RoryQ

Chris' waiting list is getting a bit mental here, as he becomes more and more known in Ireland. But I think the London convention can be a good time to grab him for something!

@WideOcean 's post gave me pause for thought, although I'm not sure I can agree with it. I do think there is a cultural element to it, but if it were really a compliment or a process of a student paying homage then that doesn't fully explain why so much money is also changing hands. These are not just sketches or a learner's portfolio- it's business. Could something that factors in be that in some Asian countries copies (counterfeits) are big business, and are not necessarily seen as problematic. Think all those Louis Vuittons... Even a whole fake Apple store in China. This could explain why there is a market for these kinds of tattoos- the customers may not care that they are copies... If they're good copies. Something else that occurs is that there are some Taiwanese and Chinese studios doing their own house styles that are awesome, let's remember that. I love Yang, Ching and Hua from East Tattoo... Some of the big name Chinese guys too. You can see in the likes of East Tattoo's work the Shige influence in some ways (though less so nowadays probably), but then again he has visited them and tattooed them, so there's a direct tie. But they also lay their stuff out very differently these days, and they use Taiwanese subject matter more and more. Shige and Tomo have talked of 'Chinese style' tattooing and Horiyoshi 3 spoke about the future of Asian tattooing as being a fusion of Japanese, Chinese and Western influences. This suggests there are already distinct styles in different Asian countries: Not everyone is just aping the Japanese anymore. Which is why, on balance, I am disinclined to give the big copies the benefit of the doubt. Despite cultural divides and differences in mindset, I think it's probably mostly what it looks like.

I'm not that tough, believe me. I barely slept after the first day I was so worried about day two. It's actually a namanari, which I think is the stage before full transformation into a hannya... Flying home today.

In progress by Tomo at Yellow Blaze. Painful to say the least, but it's taking shape after 4 sessions. Home tomorrow! From his Instagram.

Reading the original and follow-up posts I don't quite read anything that suggests the artist was flat-out rude or a 'wankstain'. That said, it sounds like for whatever reason the OP is not a good fit with this artist, or vice versa. A bad day all round, some clash of personalities, maybe the unfortunate presence of the other customers... Sounds like there were a few things feeding into it? Either way I think go elsewhere: It's fair to say that for whatever reason he and his studio rub you up the wrong way. It doesn't need to be a big thing, just go elsewhere.

Tomorrow week I will be on a plane heading back to Yellow Blaze for more work on my front. Looking forward to being back in Japan, but dreading the tattooing given the location. At least all the lining is done...

Just to be clear: if someone really has a low tolerance for pain then the answer is lots of short sessions - 1, 2 hours, half days... Whatever, but with planning and the intention of finishing the piece incrementally if necessary. I'm talking above about people walking out early on into a piece and not coming back. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk - now Free

Throwing in the towel at the end of a long session on an area like the back, ribs, front is one thing... 'Backing out' while you're early into a piece is another proposition. 'Backing out' is marginally better than not showing up at all, but only in the sense that at least the tattooist has a chance of being partially paid for the wasted time and effort. Let's not normalise or excuse behaviour which leaves people with half finished work and screws up bookings and a studio's working day. If you aren't sure you can finish what you start, then holy Christ... don't get in the chair.... Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk - now Free

Yeah, I don't know about the personalities involved but their beer works for me... Constantly putting new stuff out, not all winners but I like finding out. Speaking of brewers and new stuff, Brooklyn Brewing finally seems to be arriving here on tap in a few places. Finally. This is as exciting as when we got pesto and pasta in the late 90s. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk - now Free

If Graeme has inside gossip then lay it on us! James Dickie is a fairly controversial figure in brewing in the UK and Ireland so I guess if this ruffles feathers it will be par for the course for them. I don't think they are believers in bad publicity. I like Brewdog's beer. Their whole business model in fact: The bars, the selling equity to their customers, the rowing with mass market brewers... But TV is a bit of a new departure. I'm not sure I like the sound of the wacky "can we fit a cow in the beer mash for our ultimate wild west beer" etc. It's a bit ... er... 'Inkmasters'-esque.

@Lance Well, I ended up looking for the copy you were talking about, and now I feel like flying to Korea and punching that guy. He's got a few other Shige copies up there as well. The weird thing is that Korea isn't that far from Japan and Shige almost certainly would have tattooed whoever got that backpiece if they'd been willing to travel. I don't know what the copier charges, but Shige doesn't even really charge outrageous money by cost-of-living-in-Japan standards. The original backpiece is amazing - I think the green foliage is my favourite detail. When I hear people say things like 'Shige's work isn't as good as it used to be' (seriously) I look at his recent pieces like this one and Uncle Allen's and wonder how they can honestly say that. Speaking of backpieces and approaches to handling plagarism: We all know that Smith St. prefers their work not to be posted online, and you can see their reasoning at times like this. When I was getting tattooed there I asked Steve Boltz about the kind of tattooing he did day to day, and I think I thought he was doing all medium and small pieces. Anyway, he was like 'Ah, I'm working on about eight backpieces right now'. Not just traditional, but japanese influenced too. Blew my mind, wasn't what I was expecting at all for some reason.

