Got my first tattoo 3 months ago and i would love to discuss more tattoos with people here. :)

I've noticed a large increase in spam being posted to the #lastsparrow Instagram hashtag lately and I was wondering if there's anything we can do about that. I've been trying to flag the posts to Instagram when I see them because they tend to violate instagram's guidelines, but is there anything else that can be done about it?

@Graeme - thanks for the detailed intro. I've read A Song of Ice and Fire about five times start to finish (pending book 6) and don't mind spending time with it before picking up the whole series. I really liked that series, though A Clash of Kings is a real slog and is the toughest one to get through, but I've decided that any long series like that will have high points and low points, and that some sections will fly by and others will crawl. I'll check my local bookstores.

Theese are my 2 loyal girlfriends, haha. :D

Hello! It took me a long time to decide on a tattoo, but i'm very glad I did. I got an awesome piece done 3 weeks ago. It was my first tattoo and the sitting was almost 8 hours. My question is in some of the shaded areas on the faces (around the nose, under the eyes and side of face on the larger face. And to the left side of the lips.) The shading has darkened up a lot. I did have a bad reaction to a soap I was using and possibly the lotion too. I switched those out and the skin has settled down. I'm being told that these areas are bruising and or irritation and will go away once completely healed. My artist is phenomenal and has been doing realism for over 10 years, so I do trust him. But being new to the whole tattoo game, I guess I'm just looking for piece of mind. First shot is from right after it was finished, and second shot is from this morning (22nd day) Will those areas lighten up? Thanks all!

@zetroc If you're thinking of starting with the Malazan books I would offer you some advice that I was given here before starting them, which is to give the series at least two books before making up your mind about it. I love the series now, but it took until a particular moment in the third book to fully convince me. The first book had enough interesting stuff going on to make me want to read the second, but just barely. I was introduced to the books in the context of "if you liked A Song of Ice and Fire, you should read this" and while I think these books surpass George RR Martin's in many ways, they lack the strong characters that he has (this is especially apparent in The Gardens of The Moon where it reads more like there are character classes than characters) so it's more difficult to build an attachment to the characters and their world. The writing gets much better after the first book, but I also think it's totally reasonable to not give a book thousands of pages worth of the benefit of the doubt.

I came here to bitch but when you read posts like yours @Mark Bee, you suck it up and count you blessings. Welcome back.

I have got another horror short story accepted in an ezine publication xD

I love this!! Handsome barbels.

Got the collected Tattootime box set a few weeks ago and they're absolutely fascinating. Otherwise I'm reading "Cadillac Desert" by Marc Reisner, about how those of us who live out west are basically just kidding ourselves and we're going to run out of drinking water, and "Missoula" by Jon Krakauer, which is similarly depressing. That Malazan series sounds interesting. Is anyone here also on Goodreads?

@peterpoose, I've not been a fan of many of the styles that you have, and have never really thought toe tattoos looked good... but damn, damn, damn man! You've changed my opinion so many times!

@bongsau, we are backed by an insurance company but I prefer the term "tattoo art preservation". haha Cheers! - - - Updated - - - @bongsau, thanks for sharing that! I like to hear all these stories about what people think! I agree totally with the living end of the tattoos. The reason I'm involved with this company is because I hate to see them go. I think your ideas with the stencils, photos, and stories etc. is great. I'm planning something similar but it will include my actual tattoo. - - - Updated - - - @pidjones Of course the popularity isn't completely a bad thing because it keeps food on all of us tattoo artists plates. I can't argue with you over what you're saying because I'm part of the industry. I hate commercial ventures coming in and making money off us when we sat here drawing for hours and apprenticing. I know you are focused on the preservation. You wouldn't take a picture of the Mona Lisa and say it's preserved. You have the real thing. On the other hand, we are much more than just a tattoo preservation company. We are a non profit organization that wants to provide our members benefits including lobbying for tattoo artists rights. We had just launched so we need the membership power to be able to do that. Also, like I've said on here before. The community section of the site (savemyink.com) is full of useful tools for tattoo artists to utilize. Portfolios, profiles, pics, worldwide conventions, forums, and recent news. There currently isn't a site truer or better for the tattoo community in my opinion. I'll leave that up to you though. Thanks again for your thoughts!

Just put the lotion on the skin!

Do you do lampshades?

