David Flores

Drove about an hour and a half to get tattooed by my friend Matt Diehl before he moves back home to Maui. Thought I should get something that suited the situation. - - - Updated - - - Looks like when I go to San Fran next month Dan Gilsdorf will be tattooing me at Blackheart, just booked appointment, pretty stoked.

I try not to judge people but working in a shop you can't help it. I can't recall a time where someone came in and wanted a hand of neck tattoo as their first or second tattoo and they weren't some gangster wannabee or extreme douchebag, trailer trash, or a combination of all three ( in most cases a juggalo). The funny thing is I think I get more stares and dirty looks in public because so many people have trashy neck tattoos but very few people are heavily covered all over. It's a disturbing thought that some stranger thinks me and mr script lettering on my neck are BFF's.

I am totally with you at this point in my life, don't want to work in a job like that and willing to work harder and maybe make less money to do so, but would be hesitant to recommend it to someone who is 22 and no marketable skills. It's a lot easier to say you don't care when you have your shit together. Shit even having a job makes you not punk rock by some people's standards.

A lot of the times the coverup is more of a distraction than the tattoo. People would assume it was a brace and ask you what you did to your arm. I knew a guy who would ace bandage his forearm tattoos and he looked like a burn victim bagging groceries and pushing carts. Again he had to answer a thousand questions. He eventually moved to freight shift so he worked overnights.

I have never seen anyone buy those pantyhouse sleeves as anything other than a Halloween costume. However it is funny the influence that tattoo designs has on clothing and culture. You see some weekend warrior pull up on a Harley with no tattoos but the their jacket has a big tattoo style rose and their tank has a skull or some tribal design. I am always shocked at the amount of little things I notice in a day that have been influenced by tattoos or tattoo design.

I kind of took the opposite approach. I know what I do for a living now may not be what I do in the future, but if I do have to do something else, I will be less than willing to take a job that required me to cover up. It's not even really about the tattoos, It's the corporate culture. I know it limits my options, but I have always been more about quality than quantity. There is a certain lifestyle aspect to me getting tattoos along with the appreciation of the art. We all make compromises to how "punk" we are, but at least for me their has to be a cut off point.

If I were to get lettering I would check the stencil, knowing how to tattoo and being a good speller do not always go together. Clearly the tattoo that started this thread has way more things wrong with it than spelling as well. I know someone personally who tattoos and has dyslexia. He has been battling it his whole life. When he started tattooing 20 years ago people weren't getting ridiculous amounts of script lettering on their ribs and it wasn't too hard to make sure a few words were spelled right. Nowadays about 40percent of people that walk into his shop want lettering of some sort. He makes people write it down and check the stencil just because he knows he is apt to misspell a word especially when you are doing large amounts of lettering. Also if the customer misspells a word he may not catch it for the same reason. Needless to say I haven't seen him misspell anything but I have caught a few mistakes on stencils. But he has does some of the cleanest traditional and black and grey work in town and even his lettering is super clean. I would rather have a mispelled tattoo by him than some shitty lettering spelled right.

Tattoo Asylum stumbled upon this persons stuff, looks pretty nice.

.: Lance McLain ::: Dragon Tattoo :.

I would find it hard to remove something like a tattoo with a topical ointment. I don't know for certain as I have never used one of these creams, but if they did work people would talk about them more. Everyone always has a friend or a sisters friend who used it and it worked great but never have actually met anyone who used this stuff. Funny you would think one of those people would come back in to rub it in my face after I told them they would just be wasting their money. Furthermore if they even lightened the tattoo a little bit, it would be a useful tool for tattooers trying to do a cover-up. But I haven't heard of anyone backing any of these products. My 2 cents is yeah too good to be true.

I always expect most people won't like my tattoos. Tattoos are more acceptable these days, in a lot of situations, but people still have a lot of preconceived notions about people with tattoos. I find even people that don't like tattoos seem to be drawn to them. These are a lot of the reasons that have drawn me into tattoos.

Most tattooers are their own publicist. I can understand to some degree looking to market yourself better. I think the people who do good work deserve all the credit they get, and for the most part well know tattooers certainly are putting out quality work, but we all know how many people are putting out phenomenal work and no one knows their names. Being in the right book, or at the right convention, doesn't take the place of years of hard work, but a few friends in the right places certainly doesn't hurt. .That being said, I only know of one guy with a publicist and it didn't surprise me a bit when i heard he had one if that makes sense.

I logged on and was like what the F@*k! You got me!

He is like 20 months. Fairlyland you say, I will have to look that up it sounds like fun. My little guy has a lot of energy to say the least.

