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Amy Winehouse as traditional pin-up

Traditional woman-head in a spider web - by Dane Soos

Alice by Jennifer Lawes at Pearl Harbor - this may have been my easiest tattoo ever.

I had this one done by Tammy Kim at the Okey Doke in Toronto -- Terrible news about the fire that closed their shop this week.

Thanks, @Gingerninja and @Devious6. I am over the moon about how it turned out! Got a tweet from Amy Winehouse's mum, and she called it "superb." I am chuffed to bits by that! :-) @jadore Nice one!

My thigh pieces (more side of thigh for them both). first one by Sam Smith when she was visiting the UK. I think about 5.5hrs one hit. Healed perfectly in 3 days despite being in a car crash where I rolled my car 3x and wrote it off on my way home from the shop. Second one, my beautiful big red kitty from Stu Pagdin. One hit - 6hrs. I took the train. This one was more of a tricky heal, got some lovely scabs but I think he's got a heavier hand. I love to collect but I'd be covered in Stu's work if he lived in the UK. I just love it!

I think it should come back when this place is a tattoo forum again and not a tattoo advice forum.

Thank you for your great responses, At the end I got this woman by Dane Soos, I took the hanging spider off in order to have more space for a future tattoo:

Got this awesome piece this week on the spur of the moment/walk-in from Tommy Stegall at Baldy's Tattoo in Radcliff, KY (near Fort Knox). It's my first American Traditional tattoo and I am in love :) Wildcat

So awesome oboogie I'm an Amy Winehouse fan myself, looks great. That's pretty cool her mom even saw it and complimented you.

i usually just bring the body part thats getting tattooed

It might make for an easier competition, though some of those "do you think my new tattoo sucks?" tattoos could get a lot of likes ;)

I love it @oboogie!

Nice! @oboogie

Got this collab from Timmy B and Andres Acosta at the stacked Lake Tahoe convention. Took about 7 hours

I would love to see the monthly contest return. Maybe one that doesn't include a physical prize so it doesn't increase operational costs of the site (as much) to run it?

Now that we have settled into the new house how about we have a new contest? Could be fun.

Thanks, @Dan. Such a huge loss. It's coming up to five years since she died. Seems impossible.

Me too. My 6.5 hour session required someone bring me a sip of sumpthin, but otherwise there is chat and mental relaxation techniques, and time is up before you know it. I discovered early on that when I tried to look at my phone or listen to music I had a harder time than just laying back and zoning out/accepting the sensation.

that's pretty cool hun,I am a huge AW fan,and that tattoo is rockin'

@mtlsamI heard that most of their machines and equipment survived, but I don't really know much at this point. What a shame - it was a very cool shop. Still, they will rebuild and it will be awesome again.

Firstly, that's an awesome tattoo! I love how different artists are able to interpret something like a tiger in so many ways, but you still know it's a tiger and feel the power of the image. Secondly, I hope that the folks at the shop are able to salvedge the majority of their equipment at the very least. It looked kind of grim in the photos I saw. I was only in there once when they had just moved, but was a nice space. Whishing them the best.

@jadore diggin!

I am very interested in your overall progress @pidjones Keep us posted.

those are super nice tattoos ! very cool. and I get it.

In your situation I would wait until you know what you want. Someday something is going to hit you that will go perfectly with the drumsticks, and the trick will be the wait. If you don't have a ton of tattoos already and you walk into a shop and ask an artist, they'll come up with something that they'd like to do, and it will seem rad and awesome, and then after a while you'll be looking at your arm and wonder why you got that particular design, not having any particular relevance to YOU. (if you have a ton of tattoos already then you no longer care about this, and it can be a fun way to spend an afternoon, lol) I'd just be patient and wait for something to come to you, because I think it will. OR, have a consultation, a paid one, and get some suggestions that you can then think about and not rush into. It is on a visible part of your body so you want it to be a well considered choice.

i'd say NO, there's just as much hair post-tattoo. it's just visually less noticeable against a backdrop of black and coloured ink.

@marley mission, love that! I'm going in today after work for something on the back of my calf. Woohoo!

Great Image, Glennie at the Pearl told me (as she was doing my butterfly-ladyhead that many of those iconic turn-of the century images (like ladyheads) were copied from popular advertisements - your lady head could be from a matchbook cover!

He's been really great - building this sleeve over the last 3 years has been an excellent experience all around.

Like everybody has said, there's nothing you can do at this point other than wait. I haven't had anything lined in any colour other than black, so I can't comment on this specifically, but especially with colours that aren't completely opaque it's normal for them to be red or reddish for a while after the tattoo is done. One of my arms has a lot of greywash in it and the red didn't properly settle out of it until weeks after the session. Healing tattoos sucks and healing tattoos look weird and it's easy to get impatient about it, but try not to worry about it and let your body do its thing. Anyway, I like the tattoo.

by Chris Smith - Neptune Tattoo in Neptune NJ

Every time I add a little something to my arms (all traditional tattoos) I find I can't wait for another session and am already eager to fill in the gaps the new one made. But with bigger tattoos, I get burned out on the frequent sessions, opening up so much skin at once, and the long sittings. So if money wasn't an issue, I'd probably get my arms filled ASAP! But with everything else, I would still probably go slower because I have other issues with the bigger, non-traditional pieces I get.

The classic girl head / web images were surely inspired by the circus sideshow spider ladies? Here. I don't know who drew the first flash though, or when. It's often not possible to track these things right back. But, you can see ladies / cherubs (not sure which) on web, although not enclosed by it, on the feet and ankles of Stella Grassman. All her work was done by her husband Deafy. Photo is from the 1920s. If you're after something a little less 'dark' than variations on the classic design often are, and are wanting to add flowers too, you might want to consider something along the lines of this lovely by Virginia Elwood. Ladyroses are a classic in themselves, of course, the combination of the two works really well, I think. That said. I prefer to hand over a bit of reference and let my tattooer get on with the drawing, rather than give too much specific direction about composition though. Am not a fan of giving other tattooers work as reference, but I can see why you want to. Have you had your consultation yet? Never had drawings in advance of the day myself either, BTW. He'd be happy to make changes if it wasn't 'right', for sure. Hasn't be necessary yet mind. In other news, this, is image absolutely dying to be turned into a tattoo. (from either Punch, or the London Charivari, November 1867) Edit - Agree that it's not a stupid question, @jadore. Not at all.

thigh shots Shannon Pagliarini, Matt Dunn, Mark Costa