Sorry, but I don't see this as "preserving the art". I see it as another commercial venture that came about because of the recent popularity of tattoos. Preserving the art can be done photographically.

Best part of being on LST, and one of the best parts of being a human actually, has been meeting some of you in real life. I adore everyone of you I communicate with (past and present). Believe it it or not, we talk about LST in our conversations via text, via Facebook, and in person. I know I have not been active in a while (life son!) but I intend to try harder. Thank you LST for being there in so many major moments I've experienced.

Ha! I saw the original post, too, @BrianH. That's good internetting.

@daveborjes, I can totally appreciate that question! I have a sleeve, and a second one half finished. I also have tattoos on my leg that I let an apprentice do along with 4 tattoos I did I my thigh my self when I was an apprentice. As for the association NAPSA, it is a prerequisite to have tattoos. We are all tattooed and we are doing our best as tattoo artists and tattoo enthusiasts to stay true to the industry. If you check out the site savemyink.com you will see that our artist profiles all need to be verified before we even let them go up. We check for scratchers, art thieves, and apprentices before we will allow anything to show up on our site. Also we have over 80,000 images of tattoos on our site and they are all of quality. Along with all of this, all of our images and artist profiles have links that goes back to the original artists social media/website etc. so they are getting the proper credit they deserve. We also have built in personalized watermarks that can be applied to photos in the artist section so people can't easily steal your work. All of this is in the community section of the website. I think by what I have written above you can agree that we put a lot of thought into this subject and since we are all tattooers and enthusiasts we are doing our best to make a site that is a true tattoo industry site that can help protect the trade while still supporting it. - - - Updated - - - @pidjones, To each his own! haha Have you seen the finished product? The beauty of it is we spent the last two years developing a process where it is the real thing but it comes out looking like a piece of art. Not much different from art on canvas! We are here to preserve the art and that was the main cause. Of course we didn't want it looking like a hunk of skin in formeldahide. The end product has no morbidity to it at all. Cheers! - - - Updated - - - Thank you for the welcome @Graeme! I assure you that every one of them is 100% real with no printing or recoloring. We spent 2 long years developing a process specifically designed to preserve tattoos while taking in mind to preserve the art and have it look the least morbid as possible. I believe we accomplished that by your skepticism in it. Tattooing truly is an art form and we want people to recognize and save it as art. We truly believe people can have their stories and legacies passed on for generations to come while also allowing their tattooists art to live on. If you have any further questions please feel free to ask. Cheers!

BUMP. Re-reading this thread and then reading several recent threads made me realize that the level of discourse has fallen around here. I didn't start this site, but I've been here since the beginning, and everything that @SacramentoDan said in this thread's first post is what I loved/still love about it. If you wanna find strangers being rude to each other on the Internet, go to literally any other forum. LST is different, and as a moderator, I'll ask that you respect and help to maintain that difference. I've met several of you in real life and have really enjoyed getting to know you a little better. Some of you are now real world friends (imagine that). If one of us had made a shitty comment to the other online, we'd both be less inclined to want to meet in the first place. If there's a poster you don't like, put them on ignore. Have a snide comment typed out that is guaranteed to lower the level of discourse/add nothing? Feel free to delete it. If someone's really out of line, trust that the other mods and I will gladly swing the banhammer. Thanks.

Wow, the appropriate words that accurately address this post would likely get me banned. I'll just cut to the chase and ask, why do you feel the need to act like a douche all the time? Perhaps you should keep your misery to yourself instead of trying to bring the world down to your level. Is this type of bullying is acceptable here in LST? And to @tattooscience, don't take his unwarranted attack personally. It appears by your posts that you've done nothing wrong and are clearly not the problem here.

At last, a picture with color. The lines are healed and the color is fresh. After it's all healed I'd like to take a photo in better light. This was done by the amazing Gilda Acosta at Fatty's Tattoos in Washington DC, working from photographs of the actual flowers. They are botanically correct! Thinking of adding a bird to the other shoulder blade next. Or continuing the flowers across my arm. Or both...

