Leaderboard

Went to Seven Doors Tattoo in London yesterday for a drawing session. Had to bring the little one (their suggestion, as we had trouble finding a good date)... So I haven't actually got a new tattoo yet, but my son got two! A butterfly and a crazy design from Deno. Both put on by Yutaro who was really sweet to him. He's very proud now and thinks they are super cool :-)

Spend yesterday afternoon in the chair of Jan Willem (@janwillemtattoo) in Rotterdam. Drew a Peony on my elbow ditch with this as the result: Pretty stoked on the end result!

i think that sticker look your struggling with is the freshly applied hairless aspects of what new tattoos look like on IG, internet, etc it wont look like a sticker for long - it'll look like its a part of you and your skin - because it will be this thread has certainly got some legs to it - i have enjoyed the discussions and checking out some of the artwork on the artist IGs though not the style i seek - there are some great looking tattoos out there in this style

pretty nice looking tattoo,I like it a lot.and you look great ! wait til you get to my age !(56) my skin is loose and getting wrinkly,but I am still getting tattooed and actually I am wearing more tank tops than I EVER have ! I am having more fun with my tattooes than I ever have as well.my wife and myself might be old,but we are fucking cool old people ! LOL

Oh, but I actually came over here because I'd linked to the thread and wanted to add my post pregnancy belly tattoo. Here

Hahaha. My friend had a "tattoo shop" at her birthday party when she turned 4...I think I may have been a bit of a bad influence there. This is a great picture for him to look back on when he's older.

@omeletta your son is the coolest!

This made me laugh. Loudly.

Exactly. Is amazing stuff. No wonder we've been using it for healing for centuries eh ;) Belly (and the rest) are by this most excellent chap: https://www.instagram.com/willem666/

My brother and I rode our motorcycles from DC to Alaska and back a few weeks ago. We spent a chunk of the time riding across Canada. First of all, the Canadian people are really friendly. I love America, but I'm jealous of that. Second, there wasn't a day that went by that at least one person didn't come up and talk to me about my tattoos. Usually multiple times a day, when we stopped for gas or something to eat. I think my brother (inkless) was starting to get tired of it! Lots of nice people, but I didn't see many people with a lot of tattoos up there, even the people that came up to talk to me. Usually a small tattoo or two. A beautiful country, I encourage everyone to go.

@Tiresius I know! I'm trying to be mindful of not wasting any precious space for things that are not "important" to me though. I guess what is holding me back potentially even more than the budget is the relative lack of access to artists I like, it seems like you'll have no such problems. I really like the work of most artists from the studio you linked, and yes, I also find La's work beautiful! I am not really qualified to judge technical aspects or how this sort of work will age, but I'd personally love to have a tattoo done by her. There are some great examples of tattoos that flow very nicely with the body in her portfolio (love, love, love the back tattoo with the lady's head where her hair morphs into a wolf). Please post us some pics when you end up getting tattooed so that I can die of envy ;).

@oboogie Haha, here I was, thinking that you might have found some kind of secret magic super aftercare or so ;-)

AW, thanks polliwog. He's really just a little innocent sweetie and hasn't yet got an idea what cool or tough or anything like that actually means. BTW, today, he drew lots of funky shapes with an ink pen onto his bare legs. Can't help but think that he didn't come up with that idea all by himself...

@Kurgana, it sounds lucky that you have budget restraints because it will slow you down. What happens when all your skin is filled in? lol ;) I am thinking of trying to get an earlier appointment with someone else at the same studio, FallenHeroes. Her name is La and she specialises in 'illustrative' tattoos. I'm considering a faraway tree (Enid Blyton) that goes up my right thigh, over my hip and onto my side and stomach. (I'm a woman by the way - just happen like the name Tiresius!) Though a lot of her work is watercolour I have seen just black from her too and really like the whimsical effect of her work.

My first two were also flash, the third one was a mash-up of several elements from a band logo, the fourth was basically a design by me which was improved upon by the artist. At this point, I had found someone whose artistic talent I really admire and who clearly knows what he's doing. The last two tattoos were totally designed by the artists (the previous one and a new-to-me artist). As you see, there's a clear progression there. What was the key to letting go and letting them do their thing was realizing that I liked (all or most of) their previous work, and that I would hate it if my micro-managing compromised the end result. IMO, a good artist will know what he/she is doing, and their artwork will very rarely benefit from overly strict requirements by the client. This is not to say that you shouldn't tell them exactly what you want, just be ready to listen to their suggestions and keep an open mind. Maybe don't bring a sketch with you ;). Also, I've noticed that it really helps with the "fit" on your body if you can be fairly flexible with the exact position and let them go as big as they deem necessary. The "bad" thing is that once you learn to just get along with it, it just gets easier and easier and the indecisions tend to disappear. Personally, this is a bad thing mainly for my bank account ;). I have lots of free space left, a ton of ideas (now that I don't need to have the finished tattoo perfectly planned out before approaching the artist), and a fairly flexible schedule so without any budget restraints I'd probably live in the tattoo studio... As it is, I've gotten "just" three 3-5 hour tattoos over the past six months...

And I think if one is immersed in tattoo culture, that might also seem the way to go. Because most of the people around me are somewhat anti-tattoo, I think I need to feel great resonance with the image and more certainty about it having a particular place on me. My first was flash and second was one I saw on the Internet. Designing one feels a bit difficult for that reason...

Check this

I actually re read the thread after I posted earlier and saw that but then decided against compulsively re-editing everything - my bad for not reading everything first! Exciting re the birds - good luck with the skin healing! I know what it's like to fight those compulsions. Where on the back are you thinking? Your tattoos are coming along really nicely!!

