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There is no question about who Hooper is and his level of talent, But why you have to diminish a positive comment tors my tattoo?

My collection by Jon West:

Let the humans think it all hurt as bad.

My collection by Jon West:

You and SStu... Damn, you two inspire me (and my legs)!

reactivating this thread with my Thomas Hooper piece:

My collection by Jon West:

My collection by Jon West:

I hate to be That Guy, but it seems to be the role I am destined to play in life.
It's Season 6 of Ink Master, not season 1. There is NO REASON for any artist to enter that House and say "Gee I don't do (insert name of style here)" because they should know by now what is expected of them. Even if you have never seen a single episode of the show, you have Internet access and you can go to the Wikipedia page and learn.
You can't do portraits? Don't sign up.
You can't do Black and Gray? Don't sign up.
You can't do American Traditional? Don't fucking sign up.
It's a competition not your home studio. If you can't handle the pressure, pack your shit and go home. Or better still, DON'T FUCKING SIGN UP. (I'm looking right at YOU, Mystical Mike, you fucking prat.)
Shane O'Neill, Scott Marshall, Steve Teft, Joey Hamilton...these guys didn't crack under the pressure. They consistently turned in solid, good tattoos under the exact same constraints as everyone else. And Scott Marshall then defeated 3 other Ink Masters in a Contest of Champions, so you can call him arrogant, but unless you can out-tattoo him, then you have no choice but to suck it up and drive on.
To quote Sean Connery "Losers whine about their best. Winners go home and fuck the Prom Queen."

Finally got some half-way decent healed photos of my Hooper musician leg.
On the other hand, trying to paste together such a single photo is near impossible, at least for an old geezer like me.

I'll reactivate the squidpants thread by putting this there, too . . .

Thank you so much! NJ is only fun in the summer haha. Well if you ever plan on coming around shoot me an email through my website! Thanks again
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Thank you! Much appreciated!

Hello everyone! My name's Kirk, I own a private studio in NJ and do geometric / dot work stuff. Simple introduction.:)

Inner arm near armpit really is crummy.

Got this Shishi Lion from Alix Ge at the London convention yesterday (pic nicked from her instagram):

When I arrived, Alix was still drawing. She told me we couldn't put the tattoo on the side of my thigh like I had asked for because for that I would have to lie down and she only had a chair. Well, alright then. When I came back from a short tour around the convention she had obviously done another drawing which was much bigger than the first. She thought the animal had to be rather large to be nice, good with me. But she didn't think we could fit peonies as well, would I be happy with cherry blossoms instead...? Bummer...what? Noooo...! Oh well, so we agreed to put on the lion stencil and see then. Stencil went on, peonies were added freehand. No problem, all fitted on there nicely....but...that was gonna be a looong session. If I was a strong woman, she asked. Ermmmmm, well, I bl**dy hoped so...what else could I say? She looked at me particularly sceptical after she found out it was only my second tattoo....
Obviously, we made it, yippie!!!
Six hours on a folding chair with two breaks. Even though I got some odd looks and remarks for running around with a pillow under my arm, I was well glad I had brought it because it made the chair way more comfortable! Apart from that, getting tattooed at the convention was actually surprisingly good as there was so much to watch and get distracted by. I could openly stare at all the tattoos walking by and quite a few people gave me encouraging smiles and words. That was really cool.
Alix is super lovely and I kinda felt a little bad for her having to sit on her small suitcase for hours. Towards the end she told me that she wouldn't be able to do what I did and that she'd never get a tattoo that takes more than one hour herself. I doubt that's actually true, but it was a sweet thing to say anyway.
Suffice to say I'm super chuffed but also glad it's over!
And this morning my 3 1/2 year old greeted me excitedly with "Mummy, I have a tattoo, too!". Turns out the entire family has tattoos now, some of them of the temporary type, some rather not ;-)

Ran a 5K.