I'll admit that when I got in to tattooing, I was directed to Richard Stell without knowing a damn thing about him. The guest spot news was broken on this website, and I was pushed by several members to take the plunge and get something. Should I feel dirty about that by going to a big name and not knowing his legacy? Maybe. I put my trust in the knowledge here on LST, and I never had a doubt I was making a poor decision. I wanted to be part of a community, and experience the things that other people were experiencing, so I just went with it. Was asking him to do something uncharacteristic of his style wrong? Some people may think so. Asking an artist to do a different style could be considered sacrilege to some. In my naivete I asked for something he doesn't generally do, but damn if he wasn't excited to do it. I have no regrets, and I also learned that you don't really understand someone until you meet them. You could follow artists on Instagram, and hear about them in other shops from other people's experiences, but until you sit with Stell and hear him, first hand, talk about his old biker days and how he had pet alligators and all the other crazy stuff, you can't fully understand. I would hope that people who seek out big names, solely for the name, have a better respect for that person afterwards instead of just, "Yeah I got XX to do this."

I've now just come to the sad realisation that I've wasted all these years, endured all this pain suiting down for nothing!!! I should have just slammed hands, forearms and neck pipe. "Booze, Blues & Tattoos"

Great post @exume, thanks for sharing! In my defense I have to say that I didn't say anything about Shige. It was someone else who said he had better artists at his local shop... (still want to know where that is) Also, I think I did say that I like some of Walter McDonalds stuff a lot (?), but that I was not as into how rough and loose his style is. His ideas, design and concepts are often way cool if you ask me! In the end, as with any art, it's a matter of preference. Someone mentioned that Chad Koeplinger tattoos in a looser style and he's in the bunch I'd consider favorite tattooers BUT I don't like the stuff that's very loose (yet). I think this could be a journey in itself, to learn to appriciate the rawness of things. A parallel could be to someone who gets into punk music by listening to, say, Bad Religion. After some years this persons taste might have refined/degraded (depending on you perspective) to the point where Discharge is his/hers favorite band, if you see the resemblence. I think it can be an obstacle to experience and enjoyment of any art form to judge it on scales of trashy - clean, dark - positive, energetic - static, and so on. There's no way to quantify the tattoo mojo and soul that is the most important ingredient. I don't know. For me tattoos are still mostly a visual thing and sometimes used to imprint/express an idea/feeling/concept I feel strongly about. I don't doubt that Walter has a smile on his face even when sleeping and that Eddy is one of the raddest guys, that Spotlight has bullet holes in the flash or whatever. Those are great things! But I am not sure that, for me, this would help me choose and artist to get work from. For some people it probably does, and I'm not going to say who is right or wrong in this. Tattoo culture is not a sport, I think it's totally fine that people have strongly oposing ideas and taste preference and I think it's fun and evolving in it's own to discuss without having to decide who is winning an argument. @Pugilist: I agree, it's always important to think twice about what you set in stone publicly (or set in HTML, in this case) And I absolutely think we should all try to be fair and not fall into gossip and trash talk. However, just because it's somebody's livelihood doesn't make it immune to criticism, in my opinion. One thing I like about this culture is that is participatory. You can't really be on the sidelines and still enjoy it (well you can watch Miami INK, but that's another story) Even getting just one tattoo means you have to make an active effort and become a, if tiny and shortlived, part of it. And I think one of the beautiful things is that it's not very hierarchical, no thrones of professional art critics who dictates what to think and feel about tattoos, what's good and who is not. I think there needs to be room for discussion, in a polite and civilized way about things we/you/I don't like and to voice some critical oppinions about people's work too. I am sure Deutsche has the kind of following where he's legacy will continue to grow still (and I also think he deserves it, I hope I made that clear). I also hope that people can make up their own minds and trust their own taste. I hope we don't get threads where the sole purpose is to talk shit about somebody's work, that would be really unfair and a lowmark for the forum. In this case it made for some interesting arguments that also lead to other ideas and perspectives comming through. As long as the tone is good and people behave I think it's benificial for everyone that we're not only giving eachother high 5's in the Latest Tattoo Lowdown-thread and joining into the choir whenever a respected tattooers name is mentioned. But yeah, thanks for pointing it out! "Think before you post!" is a good moto