No central AC yet. Apartment feels like the underside of a ballsac. Sorry.

My lips. Hahaha. I tend to lick my lips a lot when I'm getting tattooed (nerves or coping with the pain, I guess—maybe both), and without the lip balm, my lips get really dry. :-)

Thank you so much! I just adore it. I was playing with my new camera, so I thought I could rather easily check out how she was healing by taking a photo of the back of my leg. Haha.

What's the lip balm for??

Lol. You've just described me. The good news is that tattoos might just cure you from that, once you find artist(s) whose work you are comfortable with. Or else you'll be spending the rest of your life second guessing yourself and/or in laser removal I guess :D. I'm actually looking forward to my future tattoos since I'm now at a point where I'm starting to feel comfortable with just picking a loose subject matter/style and letting the artist run wild with that, rather than having to have the whole tattoo planned inside my head (or on paper) by the millimeter.

@HettyKet, who did that incredibly rad stomach tattoo! Love it!!! @polliwog from my experience, every spot that was a bad spot suddenly disappeared once i tattooed over it. It's really strange because i definitely did not start getting tattooed with the idea that I would take control over my body image or whatever. I definitely had this horrible feeling like what the hell was i doing to myself, why wasn't i more mature, how dare I mess up what little beauty has been given to me, blah blah blah - i mean I went through every part of self-recrimination there was (those thoughts are only a little part of it!). In any event, what happened was that though I was terribly nervous about finally getting tattooed, and thought every person in the world would judge me as an uggo trying to be pretty (i do NOT think like this now but I'm just saying I had a really fucked up point of view over a decade ago!!!) (my parents were super judgmental of other people which is why I thought everyone thought that way!! also told my sister and i to lose weight constantly - seriously, if you're parents please be kind to your daughters when they are 10 and under (and over)) - once I started getting tattooed regularly all of that stuff just fell away. (tattoo = jedi mind trick?) (also we are talking about a time period that spans two decades soooo) TL;DR - there are no bad spots once you get them tattooed.

@Sinclair89 I love the pinup - and the fact that it is modeled after your wife makes it even more special. My son and his wife went the more renaissance direction for their wedding. This was taken just before the wedding ceremony.

@oboogie - that is destined to be a classic. I love it!!

http://www.epicthings.com/tattoos-heal-before-after/ thanks Bill Loika

Hoser.

A couple of months ago my girlfriend told me that if I got into the school I applied for, she would get me a chest piece! After months of hard work I found out today that I got accepted for the school! So I guess a chest piece is on it's way!

This. Thanks all. We want to avoid filling up LST w/ negativity. Gracias.

this thread captures all the suck

Okay.

I don't think we're going to save every single person who sees this board from what we perceive to be a bad idea. People who want simple walk-in or street shop tattoos can still get a tattoo that is more or less well done, even if it's an infinity symbol or a phrase that we might think is dumb. For that matter, I'm going to guess that plenty of tattooers who have posted here have spent many hours making tattoos like this one at various points in their careers. And learning from it.

Guys. How about we be kinder and humbler on the newbie threads? This is really tedious and frankly not fun to read at all.

I don't think that getting a small script tattoo that isn't to the taste of people on this board is such a terrible thing. Just go to someone who will tattoo it well and solicit his or her ideas on placement so that it's the appropriate size for the body part it's on.

went to Seattle and got crabs by Jake Whitson @ Liberty Tattoo Seattle my lady also got a really nice wrist tattoo from Jake. She liked it so much we went back into downtown on Friday nite and she got a midnite walk-in to get something matching on the opposite wrist. one of the coolest tattoo shops I've been in and really nice folks, great hospitality. can't wait to go back Seattle was an awesome city.

So here's mine? Sent from my D5803 using Tapatalk

Ah, yes. Nothing like hot and humid. #boobsweat @oboogie

4th of July spread!

I know this is older but I was just going back through. Sorry for the off centered "selfie" pic with hubby but I wanted to show off my 2 day old chest piece. We didn't go up terribly high on to the shoulders to leave room for more projects. Slight bruising around collar bone.

The black harpy

Gunner likes donuts. We have a local donut shop that makes doggie donuts which are a basic cake donut drizzled with peanut butter and topped with a Milk Bone.

Got this tree colored in awhile back. Done by my teacher. The foundational grey wash was already done, so it was all dark to medium browns, some orange-ish burnt sienna and he did it in about 2 hours. By far the easiest heal ever. My teacher is known for his easy heals, but just for fun, we did a hot pack before bandaging. Holy shit, that hurt. Took a whole bunch of paper towels and ran them under all the way hot water, then immediately slapped them on my leg. Almost levitated out of the chair. Took the bandage off once home and washed, waited a minute, re-scrubbed, then turned the water up until it was unbearable. Got on the couch and elevated it for 2+ hours while it dried. Super red and swollen the next day, but after a few weeks it only ever developed a papery scab and healed beautifully. I use Ohana Organics tattoo butter after day 4 or 5 and it's great. It goes a long way though, so a little does a lot. Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk

This is my 5 year old Staffy. He's super energetic and playful, I get people constantly asking me if he's still a puppy. Sigh. He's a handful but a great family dog. A couple 'glamor shots' from back when I was super into photography: Aaaaand one of him letting my 6 month old son climb all over him. He's loving it.

I got my old cutting scars tattooed over. I am very pleased with the result, in effect, I got my arm back! It's still healing, I'll put up a picture in a week or two when I'm past the ridiculous milky skin phase.