I don't have any clue, I just get tattooed. Don't get me wrong I obsess about tattooing and talk about a lot of aspects of tattooing just not the terminology of arm tattoos. Sleeve and half sleeve have kind of become one of those slang words that make you cringe. But I will admit it is part of the tattoo vocab and use the terms at time for lack of a better term. But most of the time I hear any of these terms it's from someone with no tattoos. As far as Japanese stuff goes the different variations of coverage are pretty interesting. I think it was Taki's book Bushido that breaks a lot of that stuff down. There seems to be more purpose, a method to the madness if you will. Similar concept just more interesting in my opinion.

It is true a lot of people did start out tattooing out of there house. Keep in mind that the stuff in the tattoo artist interviews happened a long time ago. It's was a lot different when there was only a handful of shops even in major cities. There are a lot more tattoo shops and people tattooing out there. Most tattooers think there are too many people tattooing and i have heard dozens openly advertise that there are not apprenticing people for tattooing because of this. I don't think it's anything personal, it's just a conscious effort in self preservation. Even when they hire shop help it is with the understanding that it's a dead end job and will not result in you learning to tattoo, so even scrubbing toilets isn't going to work anymore. when a shop is hiring a tattooer, it's not an open casting for a tattoo apprentice, they are putting the ad out there to get people in other established shops thinking about if they want to relocate or in some cases looking for tattooers who have been working hard at a shop for a few years to step up their game and be good enough to work at a better shop. Trying to talk your way into a job is a lost cause. I am not saying it's impossible to become a tattooer, but it sure isn't going to be handed to anyone who walks in the door on a random wednesday.

Even with half sleeves you still have to wear a long sleeve shirt and roll up the sleeves, in my mind there is not much difference between half and three quarters. My right arm goes down below my wrist bone, right up to the top of my hand, my left stops at wrist bone for now, at times I wish I would have left a little room to cuff my sleeves, but mostly I just want to get my hands done, but even without having to consider professional restraints, it's a big step to not be able to hide tattoos in public.

When a shop is looking for a tattooer usually there is some fine print about no scratchers no wannabe apprentices , must have 5 years experience. So maybe that is why your story about tattooing a strippers rib with a kit you bought from the mall with no supervision as your first tattoo didn't win them over. Reading your posts you come off like a guy who is really trying to be cool and justify the path as a kitchen magician that you have chosen and gain some sort of acceptance in the tattoo world. But the more you talk the less people think of you, my only advice would be to talk less, listen more.

Working on finding a person who can give you an exceptional tattoo and not worry about the dagger for awhile. There may be something that could be done to make look better, but at this point if you go around looking for someone to fix it, you probably aren't going to find someone good interested in that project. You may find someone who just wants your money and won't be able to improve your tattoo. However if you find a good tattooer or tattoo shop and become a regular client they might be more likely to fix it if there is anything that can be done. If they say it can't be done at least at that point you could trust their opinion and at least you found a place to get good tattoos.

Yoga tattoo pose was the instagram caption on this photo. It's not the first time I have been in that pose, but the only time my friends took the liberty of snapping pics. I layed down for awhile, but I was getting a little restless at that point.

I think his right arm has too many stars and dots. I would have gotten more small tattoos and did just a few stars and dots to tie it together. Pretty good collection nonetheless.

It was a popular week to be in Chicago. I ran into @waverly at airport he was flying to Portland for a friends wedding. He sat next to us on the plane. I met him once before in SF at Tattoo City, but it was nice to get to chat with him for a bit and it was nice to have a somewhat familiar face when flying with a small child.

I feel the same way sometimes about getting tattooed. I feel like every spot I have left is going to suck royally, but somehow I keep getting tattooed. I can't wait till I am done, but I am sure when I am out of spots I will wish I had more room even in shitty areas.

I think people are searching for something that doesn't exist. This mythical original idea that no one has thought of. When in reality someone has already thought of it determined it sucked and got something better tattooed. Most of the people I hang with think it's cool when you have the same tattoo, in fact my friend got a tattoo I already have the day before I went to Chicago . Even last week getting tattooed by someone I had never met before I noticed we had a lot of the same tattoos and some tattoo designs I had always wanted to get. I have plenty of tattoos that aren't off flash sheets but I mean ultimately if most of your tattoos are in the same style your look is going to be very similar even if the subject matter is different.

This is a picture of me getting tattooed in Chicago last week. This is one of the strangest and most uncomfortable positions to get tattooed but seems to be the most effective to get your inner upper thigh tattooed. Thanks to Gilly Smash @ Family Tattoo for being such a good sport as it is a pain near the ass (among other things) spot.