This thread has been fantastic, really great discussion so far, thanks everyone for adding your thoughts! After I read the bulk of it I had to jet off to work so I didn't have time to make a cogent reply until now, hopefully some of my thoughts have survived through the past few days of working. Anyways, these are my thoughts on the subject as a client relatively new to tattoos. Though I'd always been a fan of tattoos, I got a pretty late start on my "collection" so to speak, I loved the look of tattoos but throughout my teens and early 20s any spare cent went to drugs and booze so actually getting tattooed was fiscally impossible. I got sober, met some people with rad tattoos in and out of the program, and really started thinking about it again, I visited a bunch of trashy shops throughout the greater Colorado Springs area, and found nothing appealing in my search. I've always been a bit of a collector and really dig researching and finding the best version of whatever it is I'm looking for. I eventually found LST which I credit for helping me learn what makes a good tattoo, and really helping shape my tastes. You all have been lifesavers! Sorry for the long personal discourse but I feel it's a bit relevant to the rest of the post. So after two years of scoring the forum for information, flipping through instagram a few times a day, following an unmanageable amount of accounts on said instagram, I finally took the plunge and booked an appointment with Marie Sena after I had seen her name on the list of artists working at a then new shop (Dedication Tattoo) down in Denver. Her style really spoke to me, I wasn't really familiar with her as a "name" in the tattoo game, maybe read about her on here once or twice but I feel extremely lucky to have such a wonderful first tattoo from such a fantastic person. I never really set out to be the guy who never gets tattooed by the same person twice, but as of yet that's how it's turning out. I am wary of being perceived as some sort of "starfucker" as @Pugilist put it, but with Denver being so centrally located in this country I am presented with a lot of great opportunities via guest spots to get work from great tattooers! How am I going to pass up a chance to get tattooed by Adam Shrewsbury while he's in town for a couple days, he doesn't even make tattoos regularly when he's home! Chad's going to be here in a couple weeks? Well I'd better find a way to stack some cash because I won't let myself miss out on that. I have a list in my head of people I'd love to get work from, some may be big names, but it's all because their work speaks to me in ways that I can't really quantify, I don't want the most star-studded skin, I just want stuff that makes me happy when I look in the mirror. Besides the power of the imagery, it really is all about the experience though. Any time I've been tattooed by someone with a "big name" they have been some of the realest, most down to earth people I've met. Jeff Zuck is a gentleman and a scholar, Marie, as I said earlier, literally one of the nicest people I've ever met. Adam is the most down to earth dude, you can just tell how grateful he is to be spending his life making rad art for people. Every tattoo that I've seen Chad put out has blown my mind, and I was pleasantly surprised to see how humble he was, making sure the other guys in the shop thought the composition was solid on his sketch, ready to wipe it all away and start over if Joe didn't like something about it. Myke Chamber seems to get a bit of grief around here, maybe he's too self-promotional, his drawings are simplistic, but his message in all the interviews is a story of hope for those of us struggling with addiction, and I could tell that he was really grateful for his position in life. Now, @mmikaoj, again, I appreciate you starting this thread, the discussion has been really great! You caught enough flak for what you said about Deutsche, Shige, and Horiyoshi III, but I had to jump in and defend Walter McDonald! I know that some of his tattoos look a little off, definitely not what anyone would call perfect, but goddammit they are fucking tattoo magic in the flesh! That man is one of the best human beings I've had the pleasure of meeting, it's impossible to imagine him without a smile on his face. His shop is beautiful, flash from floor to ceiling, exactly what you picture in your head when you think "tattoo shop," not to mention that he's mostly responsible for me and the rest of the state being so spoiled for choice when it comes to guest artists on a regular basis. Walter is the coolest and I can't wait to get a tattoo from him. Sorry about the rambling, hope I didn't stray too far from what I was trying to get across.

Great thread, btw. Forrest Cavacco... that dude is the man. I wasn't even supposed to get tattooed by him. Right place, right time. He provided one of the best tattoo experiences ever. He wouldn't even let me tip him. It's probably one of my most basic tattoos ever (Jensen sailor lady head, from a guy that's typically more known for his Japanese), but it's also one of my most favorite tattoos ever. At the time, I thought I was getting too many lady heads, but my weird self-imposed "tattoo rule book" has been thrown out the window. I actually got yet another lady head last week. Is he a name? Some would say yes. Some may not even know who he is. But that's all irrelevant. All that matters to me is that the tattoo looks great and the experience was top notch. Totally agree with this. Knowing what I know now, if I could do it all over again, I would have gotten all black and grey traditional. But I'm still stoked on my color tattoos. As of right now, I have zero plans to cover anything up. I have some stuff that's not technically sound, and it used to bother me. Nowadays @taaarro mentioned this quote that totally resonates with me, "Any imperfections will add to its beauty." It's been said countless times in tattooing (I first heard it from Tomas Garcia), and it totally works for me. Going back to the OP, Eddy Deutsche still crushes it, IMO. Granted, I don't have older Eddy work to compare it to in person, and this is the only Eddy tattoo I have. But I've seen other Eddy pieces done in person recently, and it's still pretty amazing. I'm now curious to hear what everyone's criteria is for choosing their next tattooer. Maybe that should be for another thread.

