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Finally finished the collab with Shige and Gogue last night. Did the lower burgundy chrysanthemum and my nipple, along with a few small touch ups. https://www.instagram.com/p/BMBcOruDBeN/

My warrior of a wife got a wolf tattooed by Jessie Beans yesterday at Classic Tattoo in Red Deer AB. And holy chit mang...right before she left in the morning I gave her a pair of warm wool socks, wished her good luck and reminded her don't be scared to go bigger. She came home with one hell of a one-shot tattoo on her thigh. Thoroughly impressed by the tattoo and my wife's spirit !

my wife and myself got some work from Oliver Peck on Saturday (10/22) at the SFO show. my wife got this octopus it was put next to this mermaid Oliver did last February ,she is working on a traditional underwater leg and I got this on my right upper thigh,it's about 9"x8" . . .

Hello everyone! I am currently serving in the U.S. Navy as a photographer. I have decided to get my first tattoo right before this deployment and now I have the tattoo fever. I already have several tattoos planned and some of them I have even designed myself. I have TONS of questions, so hopefully some of you guys would be willing to help me out with my new journey.

welcome ! and WOW ! those two ideas "photography & the Navy" are way cool,that brings to mind so many ideas & possibilities of great tattoo art ! the right artist could do so much with those two ideas !

Thanks! Last night was only 3 hours but total for Shige was 15 hours and 8 for Jeff

it was great seeing you & talking at the SF show,glad you met my wife finally. :)

under saniderm,here is my latest AM/TR,it's on my upper thigh about 9x8",it was done by Oliver Peck 10/22/16

the peeling is normal but the ink fall out not so much,and I don't think it's a matter of hand or wrist skin,IMO it's more the tattooer's application of the ink in our skin. I have both my hands done and yes they peel like any other tattoo,but there is no fallout of ink at all on either hand. hand tattoos can possibly fall out close to the sides by the palm or knuckles,maybe. here is my hand tattooed in Feb/2016 never touched up,shot tonight here is my other hand tattooed in Aug/2016 never touched up,shot tonight

And for anybody who wants to know, here is a photo taken right after completion last week:)

So, I used to drink a lot and use tons of drugs. I one heard someone say "my drug of choice was more" and that pretty much sums me up from about 16 to my early 30s. Clean and sober for something like 15 years now but not sure I could call myself straight edge because of my history. I have a few friends who have been dedicated straight edge their whole lives and are in their 40s and 50s now. I think if I call myself straight edge that kinda takes away from what they have done. They allow all ages into shows in bars down here and many places will mark the under age patrons hands with an X. I was thinking there was a really strong straight edge scene down here until I figured that out.

Grew up in ny in the 80's and had a cousin that was super into New York hard core. He explained to me back then that straight edge skin heads (as they were known back then) were the opposite of nazi skin heads. I took that to mean they weren't racist. He also said they abstained from booze and drugs. A noble course for sure. But they were also super into their lifestyle and weren't always nice to those who chose a different path. But still I appreciated them way more than the nazi skin heads. Ive met a lot of straight edge folks through the tattoo world. Funny story... I follow a guy on Instagram who happens to be straight edge. I didn't know this at the time. He was always posting pics of himself in front of strip joints. I remember thinking, "wow, this dude really loves strip clubs" until I realized it was the XXX from the strip club that he was really showcasing. The whole "edge is everywhere" bit. I laughed pretty hard cause for the longest time I thought he was just a bit of a perv. Not that there is anything wrong with that. As for myself, I am more of a wiggly edge dude.

Hey Darren ... just leave it alone and let your body do its thang to heal. Hands are stressful to heal. When I got my hand done it looked like I had the flesh eating disease for a couple weeks and was really stressed out about the ink drop outs and scarring. And then once the rough healing period was over it was fine. So relax, baby your paws for a few weeks and let the tattoo be a tattoo. Cheers bud

Brand new today! Traditional anchor with flowers by Chris Collins at Fronter Tattoo, Cardiff

I appreciate the reply. It explains why you think straight edge people can afford tattoos. As I said, I don't drink, don't take drugs, and I have a great career with a huge company. One doesn't have to be straight edge to afford tattoos, so it seemed an odd generalization, hence my question. Turns out it's a pretty simple explanation. When you don't party, you have more money for tattoos, which is true. We may have found something in common (apart from tattoos, of course).