I liked episode 13 because it showed some of the challenges in tattooing dark skin. It was still kind of disappointing because in just over 40 minutes, there wasn't a lot of discussion as to what should be done differently before a design, size, color and placement is chosen because the skin is dark as opposed to the choices that would be made with lighter skin.
As a person with dark skin that likes tattoos, it is hard to find information on design choices that would work better for dark skin. There is one blog that I have found that is dedicated to getting information out about what to look for. However, the blog's advice tends to be "find an artist that is used to tattooing dark skin". That doesn't go far enough. I live in an area that has a high concentration of black people. For the most part, any tattoo shop that is in the city or inner suburbs has a high number of customers that have dark skin. However, practice doesn't always make perfect. Just because a shop has tattooed customers with dark skin for 10 years doesn't mean that they are "good" at it.
The nature of the art of tattooing has a lot of secrecy in it. I can respect that, but it can reduce the amount of information that is available to the client to make an informed decision. We have to trust the artists that we do find that have experience with tattooing darker skin. That smaller number of artists limits our choices in the first place; we, as customers, don't know if the information and suggestions that we are receiving are good or not.
The other facet of the tattoo industry that hinders us is that portfolio pictures are usually taken as soon as the tattoo is done. This really doesn't help dark-skinned clients in the search for a good tattoo artist for two reasons. One is that even with artists that have a high number of dark-skinned clients, the portfolio pictures tend to skew more toward the clients with lighter skin tones. The second is that tattoos look different once they are healed. This difference is even more pronounced on clients with dark skin.
I meet many dark-skinned people with tattoos and get a chance to ask questions. However, it leaves me with more questions than I started with! I see designs that I wouldn't have been interested in in the first place. There are other factors that I find that would be different between what I would choose and what the person that I talk to chose. If I went by what I saw in the general public, I probably would have never gotten a tattoo.
I would like to see more discussion on tattooing dark skin in the industry in general. It seems like people are scared to talk about it because they may be perceived as being racist. However, the difference is real and should be discussed.
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To bring my long-winded discussion back around to this episode of Ink Master, I thought that Kruseman was unfairly criticized for keeping it simple with his tattoo. It is often recommended to keep tattoos simple on dark skin and I thought that Kruseman's tattoo showed up the best now and probably will in the future. I get that people don't think that guys want rose tattoos, but that is a myth that is proven wrong on a daily basis.
Chris' portrait tattoo also looked like it would hold up pretty well. While I agreed with the judges that the mouth was different from the photo and that the hands weren't great, I thought that those were minor details that didn't affect the overall tattoo and how it shows up now and will show up in the future.
Matt's tattoo was one that I thought that should not have been done on a client with dark skin. The eagle was too dark, detailed and cramped in the body in order to be able to discern what you are looking at if you see this tattoo from a distance. This showed the challenge that even if the tattoo is large, it still doesn't need to be as detailed as it would be on a client with lighter skin because the contrast isn't great enough for the eye to see that detail from a distance.
Craig's tattoo actually didn't seem as bad as what the judges made it out to be. The scribbles did distract me, but I thought that the use of gray to get a 3-D effect came out better than I thought that it would. I've seen designs like that that were done with all black that end up looking more like scars or cover-ups rather than tattoos. Visually, I think that Craig's may hold up better over time and if not, was one of the easier designs to touch-up in the future.
I don't know what to say about Duffy's tattoo. I couldn't tell what that was from a distance and would probably struggle if I were up close to it. This tattoo shows why I think the overall concept of a tattoo competition show is a bad idea because there needed to be more consultation with the client. The client initially wanted 5-6 different things. Duffy did talk him down to three things. However, the area where that tattoo was placed still doesn't allow for all of that to fit and show up well. Even just the Detroit skyline would have been difficult to show and contrast in such a relatively small space. I think that Duffy's tattoo would have been better with less black and more gray, but that's just my guess. She had a hard client to work with that just needed more time than what the show allows for.
Tyler's tattoo went the other direction, with too much gray and not enough black. There was too much detail for it to show up well on the client's skin, as well. The white ink probably won't be visible in less than two months, so the accents that we saw today will be gone soon. While I understood the judges' criticism of being unable to discern whether that was a bear or a canine, I could still tell that it was an animal of some sort. This gave his a leg up over Duffy's because I couldn't tell what her design was at all if I hadn't seen the consultation that led up to it.
Overall, I liked the episode because it forced the artists to deal with the challenge of tattooing dark skin. I have seen episodes of this show and other shows that show one or two clients with dark skin that all of the artists try to avoid. This brought the challenge to the forefront as these artists could not avoid dark skin at all.