I'm only on Page 2, but I had to chime in. I just saw some Derrick Snodgrass tattoos walk in, and they look sooooo good. The orange fell out in the flowers, but I'm still into it. It's got that "soul" that everyone's talking about. I actually can't wait for my tattoos to age and and look old. I'm a weirdo.

I'll add some personal experience to the conversation here which I'm thoroughly enjoying. Seriously, LST has some really smart and savvy members that don't come off as know it all douche-bags. Without naming any names, I spoke with one older more establish tattoo artist about Instagram as well as one younger tattoo artist. The older one said while Instagram is nice and great for seeing what other artist's are doing, it lends itself to be a medium where people can rip off your work. The younger artist loves Instagram and stated that they get most of their work request via their Instagram postings (about 90%). Separately names are names, some established and worth the hype, others maybe not so much. I personally just get what I like and what is appealing to my eye. In the end I'm the one who has to live with the tattoo and if I'm not happy with it even if it was a "big name artist" why did I bother to get it in the first place. I completely agree in that seeing an artist's work on the Internet or on Instagram is not the same as seeing examples in real life. Again the Internet and Instagram is great for researching out ideas and seeing what artists are out there but it is only a component in the many facets of deciding on what tattoo to get and what artist to go with. There is still value in visiting a shop and going to conventions or even holding meet-ups like some LST'ers do from time to time.

"All opinions are not equal. Some are a very great deal more robust, sophisticated, and well supported in logic and arguement than others" -Douglas Adams (in reference to some of the discussions of a few of the older generation) As for the collector idea being a positive or a negative, the same could be said for any other type of collection. We all knew that one guy who had $3,000 worth of guitars and amps, but couldn't play to save his life... or the guy with an original pressing of some band's album that he actually can't tell you a thing about. Some people get it and seek it for that reason. Some people seek it because they want to seem like they get it, and they're supposed to. For a personal story... my first two favorite tattooers (as in could see their work and know it was theirs' somehow) were Steve Byrne and Chris O'Donnell. Two years in a row I've gotten tattooed at the West Texas Convention. The first year, Steve Byrne stopped tattooing and asked myself and my coworker if we had any questions, and if we did to ask him, since Dreyfuss wasn't in yet. And he did the same for everyone that came by, including answering questions while tattooing. When I got my hand tattooed by him this year, he asked me various questions, asked how I enjoyed entering my second year as a tattooer after it came up, told me about why he has regular roses and not Tudor/geometric roses on his hands, made Gorilla Biscuits and CIV lyric jokes with me about my Civ appointment the next day ("I don't want him to mess up... I better stand still." "I bet you can't wait one minute more for it, huh?"), and was nicer than almost anyone I've met in any circumstance. He also easily took the stress of the convention, the poor lighting (Thomas Hooper broke his lamp the night before), and dealing with potential clients or box-set purchasers the whole time. And the next day, he saw me walking around, called out to me, and asked if I had a travel lightpad, before suggesting I get one since I didn't. And asked how my dad liked his new rose tattoo from Bobby Padron a little later. My right hand is absolutely my favorite tattoo, not just because of who did it and what it represents, but also all of those aspects about the experience. When I was looking at his booth when he wasn't there, Forrest Cavacco yelled from 50 feet away that, if I had questions, to come see him. Adam Hays had me check out the Lando tattoo he was doing when I bought prints from him, since he figured I liked Star Wars from what I was buying. Ben Cheese and Clayton James have been among the nicest people I've talked to as well, even when we couldn't afford to get tattooed and just grabbed prints from them. I plan on getting tattooed by Ben this February when we go. That being said, I stood at a few people's tables for almost 15 or 20 minutes, even when they were taking an Instagram break mid-tattoo, waiting to buy a shirt. After they had looked and made eye-contact me. And ignored everyone else that was there, even the person in their chair. I unfollowed a few very well known folks on IG and decided I'd take my business to others. At least a quick "Hey man, I'm kinda busy, can you give me X minutes" would have made all of the difference. I'd imagine there are lots of folks who would still throw money at them and get whatever would get the most likes on IG or Tumblr, but that's what separates the mindsets, as everyone here has already explained in was far less rambling, far more concise, and far less fanboy-ish. EDIT: Slight addendum... my hand has a few blow outs. One spot took over a month to fully heal. A few lines are a bit thin in places compared to the overall average. One line on a wave between my fingers has a 1/16" gap that doesn't connect. But it is absolutely my favorite tattoo.