Thank you for all the replies thus far... As a matter of respect I will treat this question as genuine, and take this opportunity to respond, this is my first time wise opportunity. I think it is a good practice to provide well thought out responses, so everyone can benefit from our input. I am trying harder to provide quality content, which will attract others and grow the forum, by example where possible. Most people, in North America have three budget priorities, regardless of their income or job (1) rent (2) food (3) party stuff. The reason I write "they can afford them" is because in my own experience, when I partied, I spent a lot of time and energy in the party scene, then.... when I quit Smoking two packs of cigarettes a day, quit drinking alcohol and quite taking recreational drugs, I found two things on my hands.....Time and money. Time I would have spent partying was now available for other pursuits and money earmarked for partying was now available for other things. I was sober quite a while before finding a group of people who called themselves Straight Edge, (this was before internet, was a thing for me). What I thought was wonderful, was that these people were not only sober, now, but where committed to being sober into the foreseeable future, which allowed them to pursue more meaningful endeavors. Tattooing is part of the culture because it is as permanent as their commitment to themselves. You have to be genuine before you would likely tattoo a huge Straight Edge tattoo onto your body. Tying into the tattoo relevance of this post, and your question, the last bar tab I pad off was $6000.00, so instead of spending money partying, I spent it investing into tattoos for me. I was able to fly to Tattoo conventions with pockets of cash and level up my collection pretty quick. Three days three tattoos, on and on. Met lots of great people at these conventions as a collector, it was really worth it for me. Being Straight Edge gave me a focus and opened my time and money to get a good tattoo collection, also when you look at straight edge bands and shows they are fully of suited up people, because they can afford to get tattooed and a lot of them. Despite all the partying I did before I committed to the edge, my edge is real and I have no hesitation to say I am Straight Edge, I have the track record to show my sincerity. I do not think the past matters too much, you cannot change it anyway, what is available is the future and what you can do for yourself. Make positive choices, one after the other and life gets better al round. My next Tattoo is going to be an Edge related design! What worked for me may not work for others, but if you want more tattoos, change your budget goals, you do not have to go straight edge, but you can follow the example....a half measure is still going in the right direction. Does this answer the question?

Likewise! You guys got some cool pieces and funny how we ran into each other!

@MoistTowelette One of the coolest pieces that I've ever seen. Insane!! Congrats, man. How long were you working on this piece? Details! It's amazing.

I really like that, @Dan. In some ways it's exactly what I'd expect from Oliver, and in some ways very different, which is what happened when he tattooed me too.

Hey Charles, appreciate the reply. I will take it easy and nurse it for the next couple weeks until fully healed and hopefully we won't have much touch up work to do ! Thanks mate

Hey mate, Thanks for the advice ! puts to mind to ease a bit, i have had other tattoos done and never seen this kind of peeling / ink dropout so it had me a bit weirded out. Will just nurse it and see how it goes once fully healed ! Cheers - Daz

Nice tattoo! I experienced similar peeling/fading on one of my tattoos, it wasn't quite as bad, but it still looked really faded. Two weeks later, the color's returned and it looks fine. I'm no expert but it might just be part of the healing process. Worst case scenario you might need a touch-up, but I doubt it. You should ask your artist though. For now just try to relax, let it heal and hope for the best. Good luck and I hope everything works out.

+1 So glad i joined the forum when I did, and met some great people who turned into real life friends. Just popped back in to see what new stuff has been posted and all the drama and bitching/disrespectful comments make me regret it allready. I'll just stick to lurking latest tattoo lowdown i guess

The reason the wrist peels differently is because there is usually more flexibility to that particular skin, the area being a joint, which needs super stretchy skin so you can move the wrist. Keep the area good and moist, like bongsau wrote, baby the area and wait 6 weeks before passing judgment or deciding on what to do next. I agree with what marley mission wrote also, you may not need any touch up at all, further to that, your Epidermis, (which is the outer layer of your skin), might have been thicker there any way (unless you had been to a spa recently and got a skin peel, lol), and is only more noticeable, because you are focused on that spot. Wrist skin peels thick in my experience.... time will tell. Hope this helps. alleviate some stress...

hardest thing is to pretend its not there for a month - but thats what my advice is - give a month - 6 weeks - see what you got then the original tattoo has a bit of a muted look to it imo - not my style but whatever good luck

@oboogie nice one, unique style for a doggie tattoo. dog tattoos are the best !

Amazing, @Dan!! Love everything about the new pieces. Congrats!!

Finally finished my Chad/Jondix collabo back piece yesterday, after nearly three years! Session 1: 10/25/13 at the Bay Area Convention, SFO Hyatt - tag team Session 2: 11/20/13 at Garage Ink, Napa, CA 11/20/13 - Chad Session 3: 7/10/16 at Yoni Zilber's private studio, Atlantic Highlands, NJ - Jondix Session 4: 10/19/16 at State of Grace, SJ, CA - Chad

2 birds sitting on a branch. Bird 1 goes: tjiep tjiep. Bird 2: expensive, expensive

Since I've only been getting tattooed since 2014, I think everybody has seen most of these recently, so it feels a little bit weird to submit them again so soon, haha. But I do have some pieces taken from very classic flash! I'm not sure that I ever posted all of them, anyway. All but the last one were done by Greg Whitehead, but I'm looking forward to getting more one-offs like this soon from other people! The shoulder-area bird was my first tattoo, and it's a Percy Waters design. The snake in a flower pot is based on Dietzel flash, the diving girl is a Jensen piece and was actually sort of a filler, the elbow butterfly/rose is...uhh, actually, I'm not 100% sure. Someone said it was Jensen, but I don't remember if that's true. I remember Greg saying that it came from a whole lot of flash from the early 1900s that used to be attributed to a mystery artist, but was later identified as belonging to someone specific...I just can't for the life of me remember who it was. The lady with a snake is a Cap Coleman design, and I love her to bits. The last one was Christopher Ayalin at Liberty, and I got it when I went on a fun tattoo day trip with @beez. A lot of people do flower/snake/dagger stuff, so I dunno...Jensen-ish? I guess? Aside from the color I guess it's still pretty classic traditional subject matter. And now you have seen like half of my tattoos all at once!

