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I have a new little friend! Snake and cherry blossoms by Chris Garver. My homage to spring. She fits the space so perfectly. He drew it on, made the stencil and we were tattooing in less than 40 minutes. Boom. (I'm swollen AF but whatever).

Great tattoo! Enjoy the heal and let it settle in. You'll know what to do eventually. In a few months, hit up your artist to see if they have any suggestions.

The rare combination! Awesome tattoo, I love the placement and how he tied it in with the surrounding pieces. Congrats!

Hey @dan... He did another piece for me a few years ago but I don't think that it had anything do to with getting in. I booked in with him last December when I dropped by for a consult. He offered to get me in earlier but I knew that I was already going to be in the city in April. Email [email protected]. Jess, his assistant, is good at responding. He basically books three months in advance when he opens his books. He normally only books for three hour sessions, so know that going in. He's truly amazing. He understands form, design, placement...everything. And he has a light touch. And he's fast. And he's super chill with a great sense of humor.

Wow. That's amazing. I've felt the same way about the color difference - but they always fade! It will look like the rest soon!

New to the site. Here is my latest. It took 6 hours and 45 minutes but got it all done in one. I think the artist did a great job and initially I was very positive about the piece. I really like some of the shaded area in the middle but am trying to warm up to the wings as they contrast a lot with my arm tattoos. I may even go back eventually to have less blank space between the feathers on the wings.

Started my back yesterday by Steve Byrne at rock of ages Austin picture from his IG stories

I don't even want to think about the inner thigh. Tender bits!

hands,knees,elbows,neck,ribs,ankles,no big deal for me,but I agree with the butt,and it's the inner thigh for me too.

Yep, I still think the butt hurts. Mad, mad respect for folks that have their entire butt cheeks covered. Thinking about how much the butt/thigh intersection would hurt makes me wince.

Thanks, @Devious6. I feel extremely blessed. <3

@Gingerninja Just freakin' awesome. I'm blown away.

Just came across this and thought it very appropriate! This was literally me I was so desperate to have it all finished in one go but my poor old body couldn't take it!

Some progress pictures if anyone is interested. Day 4 today and starting to peel:

Thank you Dan! It took almost seven hours and I got it done in one. You reassure me in that I was thinking the same regarding newness makes it stick out more.

I think the placement is good. If it was higher, the beak would move onto your neck and the angle would make it appear bent.

looks great,I would leave it alone for a while, rethink adding around it in 6 months,IMO it looks good by itself. and it will look like your other tattoos in time too,it just looks like that now because it's new. I'm sure your other tattoos looked bold and dark when they were new too.

It felt like they were when he was tattooing my shin

So, I got to spend a few hours yesterday with Jack freakin Rudy at Shanghai Kate's shop. Such a wonderful experience. Jack's a very cool guy and we talked throughout most of the tattoo. At the end we all agreed that it looks like an old-school Jack Rudy tattoo.

Cheers guys! I think I'm already in denial about how painful it was you know lol... I'm already starting to think about the next one! It's a toss up at the moment between the other shoulder or on one of my calves... Won't be until after the summer now probably so plenty of time to decide!

I also picked up these two from Steve Byrne and my girlfriend got the rose

My backpiece by Chris Crooks is finished for now. Will be extending down to the knees this summer. Two full consecutive days to get it finished, forgive the redness and bloodinfused colors.

Got this at the space city tattoo expo over the weekend. My artist is Cory Cartwright. I'm in love with it and can't wait for it to heal. I'm healing this one with tegaderm. I'm having a little trouble with it though. I put it on yesterday, it was juicy underneath it when I went to sleep. This evening though, it's all dried up underneath. I can't remember if it is supposed to dry up this soon or not. I've only used it once before on another tattoo. Anyone know if that's normal? I don't see any holes in it. I posted in the aftercare section too, maybe I'll get some answers. Anyway, thanks for looking!

Here is a Fudo/Dragon sleeve I started on April first with Scott Sylvia. Still need to line the scales on the dragon and line the inside of the arm. This took roughly two and a half hours. I go back in early June. Biggest project I've started so far (my right arm I pieced together).

Hey @bongsau If you REALLY want to make tattoos fun again, please wear a Borat thong for your next photo op. Thanks and you are welcome. :)

No meds. It's supposed to hurt. It's a goddamn tattoo.

Hello all. New to the forum. Figured I would add my two cents. I have three quarter sleeves on both arms. My first tattoo ever was a half sleeve Kintaro done by Jason Lambert of Black Cat Tattoo in Pittsburgh. The sleeve was finished on the one side and the other side was done by Robert Atkinson here in LA. Robert is an overall awesome guy and a great artist. I consider him a friend and am glad to know him. Granted I just have an n of 2, but Robert IMHO is one the best tattoo artists around. I decided to bite the bullet and Robert just started lining my back. I'm doing one of the Horiyoshi 108 heroes, Kaosho Roshishin. Compared to my arms the discomfort at times was more intense, particularly around the love handles, shoulder blades, and top of the buttock. But nothing too bad. To be honestly I thought my elbows were the worst, so the flank wasn't as bad as that for me. Robert is pretty fast, we lined this in about 3 hours. Will go back to add a snake and some peonies to finish the lines and then move to shading. I'm stoked so far. Robert's sleeve is on the right, and Jason's is on the left. Once we do the background we'll even those out and I'll ask Robert to shade the negative space under my pit on the left

Just had the ditch colored in last week. If I had to pick, I think the linework through the same area (done a few months before) was worse than the coloring... but both were bad. Here it is about 2 minutes after being done: Almost as bad -- that little negative space elbow where the green makes a Y... we colored that in red next. And the constant wiping of the paper towel over the green area that had just been done was awful. Like sandpaper.

I've got 6 on my arms, one fairly large scratcher done mess of a mistake from my youth. I'll put it on the bad side later. I've got one big leg piece, and both of my feet done. The final pass of shading and highlights on my 3 hour calf were pretty intense, but I'd say the 48-72 hours after having both feet done at the same time with a very thick black traditional tattoo was one of the most painful experiences of a very colorful life. Pretty much every step that I didn't aim for the balls of my feet to avoid stretching was like a light to mild burn, and if I had to put all my weight evenly on my feet it would get so intense that it would nearly buckle me. I would have only gotten one foot done at a time, but I had intended to get ankles. The placement was just way cooler on my feet, and when I saw the stencils I had to go for it. Friday the 13th and my first super traditional tattoos.

Socks. Always cool socks. :) @Kurgana