@CultExciter awwww shit gurl :o So I know the Horiyoshi III thing had been dropped, but I've been blessed enough to see 3 of his tattoos in person and they are OUT OF FUCKING CONTROL. One of them is a peony on the forearm, want to know what sort of stencil he used? A square. Drawn on with a sharpie. Let's not forget that the man is in his 70s. Ahem, anyway Tim Lehi is a great example of a very loose tattooer who delivers with power every time. And also, to touch on the statement that Stuart Cripwell has gone the more wonky route when he could have been cleaner, I'll just say this. After a certain period of experience in tattooing, your style reflects your natural drawing. Your early years are largely about learning how to put the tattoo in, and then once you kinda figure that out, you can bend the rules of tattooing to suit the sort of art that you want to make. So to me it seems kinda silly to say "oh he could have done this but instead he chose to do this," when I think most of us are just trying to make tattoos that we think are awesome.

I say screw all the noise and get what you want from who you want. Everyone has their reasons for getting tattooed, who are we to judge?

You absolutely ARE allowed to be unimpressed. But your opinions would be given better consideration if you shared your thoughts and reasoning behind your conclusions. This isn't a forum where you drop the body and run. We'd like you to tidy up the grave, plant some grass and leave a nice floral arrangement. A better tack might be to ask why someone else is impressed by said giants. So much great stuff is hidden in the back story. I'm pretty new as well. I recognize many of the names in this thread, but I had to look up a few. I admit for some, I don't know what I'm looking at beyond the basics. Some of the styles/artists really grab me, and other "big names" don't do much for me. But I'm very interested in conversations like this where people with a lot more experience than I have share the history that I know I'll never get from just surfing the internet and scrolling through Instagram. I thought all bodysuits looked about the same. And why are all these white dudes getting Japanese suits? Then I read some of the threads that talked about the meaning, and I found myself surfing some of the recommended sites. And the stories are so unfamiliar to me, but I like that I can "read" more of the tattoo when I see which way a koi swims or if maple leaves or cherry blossoms are present. And damn I love the kitunes (thank you @Tesseracts for that awesome education with yours!)! I was never interested in anything Japanese, but when I read Horitomo's Monmon Cat's book and learned the history of cats and rats and tattoos, and I saw the depth of his work in these smaller tattoos and I'm much more "moved" and "impressed" than before. It sounds trite, but I have a much better appreciation for his work (both Monmons and not) and that has made it more desirable to me. Perhaps I wasn't "unimpressed" before but just "uninterested." Of course anyone can disagree. But it's like flaunting ignorance not to have a meaningful conversation why you feel that way. $0.02

I'm not nearly articulate enough to express my thoughts on this as well as most of the replies in this thread, but @Graeme pretty much hit the nail on the head for me. It's all about the feeling I get from a tattoo. The picture posted the other day in latest tattoo lowdown of the ship by Xam was technically perfect, but that's not why I like it so much. It stopped me in my tracks, I was going to reply about how much I liked it in that thread but it honestly left me at a bit of a loss for words. On the flip side, I think most of us will agree that Chad K tattoos in a "looser" style. While his tattoos may not be as technically perfect, I find that more often tattoos like his stop me and make me feel something more than "wow that's nice" and I have to come back for another look more often. I really appreciate and enjoy both styles overall, but would rather wear the second. As far as tattoo "celebrity" goes, the only reason most of my favorite tattooers are big names is because I'm not in the loop enough to know of the talented artists that keep a lower profile. The name isn't what means anything to me though, it isn't shit without the talent to back it up. As an example, Kat Von D, Ami James, Tim Hendricks, and Oliver Peck are some of the most commonly known tattooers I can think of because of their TV exposure. I personally have no desire to be tattooed by the first two, I think they are both overplayed; I'm not saying they're terrible, I just think they get more credit than they are due. However, I would love to get tattooed by Tim or Oliver. Tim quite simply puts on some of the most beautiful roses I've seen, and Oliver's work just has a whole lot of that "soul" that @Pugilist mentioned. On top of that, both seem to be very stand up dudes. Hopefully some of that made sense, sorry if it's full of spelling errors I'm kind of in a hurry.