Hi Charles, hope you're doing well. I notice that you are new to this forum and are quite keen in posting. I'm not too sure what you're working towards though. Several of your new threads seem to have a commercial vibe to them, are you hoping to sell us something? If so we have a forum group for that, but I believe you are supposed to try to keep those posts to a minimum. You seem to be really into tattoos, so perhaps you should look around and contribute to some of the ongoing or older discussions, enlighten us with some opinions and knowledge. Maybe cool it off on these drawing books and colouring books by tattooers for tattooers messages, we get it. cheers, Sam

Deitzel inspired lady Head (Glennie Wittall), traditional hand holding flower (Nikki Balls) and a wee Sailor Jerry sparrow (Nathan Draper)

I've got a few to add to this thread:

His / Hers eagle tattoos by Chris David - Government Street Tattoo (Victoria, BC) hers: "could you make my eagle more feminine please" his: "just make mine a good ol U S of Eh screamin' eagle"

Lets go with a few more what the heck: Becca Gene Bacon at The End is Near in Brooklyn with the fish rose morph. Becca is really nice and hit homeruns daily. Rob Ryan with the Hand of Glory and Mandala Big Cat at Electric in Asbury NJ. Rob is a super fast and as nice as they come. Steve Boltz with a flying fish at Smith St. in Brooklyn. What a great shop and Steve was filled with great conversation. I thought it was the coolest thing sitting down and having lunch with Steve after the tattoo. Gotta get back to Smith. Sheila Marcello with this flying lady head on my collarbone. Sheila rocks. Electric in Asbury. Rob Ryan again at Electric with some fish mandala knee magic. Lastly I traveled to Maryland to the Wheaton Tattoo Paradise shop to get this fiery eyed lady from Chad Koeplinger on his 50 state tour. Got to meet a lovely LST member as well. A blast of a day (though way too much of it was spent in a car lol). Anyway - love these picture heavy threads with cool tattoos so...lets keep going.

Rose of No Man's Land by Chris Ayalin- Liberty Tattoo, Seattle Parrot, Panther head/Rose by Dan Pryor- Seven Seas Tattoo, San Diego Eagle by Phil Hatchet Yao- Master Tattoo, San Diego, Snake by Alfy Iglesias- Seven Seas Tattoo, San Diego

Dragon by Nick Coella, guitar by Mario Desa- both at Great Lakes in Chicago.

I haven't been getting tattooed much lately because I've been focused on one big piece for the past several months. I expect more traditional one shots in my near future! But here's what I've got so far when it comes to traditional style tattoos, and a little background on each: Eagle and rose by Brian Via at Golden Ages in Lancaster, PA. I wanted something to represent my parents (still alive, not a memorial!). Brian is super laid back and the whole shop is really talented. Also done by Brian, picked off his wall of things he wanted to tattoo. My first skull and not the last. Butterfly done by Antonio Roque in Frederick, MD. Really cool guy especially considering he's kind of "Instagram famous" with over 50k followers...easy to book with, charged me actually way less than he should have (and got a big tip as a result), and no ego at all. Panther and rose by Chad Koeplinger when he came through DC. He's one of my artistic idols and I was kind of star struck to meet him. Fun guy to talk to and I was amazed at his speed (this took less than 2 hours, including all the time we spent talking about movies). But wow does he hurt like no one's business! I wanted him to do this spot (inner bicep) to get it over with as quick as possible, but he's pretty brutal! Anyway, I asked him for a panther and rose and said he could do whatever he wanted with those subjects, so I got my whole inner arm blasted with this.

so how about these four to start us off the first two classics were done by Shannon Pagliarini at Crown and Anchor in Pt. Pleasant NJ. Great tattooer and super cool person. Pharoah's Horses was done by Sheila Marcello at Electric Tattoo in Asbury Park NJ. Sheila is an amazing tattooer and also a real nice person too. Rock of Ages is my most recent tattoo (until Friday hahaha). Anyway this was done by Robert Ryan at Electric as well. Rob is the man - it's not lost on me how awesome it is that Electric is so close to me. I'm lucky. Anyway - lets see what y'all got.

Just checked out the photos! Sensational!! Props to anyone who can get their nipples done! Seriously some days if I look at mine the wrong way they ache. I did see a tattoo in a magazine recently, full front torso piece on a man and he had his nips done. It looked great and made sense really. Like previously mentioned, if they haopen to fall smack dab in the tattoo it can look odd if they arent done. Then again I have seen other chest or full torso pieces where they leave the nipples, but because the tattoo itself is so bloody brilliant it doesnt even matter. I guess I'm a fence sitter?