rufio

yeah that happens. my main tattooist has clients who get going on backpieces, meanwhile they are getting lazer hits on full arms and rib panels for him to start immediately after the backpiece is done. clients with ongoing work generally get priority on the schedule. you may not be taken as seriously if you don't have the mileage yet. some tattooers will say slow-down-junior, let's start with one project before moving on to the next. all tattooers work differently.
also important - don't bit off more than you can chew. big tattoo is hard on the body and the bank account. remember getting tattooed by someone is a privilege and honour and not your right.

Hey, sure. Cattoos are awesome :3
 

Well, I feel like we finally jumped the shark from "casual fans of tattoos" to "oh god I'm spending all my money on tattoos". My wife and I flew from Austin to Los Angeles this past week to get tattooed by Freddy Negrete at Shamrock Social Club. He knocked out this St Michael in about 4 hours, all single-needle. He also did a portrait of my daughter on my wife. 
Freddy was very cool and the entire shop was awesome. As a side note, Mark Mahoney is probably the nicest tattoo artist I've ever met. He has me convinced to make a return trip out there to get tattooed by him too. 

politely requesting better angle of that picture because its a cattoo

:3
 

Started my back with Marius Meyer yesterday. 

Got this tribute to my hometown (this gazebo sits prominently in the town square) from Dave Wah at the Austin Convention this weekend. 

Got this kitsune from Matt Arriola yesterday.

Ongoing piece. When it's done it will start at my ankle and connect to my chest piece. It's a tiger and samurai on my leg and dragon on my ribs/stomach. Just outline and shading so far on the dragon. We decided to work our way up.

Small preview, full picture when it's healed. I love it!
Ripley: This thing bled acid. Who knows what it's gonna do when it's dead?

Just finished my first half sleeve!!! Woohooooooooo!!! 
15 hours, 12 of which were inking, the other two were mini cigarette breaks and stenciling and freehand drawing the lotuses, done in two back to back days in Thessaloniki (Greece)
Pics were taken a few minutes after the top lotus was done, will upload some pics when it's healed!

WIP, can't wait to finish it next week :3
Dallas: Mother's interrupted the course of our journey. She's programmed to do that should certain conditions arise. They have. It seems that she has... intercepted a transmission of unknown origin. She got us up to check it out.
 

Got my first leg tattoo by Victor J Webster @ East River Tattoo in NYC yesterday. It's his interpretation of the Bakunawa, the Philippine mythical dragon which devours the moon and causes lunar eclipses. 

Latest work:
49likes5comments
 
Can't figure out how to get the pic off of instagram. It's a tiger, part of my ongoing quest for full coverage.
EDIT - figured it out!

Snake has now become a raven. 7hrs today - the collarbone stuff was a stinger for sure. Talking of which, done by Guerra Stinger of Extreme Tattoo, Inverness. Another couple of hours to come adding some colourful flowers and more leaves. I like it! Now need shower and bed...

Well, here's my latest piece by Brian Tiger at Screamin' Ink Tattoo in N.J., still a few hours fresh. Unfinished, I hit the wall after 5 hours. I'll be going back to color it in in 2 weeks. Sorry for the bad picture...it's not easy taking good pics of yourself.
P.S. If it looks slightly crooked it's not, it's just from stretching my arm to take picture.

Got this happy head hunter on my inner lower leg. Done by Peter Lagergren. 

Man, everybody already used my smart-ass answers but the Greg Irons quip was funnier than I could have come up with.
But back to the original question.
This is one of the newer approaches to tattooing that makes me slightly uncomfortable to be honest. Myself and a few tattooers I know and work with have noticed the trend of customers finding a sense of pride in how long they had to wait for their tattoo. As if that makes the tattoo more worthwhile.
With some of the currently living/working tattooers mentioned in this thread, I personally know people (not even on the internet) that have tattoos from all of them. Filip, Horiyoshi III, Shige and Mike Rubendall. Yeah, they had to wait a little while for some of them but not as long as you'd think for others. Mike Roper is a different situation because he makes it deliberately difficult to get in touch with him, which answers the question posed above. But that wasn't really the question that was asked and it's rarely the question that gets asked. The question, or at least the implication, is "who has the longest waiting list' or "who has appointments booked furthest into the future". If I were to be snarky "who gives me the most bragging rights".
For me the hardest people to get a tattoo from are the tattooers who are located furthest away from me. The ones where I have to get off my ass and do something about it. Time is easier to overcome than distance although patience is a different matter. It astonishes me that people call our shop from the outskirts of the city expecting us to change the way we work because they are catching a train to get here. On the other hand, we are humbled and honoured by the people who cross seas and continents to get tattooed regularly with us.
But that's aside from the issue.
Why is it a trend that makes me uncomfortable?
Because I've heard people brag about how long they had to wait for 'x' artist and wear that information like a badge of honour. It feels almost as distasteful as bragging about who charges the most. Yeah, tattoos are for tough guys and tough buys like to brag and maybe that seems harmless, but it makes me uncomfortable and I have trouble clearly explaining why.
Maybe it's because it's a phenomenon spurred on by the internet and the gossipy world of hearsay. Nobody calls and checks with the artists or shops they want to get tattooed at. Nobody travels down to the shop to ask the question. They just ask random strangers on the internet who have a lot of time on their hands and like to talk about something they know nothing about. Then the reality gets lost or twisted and in the end the real information is lost. I see this a lot with regards to the shop I work at. Forums are (or certainly used to be) bursting with 'facts' about how much we charge, how long we take, how far 'x' and 'y' are booked or how long their waiting lists are. Nobody calls the shop to ask and nobody suggests that the person calls to ask.
I know that happens with a lot of things but it seems like this is starting to have a real-world effect, however small. People who wanted tattoos that we would love to do heard that we wouldn't tattoo them at our shop because we were so cool and busy and booked up for decades and rolling around in money 'n' bitches or something. We've heard of this a few times and it seems to be happening more. Yeah, we're busy, you may have to wait a little, maybe not. If someone has contact information, especially a phone number on their website it means that they want you to call.
I'm not really going to touch on the tone of the "are they a fad or are they really worth it?" comment, except to say that if you have to ask, the answer is "no".
Sorry to jump on this fun thread with a rant. I look forward to more witty quips.

tatt bros for life!

Why not make an artist into a book
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropodermic_bibliopegy

I personally think it's hard making a book in general, yet alone making one about an artist.

Yeah, but walls don't have feelings. If customer service is honestly a hindrance to your process, start blasting walls or engraving Naugahyde or baking clay and artistically breaking it. You may have to art, but you don't have to art on skin is all I'm saying. :D

arters gonna art

Check out this thread, I got some advice on this topic in there awhile back that was really helpful:
http://www.lastsparrowtattoo.com/forum/general-tattoo-discussion/853-hardest-artist-book.html