AbbyRoad

congratulations on your day of birthing

fancy shmancy

i like it :)

i am guilty of so many of these annoying things. not the worst or the ridiculous.

but i sometimes say; ink, work and i love to call shitty tattoo artist that work at home kitchen wizards.

do i care that it may annoy other people? not really.

all my bfs have had beards. even if we started off the relationship with them being clean faced the beard always takes over.

when i see someone with what looks like awesome tattoos i do wanna take a closer look. if they look friendly and not busy i may ask to get a better view.

i find that if i have my chest piece or back piece showing the person is usually willing to show off their tattoo, and we may even shot the shit for a bit.

i wouldnt EVER ask a random person to touch their tattoos, i understand that personal space is a very real thing.

but when my friends are getting tattoos its a totally different story. when my friend mike was getting his sleeve he would pretty much surrender control of his arm to my scrutiny. and my friends getting their first tattoos always want me to check in on their healing process, give it a look over and confirm everything is going normally

the guy i used to get tattooed from was kind of a dick. i couldnt finish my first big tattoo in one sitting and he was really rude about it, because he had already poured out all the color and we never got to use it. it was my second tattoo, the first tattoo being really small, taking only 15 mins. the tattoo i couldnt finish ended up taking a total of 4 hours. i could only do 2 hours in the first sitting.

i was straight up with the artist telling him i had never gotten a tattoo that large before and yet he still acted like an asshole. its not my fault he poured out the color to early, he was supposed to be the professional. i went back to him for my third tattoo, because even though he was rude i really loved how the tattoo turned out. but the second tattoo he did for me turned out pretty bad, and he still had an attitude so i decided to find another artist i gelled with more.

enter Travis McGregor.

ive been going to him for all my tattoo needs for a few years now and he is not just a talented artist but also a super cool dude. everyone at the shop he works at, Thrive Studios, is really nice. i dont really know what to say beyond that. i always have an good experience when i go there. they have a mini fridge with beverages that i usually take advantage of, and one time the guys bought me lunch. (i offered to pay for my share but they said they had it covered). a few times during sittings on my full back piece i wasnt the best client, (having to stop early and literally moaning in pain) but they never made me feel bad about it.

that being said i wouldnt expect this type of treatment from every artist or shop, but im glad i have a reference point for a good and bad shop experiences.

i never thought of collector as an elitist term either, but being smug and thinking your "above" other clients is typical elitist behavior.

reminds me of an old saying.

"its not what you say but how you say it."

honestly, "collector" bothers me (sorry robin)! generally speaking people who refer to themselves as collectors are a bit smug and see themselves as above other clients. no offense robin, or anyone else who use this term, it's just been my experience and bothered me for years. the guy getting his girlfriend's name is just as important as a "collector" getting a custom "cool" tattoo. sometimes these "collectors" scoff at having to wait while i do a regular walk-in on someone they deem "uncool", and it eats me up. but i guess this is a whole other discussion!

sounds like your trying to describe elitists

in my opinion elitists are a horrible part of sub-cultures and you see it everywhere. the music scene, skating etc.

the excluding nature of those people pisses me off.

i dont have a picture to share but a friend of mines sister got the worst lettering ive ever seen in person.

my first thought was the artist free handed it because it was all fucky looking. but i was told he used a stencil.

the dude must have either been on crack or has close to zero experience.

welcome to the party dude :D

Ello Rupert

if you are having trouble getting your avatar into the right size may i suggest using photobucket.

i use it for all the images i want to share via the interwebs

for me during the healing process itching is pretty normal. also my tattoo usually tend to raise if i itch them, even after im done healing.

but i have a question for you...what exactly is "dry" aftercare?

I find it rather ironic that my girlfriend's family constantly chides her for having visible tattoos when a lot of the men who talk down to her have visible tattoos themselves. It seems rather hypocritical for one tattooed person to tell another that they shouldn't have tattoos (with the exception of any blue-collar-contract tattoos i.e. hands/face/neck.)

This thread's been really interesting. I'm always curious to see how geographical/racial/gender/age/professional status influences people's opinion on visible tattoos.

a male friend of mine, who has numerous tattoos, told me i was going to be ugly once i become heavy tattooed.

in all honesty it hurt my feeling quite a bit, but only for a couple seconds :D

i realized he was just saying that shit because he is slightly sexist and an asshole.

why am i friends with him then you may ask. the dude actually has brain damage and acts like an idoit/asshole a lot of the time because of it. he has NO FILTERS.

i told him he offended me and he apologized

my first time in a shop was when i was 16, a few days before my 17th birthday. my mother had promised me a tattoo for my 17th birthday. i knew i wanted something that incorporated my native heritage, but i didnt want anything "native" i.e dream catcher, chiefs head etc. so we looked through a ton of flash books, at this age i didnt even think of getting a custom design or talking to the artist, or even looking at the portfolios. live and learn eh? i was just so excited to actually be getting my first tattoo. eventually i found a ying yang with bear claws inside of it and thought this is it. perfect. im part of the bear clan and the ying yang could "represent" the duality of being half native.

booked an appointment for a few days after i turned 17. and the rest is history in the flesh.

i dont even remember what the tattoo artist name was or even what he looked like. the shop closed down a few months later and it was 3 years before i got another tattoo.

remindsmeofyou, I still get tiny whitehead pimples on occasion under new healed tattoos. Usually just on my arms, though, for whatever reason. Used to make me nuts but that's what yours sound like and if so, they'll go away. If they're sizable bumps and they hurt, get someone to take a look.

happens to me too, but they never hurt to touch

depending on the size of your thigh and the size of the design i think it should look fine.

im kinda of disturbed after reading this.

but it will not prevent me from eating chinese, we cant let the weirdos win!

thats a tough one to say....

id have to say the full back piece thread.

so many beautiful pictures of fabulous tattoos, in so many different styles.

i cant wait to add some of my favorite tattoos in all the different threads :)

i dont know if this is the right thread to post this in but here i go.

personally i dont think my tattoos need to have religious or spiritual imagery to be spiritual in nature. for me tattoos are a part of my spiritual and philosophical standpoint. they become part of the Self as well as adornments of the Self.

i very recently joined. i noticed that everyone had relatively recent joined dates as well as "low" post count compared to other online forums, and couldnt figure out why. everything just seemed so awesome about LST. i am finding out just now how "young" LST is, and it explains everything.

i have to say a BIG congratulations is in order. in light of this revelation LST seems like an even more interesting corner of the interwebs. i look forward to being part of the LST community and seeing how it grows.

thanks for the warm welcome :)

ahahah sexy tattooed bums

the top of my back around my shoulders and the back of my neck.

also parts of my chest piece didnt hurt to bad.

i had a tattoo re-colored by a different artist.

an anchor on my hip that the color didnt take very well. also the shading was pretty fucky. it had been 2 years since i got the original and never went back to that tattoo artist, he had a bad attitude and i didnt really enjoy the vibe at the shop.

i had moved on to a much more talented artist and he has done all my work since meeting him. turns out my new and old artist apprenticed at the same shop and once. so once i showed travis (my current tattoo artist) my shitty hip piece he said he would be willing to redo the color, though he normally doesnt touch other artists work.

i have multiple tattoos most arent visible on day to day

but my chest piece you can always see it.

i get a lot of nice comments from people. they always want me to pull back my shirt so they can see more.

but i find because i am a woman, a lot of men approach me and start ranting about how horrible of life decisions i am making.

i try to be nice at first, but i cant after a while. and im just straight up tell them to fuck off