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I bunch of great looking work being shown... kudos and best of luck to all!

Richard Stell has 5 stars on Yelp, but don't hold that against him.

This thread has been fantastic, really great discussion so far, thanks everyone for adding your thoughts! After I read the bulk of it I had to jet off to work so I didn't have time to make a cogent reply until now, hopefully some of my thoughts have survived through the past few days of working. Anyways, these are my thoughts on the subject as a client relatively new to tattoos. Though I'd always been a fan of tattoos, I got a pretty late start on my "collection" so to speak, I loved the look of tattoos but throughout my teens and early 20s any spare cent went to drugs and booze so actually getting tattooed was fiscally impossible. I got sober, met some people with rad tattoos in and out of the program, and really started thinking about it again, I visited a bunch of trashy shops throughout the greater Colorado Springs area, and found nothing appealing in my search. I've always been a bit of a collector and really dig researching and finding the best version of whatever it is I'm looking for. I eventually found LST which I credit for helping me learn what makes a good tattoo, and really helping shape my tastes. You all have been lifesavers! Sorry for the long personal discourse but I feel it's a bit relevant to the rest of the post. So after two years of scoring the forum for information, flipping through instagram a few times a day, following an unmanageable amount of accounts on said instagram, I finally took the plunge and booked an appointment with Marie Sena after I had seen her name on the list of artists working at a then new shop (Dedication Tattoo) down in Denver. Her style really spoke to me, I wasn't really familiar with her as a "name" in the tattoo game, maybe read about her on here once or twice but I feel extremely lucky to have such a wonderful first tattoo from such a fantastic person. I never really set out to be the guy who never gets tattooed by the same person twice, but as of yet that's how it's turning out. I am wary of being perceived as some sort of "starfucker" as @Pugilist put it, but with Denver being so centrally located in this country I am presented with a lot of great opportunities via guest spots to get work from great tattooers! How am I going to pass up a chance to get tattooed by Adam Shrewsbury while he's in town for a couple days, he doesn't even make tattoos regularly when he's home! Chad's going to be here in a couple weeks? Well I'd better find a way to stack some cash because I won't let myself miss out on that. I have a list in my head of people I'd love to get work from, some may be big names, but it's all because their work speaks to me in ways that I can't really quantify, I don't want the most star-studded skin, I just want stuff that makes me happy when I look in the mirror. Besides the power of the imagery, it really is all about the experience though. Any time I've been tattooed by someone with a "big name" they have been some of the realest, most down to earth people I've met. Jeff Zuck is a gentleman and a scholar, Marie, as I said earlier, literally one of the nicest people I've ever met. Adam is the most down to earth dude, you can just tell how grateful he is to be spending his life making rad art for people. Every tattoo that I've seen Chad put out has blown my mind, and I was pleasantly surprised to see how humble he was, making sure the other guys in the shop thought the composition was solid on his sketch, ready to wipe it all away and start over if Joe didn't like something about it. Myke Chamber seems to get a bit of grief around here, maybe he's too self-promotional, his drawings are simplistic, but his message in all the interviews is a story of hope for those of us struggling with addiction, and I could tell that he was really grateful for his position in life. Now, @mmikaoj, again, I appreciate you starting this thread, the discussion has been really great! You caught enough flak for what you said about Deutsche, Shige, and Horiyoshi III, but I had to jump in and defend Walter McDonald! I know that some of his tattoos look a little off, definitely not what anyone would call perfect, but goddammit they are fucking tattoo magic in the flesh! That man is one of the best human beings I've had the pleasure of meeting, it's impossible to imagine him without a smile on his face. His shop is beautiful, flash from floor to ceiling, exactly what you picture in your head when you think "tattoo shop," not to mention that he's mostly responsible for me and the rest of the state being so spoiled for choice when it comes to guest artists on a regular basis. Walter is the coolest and I can't wait to get a tattoo from him. Sorry about the rambling, hope I didn't stray too far from what I was trying to get across.

@mmikaoj - I have to say, for a thread in which people have pretty virulently disagreed with you, you have been such a good sport about engaging in people's criticisms and not taking it personally. Kudos for that; it can be hard on the internet to disagree without things escalating really quickly. That said, I also think it's worth remembering just how public this forum is; this is not just a private conversation the posters in this thread are having amongst themselves. I am careful about posting things about tattooers/that tattooers have said/etc. that, even if I don't mean them negatively, might be construed negatively. This is people's livelihoods! If someone is a scratcher or a terrible human being, that's different, but I am wary of making judgments about tattooers otherwise in what is such a public and permanent medium. That stuff is excellent fuel for LST meet-ups (over drinks, of course) instead. :)

I've been tattooed by some super "famous" tattooers and by some people no one's ever heard of. I am very, very wary of a sort of "starfucker' mentality in tattooing. There are so many amazing people that aren't as well known as they should be because maybe their style isn't trendy, or they're not on social media, or they just don't prioritize instagram like others do, or they don't travel to conventions as much, etc. People who are well known only gets you so much. And that one tattooer is more well known than another is not necessarily because they are "better". There is a lot of noise in this subculture, and I am very careful to pay attention to what really turns me on, so to speak, about a tattooer's work, and not get swept up in their name, hype, trendiness, whatever. I had a really good chat about this with a fairly "famous" tattooer recently, who said that while they get a lot of "collector" types coming to them, they can immediately tell the difference between someone seeking them out because they are really psyched on their work, and someone who is more interested in their name and adding it to their list. Apparently there is a pretty big difference in the experience of tattooing these different kinds of people. It was a nice conversation in that I sometimes feel self-conscious when people ask me who my stuff is by, or who I am planning to get tattooed by in the future, and this person was basically like: don't worry. If you are genuine in your enthusiasm, people can tell. If you're a douche and just want to cover yourself in big names, people will know the difference. Our true intentions show through, and it's important to me to connect with a tattooer's work in a very primal way. Basically, to this person, there is an upside and a downside to having a "big name". All of which to say that I think there is an important difference between recognizing, talking about and respecting the work of people who are doing awesome, creative and inspiring things, and getting wrapped up in names and tattoo celebrity. The former is what makes this community so great, but I think the latter is basically poison to any sense of creativity and authenticity. And the line between them can be thin. I also agree with others that the experience of getting a tattoo, or if I can put it in hippie terms, the vibes that go into it, is super important. At this point I am unlikely to get tattooed by someone that I haven't heard about through someone else as being awesome. Instagram photos are not enough.

Ooh, I have an idea! Richard Stell.

Important news via Instagram: Richard Stell cut off his beard braid.

My first trip to Dallas was in 1998 and I worked right near Richard's shop. The owner of the shop said, "come on, I'll introduce you to Richard Stell". We walked over there and they were filming Walker Texas Ranger, Richard was tattooing. I got to meet Richard Stell, Mike Wilson AND Chuck Norris all within 5 minutes of each other. It was the coolest day ever for me. Richard wouldn't stop tattooing for them to film and told them to deal with it and film around him, it was rad. I told Richard that story recently from my perspective and he chuckled. I am very excited to see him on Ink Master.