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3.5 more hours of progress last week. total is about 51 hours so far and i'm guessing we have 20-25 more hours until we are finished. Legs and ass are 99% complete. Waiting until it is finished before sharing anymore full back pictures but here is a close up on my ass/leg/lower back area: - - - Updated - - - Also I just realized that over the past 12 months I've been tattooed a total of 63 hours (51 on my back and 12 on my front). plus ~100 hours of driving back and forth from Boston to Long Island x10, Boston to Manhattan x1, Boston to Montreal x1, and Boston to Reading PA x1.

Had another great adventure in Chicago this weekend including a very successful trip to Great Lakes Tattoo. My wife had an appointment with Mario Desa for one of his very cool folk birds and I was lucky enough to to find Nick Colella available for me to get a walk in dragon. I can't recommend this shop (and Chicago in general) enough.

More progress... this session was at the Austin Star of Texas Tattoo Art Revival Convention. It was my first time being tattooed at a convention with so many people going through, I was nervous at first, but once the rubber hit the road, it was a lot of fun, and the distraction of all the people was a huge help.

by Nathan Kemmerer -

Looks like something one of the Spider Murphy's (or formerly Spider Murphy's) people could do really well, to just scratch the surface. If you look around on here, you'll find a lot of pictures of a bodysuit that Stuart Cripwell did that might inspire you. Check out the "tattoos & negative space" thread. @sophistre has a beautiful sleeve from Greg Whitehead that's traditional in style but with a really unique twist.

Most of those colors aren't anything too wild, pretty standard traditional fare. Heavy blacks, reds, golds, and deep greens. Obviously as far as the specific shades go, you could talk to them, but I wouldn't worry if you talk to good traditional artists.

Bob Roberts at Spotlight

So I think Kelly Edwards was having a little fun with me yesterday. He put the ink cap on the middle of my back... to use on the spot right below your tailbone, right between the top of where your cheeks start. Which so far has been like a rocket blasting off of pain compared to even the rest of my back. "Now... as I tattoo you, remember, there is an ink cap on your back. A full one. Do...not...move... And I promise, doing this hurts me more than you..."

Thanks Marley, I am pretty new to tattoos and kind of assumed that to get the consistency I see in that sleeve it would need to be done by one artist and have the color applied pretty much at one time. Additionally, since I will travel for this I was thinking that many hours over several days with one artist would be smart budget wise. I do LOVE Brooklyn and will look into both of those shops. Would be hard to go there and not have to add days of extra curricular activities that would double the price of the adventure, lol. Thanks Polliwog!....exactly the kind oh help I'm looking for with this post, never occurred to me to search 'negative space'. This is the first time I have tried to research a tattoo that includes several images.....appreciate your post so much.

my little girl dog,,, . . . and then she just laughed about it ! . .

Had a cool session with Eddy Deutsche and received this Goldfish, powered by a Kappa pilot. My input was: weird, eastern influence, and I threw out a bunch of classic imagery.

You can have all three of these guys contribute to a nice sleeve for you. California Electric tattoo parlour, Soquel, Santa Cruz

Can't go wrong with Great Lakes Tattoo in Chicago. I'm in Minneapolis and like Leviticus but most people here will suggest Aloha Monkey and they are not wrong. Come to the Midwest. Most of the people in Alaska are from Minnesota anyway so you will feel comfortable here.

yep as long as you go with classic colours (as opposed to "crazy" colours!) you'll be all good. i second Paul Dobleman - Zachnelligan and Ivan Anthonyshev are other faves....travelling is all part of the fun no? You could always go in pairs if you want to vary the artists a bit but keep more consistency.

I am not opposed to having multiple artists apply the sleeve, but was concerned that the color consistency may be an issue.....along with extra cost of travel. Maybe I should question some of the artists that I am considering as to the color concern. Thanks for the comments and for the artist names that have been posted here so far, these are just the kind of tattooers I was hoping to see work from.

I was just talking about this with my wife. If you like an American Traditional sleeve what a great opportunity to have multiple artists collaborate in a thoughtful way.

Winged Tiger back piece Second session complete. I didn't move for 3 hours but I have to say that I wanted to run away. A lot.

Paul Dobleman

D'aww. :) Thanks, you! I will always recommend Greg. He's got a great eye for balance.

That's the spot...Getting chills allover again :X Looking awesome though :)

I work at a University in Australia in an fairly formal office environment. The kind of place you would think you would have issues having visible tattoos. All my colleagues know about my tattoos but they are pretty much hidden all the time. I'm starting a sleeve in April and my boss is totally cool with me wearing short sleeve shirts. She even said "i cant wait to see it" I guess i'm one of the lucky ones.