Tattoo veterans that have been doing it for decades have so much experience, that it's safe to say they know how to make a tattoo. Which is why I seek out those tattooers. But the new generation tattooer need to get experience somehow too, so I like to seek out new tattooers as well. At the end of the day, it all depends on the bed-side manner/if they are an asshole or not. I collect predominantly traditional, so if there are ten tattooers doing very similar work, then the customer experience is what will make one tattooer stand out from the rest. Plus, I would much rather get several tattoos from lesser known folks, than one tattoo from a "name."

Lynch mob on the way. Eddy Deutsche is in my top 5 favorite tattooers of all time. I'm getting to the point where I don't care who has a bigger name or the most Instagram followers. People like Mike Adams and Amanda Wachob have thousands upon thousands of followers but I could care less about their work. (YES, I AM PUBLICLY SHIT TALKING.) I'll take Mike Roper over just about anyone everyday. Edit; I'll also take Joel Long, Mike Dorsey, Andrew Conner, Mike Rennie, Will Lollie, Virginia Elwood, Bart Bingham, John Henry Gloyne, Josh Arment, Dave Regan, Matt Brotka, Katie Davis, Ishmael Johnson, John Rippey, Eric Brooks, Jason Phillips, Carolyn LeBourgeois, Sean Perkinson, Chuck Kuhler, Aaron Coleman, Josh Brown, and a gazillion other people who are well known or completely unknown that kill it constantly. Tattooing is a rich community. There are so many people that do good things that it is impossible to narrow things down like people were able to 20-30-40 years ago. There used to be like 2 conventions a year, and now there is one every weekend. I suppose what I am saying echoes what @CABS had to say. The experience and the radness of the person will trump just about everything. I'm a young tattooer, and I fully realize I'm not very good at this right now, so I will do my best to make sure my friends get a cool experience and can always look at those blownout lines and holidays and smile saying "That was a good day."

I've been tattooed by some super "famous" tattooers and by some people no one's ever heard of. I am very, very wary of a sort of "starfucker' mentality in tattooing. There are so many amazing people that aren't as well known as they should be because maybe their style isn't trendy, or they're not on social media, or they just don't prioritize instagram like others do, or they don't travel to conventions as much, etc. People who are well known only gets you so much. And that one tattooer is more well known than another is not necessarily because they are "better". There is a lot of noise in this subculture, and I am very careful to pay attention to what really turns me on, so to speak, about a tattooer's work, and not get swept up in their name, hype, trendiness, whatever. I had a really good chat about this with a fairly "famous" tattooer recently, who said that while they get a lot of "collector" types coming to them, they can immediately tell the difference between someone seeking them out because they are really psyched on their work, and someone who is more interested in their name and adding it to their list. Apparently there is a pretty big difference in the experience of tattooing these different kinds of people. It was a nice conversation in that I sometimes feel self-conscious when people ask me who my stuff is by, or who I am planning to get tattooed by in the future, and this person was basically like: don't worry. If you are genuine in your enthusiasm, people can tell. If you're a douche and just want to cover yourself in big names, people will know the difference. Our true intentions show through, and it's important to me to connect with a tattooer's work in a very primal way. Basically, to this person, there is an upside and a downside to having a "big name". All of which to say that I think there is an important difference between recognizing, talking about and respecting the work of people who are doing awesome, creative and inspiring things, and getting wrapped up in names and tattoo celebrity. The former is what makes this community so great, but I think the latter is basically poison to any sense of creativity and authenticity. And the line between them can be thin. I also agree with others that the experience of getting a tattoo, or if I can put it in hippie terms, the vibes that go into it, is super important. At this point I am unlikely to get tattooed by someone that I haven't heard about through someone else as being awesome. Instagram photos are not enough.