Starting Peter F. Hamilton's Void trilogy - 'The Dreaming Void'. I think Hamilton does the best epic space opera in the business. Mind blowing scale and concepts. The downside is that some of the interlinked series are so long that I have a Malazan-esque need to constantly check wiki to remember what the hell he means by a passing reference to something that happened 1500 years and 1400 pages ago.

I think I was about the third Irish person to get certified in CrossFit, far as I know. It was the first certification weekend they did outside the US that wasn't on a military base. My claim to infamy... I was big into it for a few years. I think if your box is good then doing it can be a good way to get exposure to a lot of different training in a short space of time... Gymnastics, Olympic lifting, kettlebells... The nutritional advice is also good, IMO (although when I was in it was before Robb Wolfe got booted). Just don't injure yourself - beware the kool aid. No ones' Achilles' tendon is designed for high rep box jumps.

@eisen777 An element of seeing muscle definition comes down to your levels of body fat. If your body fat, as a man, heads under 10% then you're going towards a very defined look, provided the muscle is there underneath to expose. Depending on age, where you began from, training and diet, however, it's possible to train a fair bit and build muscle without ever getting to the stage where you are going to look like a fitness magazine cover model (probably a lot of those guys don't walk around like that most of the year either - they probably cut for the shoot). If you managed to gain lean muscle mass, however, whilst your body fat levels stay more or less the same or is still reducing you obviously are going to look better to a considerable extent, and if you're a relative novice then you can make a lot of progress pretty quick. Things like posture can improve as well, which feeds into it too. Someone else might be able to comment more on the 5ks you're running. There's a school of thought that if you want to bias towards lifting weights and gaining muscle for a little bit then you should cut back on the intermediate distance runs for a while, and just focus on lifting (maybe with some shorter metabolic conditioning work instead, like 1-2 sessions a week of something like sprints or a circuit). The other side of it is that some 5k runs might not be that taxing, depending on pace, and if your diet is good and you're young maybe you can recover fine from them. Further down the road there might come a point to the contrary, where it is too taxing on top of lifting. As far as lifting goes, in general you'll get a lot more bang for buck with compound multi-joint exercises. Squats, deadlift, bench, pull-up, row, military press etc. Can't go too far wrong. If you want to lift several days a week and cut back on the running you could look at programming like Starting Strength, 5x5, Stronglifts, West Side for skinny bastards or similar (google them for the programming and explanations). Probably a good idea to get a form check from someone who knows what they're about on your squat and deadlift if you haven't already.

Good stuff.. Must re-read that series sometime. Maybe if I break my legs and get laid up or something.

A great shop to visit, if anyone has the chance. The 'stab city' thing is interesting. Limerick did (does?) have a pretty ferocious reputation for violence and your average Irish person probably does have a bit of a prejudiced view of what it's like as a city (mind you, parts of Belfast and Dublin have similarly negative reputations). I know that some people in Limerick did get pissed off that the phrase was being being propogated / bandied around, but when you hear Ross talk about it there he's clearly thought about it from a few angles and I like the way they've kind of subverted the whole thing in a light-hearted way. I've gone down to All Star to get tattooed by guest artists a fair few times, but shockingly I've never actually been tattooed by either Ross or Paul - got to remedy that. If anyone's interested in that kind of thing, Paul is doing some of the best tribal around these days, in my opinion. If you follow his instagram account he throws up a lot of pictures of fix-ups and repair jobs he does on older botched tribal jobs - pretty interesting. There's a big rugby scene in Limerick and they're all into the tribal, I think that's why some of the Leo Zulueta-style spiky black tribal never went out of fashion there.

Thats @Iwar, good to know! Nice dagger too, I like his style.

Well, it could have been worse - I dread to think what the Daily Mail's take would have been.

I'm digging this one up because I've been admiring this design for a few weeks now. I always said that I wouldn't go onto my neck or hands because I wanted to be able to pass for normal.. But a dagger through the neck seems like a compromise: A little bit of love for the neck and general vicinity but I'm guessing still pretty cover-able with a collar: Anyone got one of these on the forum? Lately I've been looking at some great ones from Mario Desa, and pretty much anyone at Frith Street.

I thought it was because he's drinking beer in this one. I mean, when a guy puts a blanket or something over his head during an interview... You know he's well-oiled. His tattooing has really grown on me- I love all the western elements, the jawbone knives and revolvers etc.

This, and also what Dave Borjes said: If you're an adult you should be capable of asking a question or picking up the phone like an adult (not a dig at the OP, btw, she did contact her artist one way or another). Sure, it's good for a shop to make sure the clients knows about aftercare- that's beyond dispute. But it should also be a given that people have a responsibility to make it their own, and speak up themselves if they're in the dark. After all, it's even free... The idea that tattooists better watch out and ensure they do enough hand-holding with their hapless clients, or else those clients are going to lawyer up...well, there may be people this stupidly litigious out there, but they should have to wear badges so that people providing a service in good faith can avoid them.

@Dan They might, worth a look.

@Dan Looks like you used a tegaderm patch on your knee to cover it up afterwards... I did the same thing - really excellent, you can practically forget it's there. I took a few big pieces back with me from the states and I've used them for various awkward to cover places like the feet. I don't think we really have anything entirely comparable here.

Meeting a guy tomorrow who made a prowler for me. I'm not a believer in equipment as a 'silver bullet' to improve all your training.... But IMO prowlers come pretty close, for conditioning and body comp at least.