I remember seeing a guy at the shop with two Japanese sleeves when i was about 8 years old. Now about to start my first of two Japanese sleeves. Long term inspiration.

yep ! I agree,an artist that is confident & creative with cover ups is worth their weight in gold,like Alycia Harr that did this for me.

check out the true love series tho the guy hits like 10 northeast tattooers to do a sleeve one after the other heavy hitters in the traditional style too may give you some ideas the guys at smith all have styles that are similar and in that case a sleeve done by the four of them would probably look pretty awesome enjoy the process

I almost think I would rather have tattoos from several different artists on a sleeve like that especially as the sleeve uses the negative space well you ever watch the true love tattoo series on youtube if you were coming my way i would point you to 2 shops electric in asbury nj and smith st in brooklyn ny

Just had a weekend in Oslo with the missus topped off with the first session on my chest by Tony at Blue Arms.. Super stoked with it Pic stolen from his Insta. Cheers to @hogg for Percy Waters reference

Just had a new tattoo added to my right leg by Tammy Kim at The Okey Doke in Toronto. She is amazing.

Started my sleeve w/ Jason Brooks last Saturday... First new project in over 5 years... and first visible ink :)

I got this from Tony Nilsson at Blue Arms Tattoo in Oslo today. It's based off an old Percy Waters drawing that Tony had wanted to do for a while, and I had no specific requests so we just went for it. I'll admit that I did cheat a bit, after the outline we did use a numbing spray or something like that, which basically made me not feel a thing until we started doing the colors. Happy we did, since then we got to finish it so I don't have to wait until the next time I'm home.

just got this from mark cross at rose. honestly best experience I've ever had. great shop. coolest people. mark was so nice. this family came in because their little kid wanted to see a tattoo shop and mark stopped zapping me for a few minutes to hang with them and put a temporary tattoo on the hand of the little kid. so sick. backtard

Rob Ryan on my stomach

Thanks guys! BTW your opinions, bad or good is greatly appreciated because I'm curious to how others think when they see it. I like it of course but seriously be honest. Here are some healed ones before the touch up session next week.

well,I guess I'm weird then,I like the attention and questions I get about my tattoos,I just am nice to people and enjoy talking to them,especially plainskins,but then I like to talk to strangers,I am pretty outgoing that way,I love talking to people about my tattoos and tattoos in general and artists I have been to,etc,etc none of mine have any really deep meanings,I will explain to people that ask or I talk to maybe what the art is and where,when,I got my cool art/designs. as for you,my advice is,when you get questions about the lion tattoo,you already answered your own question,just tell them "i feel it just looks badass and i love lion tattoos". just my .02

I'd have to run out of skin before getting anything on my ass unless it was a full Japanese suit. Of course, my dad told us the same joke for years: I just had to large M's tattooed on my ass so when I moon people it says, "MoM". When I roll over and kick my legs up is says "WoW"!

I'm not a tattoo application specialist...but I think about all the abuse the elbows and knees take, so cramming too much detail on the elbow is not going to hold. My tattooers designed my sleeves to have less ink around the elbow because of that reasoning, the skin is tougher so it doesn't hold fine detail as well. There's still lots of ink in and around my elbow. So I know what an elbow tattoo feels like (and the ditch is faaaar worse). And the design has held up despite almost a decade of elbow batterings. On the flip side I've seen lots of nice elbow roses and other solid ink designs on the elbow. We were having a discussion in the tattoo shop about stressing about tattooing a simple nautical star on an elbow...it's difficult to make it not look crooked, just the way the arm bends. I think it really depends on the skill and experience of the tattooer, not just in applying the tattoo but in the design and placement. - - - Updated - - - I watched a dude get a full head tattoo last week - 4 palm sized traditional tattoos. Looked like a tattoo swim cap. All lines, one sitting. And I've been tattooed by this tattooer quite a bit, so I know how hot he runs his machine with loose big needles for traditional stylized outlines. He's fast as fuck but brutal. Ouch. I left after 5 minutes. It was gnarly. Buddy froze his skull, but by the grimace on his face, watching the tempo of his breathing and the amount of blood on the first couple lines on the temple...it did NOT look like the freezing was working. It changed my tattoo desires and I won't be worrying about my wife divorcing me anymore if I showed up at home with a tatt-dome...I think I'm good, no dome tattoos for me...well maybe I'll squinch a couple small ones on the back of my neck/skull still...it was insane, but feel fortunate for the rare opportunity to watch a head tattoo go down. gross.

Here's mine by Jeff Rassier. I also posted a fresh pic in the latest tattoos thread but here it is healed.

Ed Hardy on Richard Stell.... I begged for a picture. Worth it.