Dont fuck with the wife's time... LOL... I been down that road and leads to no bueno...
lol
With that said, go get tattooed! :D

alright...should i take off from work early this afternoon and try and sneak in another bug tatt or two? there are some cool dudes from Gov Street Victoria tattooing at the Edmonton Comic Con this evening. Gotta get home by 7pm so I'm not late taking my wife out for dinner...hmmm...choices...lol

going to try and hook up some hypercolour mini bug tattoos this week...

Yeah, keeping Mustache Pete in the house kept Chris' "Team Florida" strong, which is what he wanted/needed. St. Marq would have crushed that little guy like an insect and Chris is actually a really good tactician as well as a damn fine artist. When I saw his Heart/Grenade that sealed his victory in my mind, although he has stumbled a couple times since then. Now that Tyler is gone he is alone and not well-liked, so the rest of the season is going to be interesting.
And Craig has more lives than a cat. He isn't going to make the Top 3, but he has survived a lot longer than I expected him too. He is probably a fantastic artist in his home studio, but the House seems to rattle him something fierce.

WoW didnt know that... As far as him leaving to early.. I didnt think so. Homeboy could not think outside the box and was stuck on his own ways/style.
By this season players know the game and they are not going to put up with ego maniacs that try to get in peoples head... so the whole team ganged up on him...
I am sure that if you would of have asked the second team to also have a pic from the over all team they would have gunned for him.
That tactic worked on most seassons but to his luck it did not play out on his advantage this time and the judges had no choice even though they didnt want him out... It was too clear...
Very talented artists but tooooooooo stuck to his own ways and people like that are not good for this type of games.
Also this was an amazing tactic by Chris.... He played it out well! he knew none of the other team mates could have taken out St. Marq and it was obvious he was going to be the one to be put on the head chopper... So Chris wanted to be put for elimination so he can have the chance to go head to head with him...
So one more player with strong reputation and skills out works very well on his favor...
Well played Chris... Well played..
Now he has about 3 maybe 4 more to worry about...

I've only seen the first two episodes but really enjoy watching it. It isn't nearly as goofy and melodramatic as the US's Tattoo Nightmares. The artists have a great sense of humor and the junky tattoos that walk in are hilarious.
I found the first season on a youtube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7VM7lxNafUfIWUOd2BkMRQ

Finally got to visit State of Grace and get my Molly Monmon Cat from Horitomo!
He did an amazing job. Just spectacular. I sent several pictures of her and some descriptions of her favorite things, her personality and her character. She *loved* shrimp sushi and got an entire order for her 16th birthday, right before we lost her to cancer. Horitomo created a picture of her in heaven with a halo and surrounded by her favorite things - including that she is surrounded by catnip! The face is perfect. I gave him a decent size square footage and told him he could expand beyond the cat and add other elements. Her face is perfect. When he showed me the sketch, my eyes just teared up.
It was neat to be tattooed on the platform in the shop. It is a little sanctuary with neat drawings, books and items on shelves. He is a quiet gentle soul.
I tried tebori for the whites and I probably would not do it again. For many areas, I didn't even feel the first 4-5 pokes. It just felt like a shoving pressure but there was *no* pain. Then the last several shoves were painful. But around my hip was bad all around. I'm glad I did it, though.
Crashing out now holed up in the hotel with mom. <3 <3 <3

Got this wicked draw-on zen spider from Jonny Murdoch from Government Street Tattoo (Victoria) who is in Edmonton for the week.
Also this smug lil bumble bee too:

the idea of which came to me in a dream 3 nights in a row...then i googled "angry bumble bee" and bam! clipart reference on the first hit.
These toonie sized tatts are so much fun. Hooray for "recreational tattooing" lol.
Jonny's hanging at Champion Tattoo, Shawn Hedley's new shop in town. Super dope shop, nice hospitality, guess they got a bunch of ringers guest spotting in the future...better leave some space ;) Great tattoo talk yesterday and I got to see a backpiece Filip Leu and Kurt Wiscombe tag teamed up close. Amazzzzzzzing

I prepare in advance for my visit... If I am sitting down for a long period of time, I take a chair pad to avoid my ass going numb and bothering me in top of the rest that is happening...
The same concept for the rest.... I have a small pillow and chair pad in my car at all times :)
Artists encourage you to be as comfortable as possible specially when you are going to be there hours...