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excited :) 2/21 Rob Ryan @ Electric in Asbury Park, NJ 4/13 Chad Koeplinger @ Tattoo Paradise in Wheaton, MD

Nice! i go to every Evergreen, hope to see you there! - - - Updated - - - Probably mentioned this before, but I have Russ Abbott on Sunday and Victor Portugal on Wednesday!!!

Stay in Alaska and see Deb Yarian in Eagle River. You're going to be hard-pressed to find a working tattooer anywhere who has roots in traditional Americana like she does. She was mentored by Paul Rogers.

Just booked my 3rd Tattoo! Was on social media and noticed that the artist who did my first 2 tattoos (Christian Buckingham) was booking some time during the Evergreen Tattoo Invitational in Springfield, Oregon. Shot him a text and got set up to get another piece from him on March 4th.....I am STOKED! My brother lives in Portland so this will be such an easy trip, he let me set up the guest room to my liking a couple years back and there is an extra car and everything!! YAY!! (the tattoo will be an evil looking skull with maybe some glowing eyes? and will be on my left shoulder).

Roots are one thing,but for talent and the look of the sleeve that he posted I would go with Spider Murphy's,or California Electric.

by Nathan Kemmerer -

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.

I just booked 2 back to back appointments Feb 27th in Fresno with Oliver Peck for my wife & myself,to get some of his American trad.

January 2nd was the last one. I'll probably get a banger at the Houston Tattoo Extravaganza in March, maybe a hannya by Tracy Lambright.

Its been forever since ive been able to get in here so thought id start with a post here. Finally after years of just not being able to... im getting my raccoon thigh piece in feb and cant wait. I got pipes done back in may , on my right outter forearm and will get either my deer skull with arrows or ship being taken down by a kraken next ( either of those, comes down to where it would best fit as to which goes next. Theyre all part of a bigger project) So needless to say.... im pretty excited.

Hello and welcome, I'm sad to hear your story, I hope that everything will get eventually good for you, although I doesn't have had as much troubles as you I've suffered as well as chronical depression and I know it's a whole lot of bad time, can't imagine how it is with all your other problems. About the tattoo, if you really want that tattoo it woudln't matter how old you are, but, since you want a meaningful tattoo I wouldn't recommend to ask recommendations to people, if it is something you came up by yourself it will be a lot better than a sugestion, so take your tiem and don't rush. (I'm not saying that is bad if you ask other people at all.) Good luck with your tattoo! And I sincerely hope everything gets better soon

Herb and Stefan are great guys. My wife and I both have work from them. Totally recommended.

@MoistTowelette - That's so cool.....will be my first.

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

today i got my first session done for my lion chest piece. I love it so far. Probable gonna introduce a slight bit of color and the lion manes are going to get shaded in darker. I gotta say, i have 2 full arm sleeves but the chest was by far more painful. Definitely no walk in the park. I was literately dizzy after 4 hours of tattooing and felt so burned out i could drop on the floor to sleep. Il be glad when this piece is done. [/img]

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.

Hello and welcome! I agree with quite a bit of what has already been said. Take your time, as long as you need, to choose what you want forever. Keep in mind that most everyone here will tell you that the tattoos they wanted when they were young are nothing like what they wanted and got later. Even more important, take time to research an artist. Search pinterest and instagram. There are plenty of great ideas that died under the needle of someone who should have realized they were not the best artist for a specific style or art. Onto a more personal level, I feel your (similar) pain, both physically and mentally. Life can be a cruel bitch, full of pain. The suffering part is what WE control, however. One frame of mind or direction change I'd steer you towards from my personal experience is: Work on going from being a victim to becoming a survivor. There is always room for growth in that department.

You can see my works here https://www.facebook.com/jackbrizuela/media_set?set=a.10208081062450726.1073741831.1424697312&type=3 Can someone teach me how to upload a picture here on my profile? lol. Thank you everyone for welcoming me i hope we can all be good friends. :)

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.

Bob Roberts at Spotlight

Paul Dobleman

In two weeks, I'm heading down to San Francisco / Oakland to get tattooed by Scott Sylvia and by Freddy Corbin again. I'm pretty pumped about it to say the least.

here is the finished tattoo. Still looks swollen. [/img]

Sorry for the filters, the picture isn't from my instagram. These are my sleeves!

Here are my lady arms! My right arm in the left pic was still in-progress. Not too masculine for my taste.... but I guess it all comes down to personal taste. Get what you like! I also don't know what a deco-ish googah is...?!

"Does it feel funny?", followed by "Can i touch it?" Never say that unless you're prepared for a dirty response. :D