David Flores

It was a good exhibit, lot of fun stuff, can't wait to see the book.

I can understand both sides of the coin. If you want a true body suit, or if you just feel comfortable with with one person that is cool. I can also see the appeal to traveling and collecting stuff from tattooers you admire. I think most people on this forum understand just how many good tattooers are out there. There is kind of a pet peeve if you want to call it that about some people that I encounter. I guess there are a few different variations of it, but it centers around people with trust issues from tattoo shops. I can understand people want to be sure about getting tattooed, but they sure do say some dumb shit sometimes. I think the worst is "I get tattooed by so an so and would never trust anyone else with my skin but now I moved and have to find someone else." Most of the time it's someone with four shitty tattoos, so you want to let them have it, but usually just ignore them. My boss on the other hand makes no promises. I think even when heavily covered people say they only trust the people inside our shop to tattoo them, I sometimes think "Wow I thought you were more informed than that.' I know it's a compliment and it's taken that way, but I always follow the thank you, with letting them know there are plenty of other competent people to get tattooed by in Portland and all over the country for that matter, but we are glad to have you here. I guess what it comes down to, is if you get tattooed by one person, because it's convenient or it suits what type of tattoo plan you have, then cool. If you under the delusion that you are going to the only competent tattooer in the world, then you annoy me and are a douche. What Tattooers are you going to in these cities.

Unrelated note I will not be on much for next week ,be all up in the windy city for a little while.

Honestly I am 33, I was married for 5 years the first time and 3 so far this time and had a couple other 1 year or close to relationships. I am just not on the market that much. I would not be opposed to dating a heavily tattooed woman, but my wife might take issue with it. Also the idea of what is heavily tattooed might be different to me. I mean if the average person who has a tattoo has one or two at the most, maybe my wife with her 10-12 tattoos could be considered heavily tattooed, but maybe I still see her the way I met her. I mean it's hard for me to even consider myself heavily tattooed.

I have never dated a heavily tattooed women, but can't think of the last women I dated or even played twister with that didn't have at least a couple tattoos.

Yeah I wrote that before starting the list, but it turned out a little longer than I remembered. I forgot one name Matt Diehl tattooed an Aloha Monkey on me before he moved to back home to Maui. There are so many people i want to get tattooed by that I never will, but I am pretty happy with what i have gotten so far.

I thought of one, but it doesn't always annoy me in a bad way. I hate when people come in and tell you how much they are into tattoos or that they are going to be a tattooer, but can't remember anyone who tattooed them. Much like a one night stand, if someone is going to tattoo me I am going to make sure and catch their name. It would be hard for me to forget who tattooed me. I guess I just don't think you can really be into tattoos if you don't know who is who. I guess a couple scenarios that stick out. Hanging at a buddy's shop a couple on vacation abroad walked in wanting a couple small tattoos, they had a few tattoos, but none very exciting, but being a good guest my buddy asked who did their tattoos and he struggled for the name but came up with Filip Leu as the guy who did their wedding band tattoos. We were both kind of floored, you were able to somehow catch Filip Leu with some spare time and well I guess it's a meaningful tattoo to them, but imagine what could have been. When I was at Spider Murphys recently a guy was getting tattooed by Matt and in this scenario I will say this guy was definitely into tattoos, he certainly liked talking about the Dragon Ed Hardy put on him in the early 90's. He was getting a rose next to an existing tattoo of one of picassos paintings. Like a good host Matt asks him who did it, and the guy says Ed was busy and he had one of the other guys in the shop named Dan do it. Asked what year and he said 91-92, holy shit Dan Higgs did this tattoo on him, which is cool in itself, but would have been cooler if it was something he had drawn up. Anyhow most of the times it's more annoying people with less interesting stories that annoy me, the above scenarios were kind of cool, but I think I have rambled on enough.

My list is not very long but here it goes. Dan Gilsdorf Stuart Cripwell Doug Hardy Nick Colella Mario Desa Gilly Smash Lana Gooding Chad Ramsay Ross Ferrie * Ashley Howell* Derek Ward* Ross Carlson* Todd Janaczek* Manee Friday* Josiah Laughlin* Mike Volakakis * Zach Nelligan Justin Dion Jelena Nickolic Matthew Mattison * Seems like I am forgetting a few, will have to study my tattoos and see if I come up with anymore. *multiple times

I just lather it as best I can and stand under the hottest water I can for a couple extra minutes to ensure all blood is washed off. Same for lotion and ointment, just tried to get the majority of tattoo. My wife is going to be out of town for two weeks and I will be getting a session done on my back and the back of my thigh outlined so I guess I will be winging it again.

One of the guys at the shop just squeezed "why the fuck are you reading this" in between two tattoos on his calf. Best lettering tattoo ever. although I have been thinking about getting "Carpe Dumb" tattooed on me.

Welcome Jane, I hope you find this forum useful.

That seems really cheap for those books.

I wouldn't worry about it. I would shy away from using any sort of bandage or tegaderm after you use the initial bandage. You have plenty of time to worry about stuff like this, I am sure your tattooer will can help you out with aftercare in the sense that he or she could modify your aftercare instructions to better suit your situation and still take care of your tattoo properly, after all they deal with this stuff everyday.

What does that even mean? - - - Updated - - - My Wife has a few tattoos, my girlfriend on the other hand......... rimshot!

You don't really want to "lube up" a tattoo. Any ointment you put on should be very minimal, gooping it up could screw up your tattoo worse, plus the door jam is probably not the cleanest of surfaces, you wouldnt want what was hanging out there to get rubbed into your healing tattoo. I am sure you can find someone help you out, otherwise I would say keeping a tattoo clean has way more to do with how a tattoo heals than what or if you put ointment on it. But ultimately listen to what you tattooer tells you to do, it's their work and they are the one who end up having to deal with it if it doesn't heal right.

The customer probably picked that piece of flash off the wall, but subject matter aside the line work is clean, and the shading is smooth, the tattoos he draws are constructed well. This guy knows how to put on a tattoo pretty well. I have never booked had to book a consult one month out, so other people must think he is pretty good as well.

I think you are on the right track, I saw one guy at Imperial that does realistic style but mostly saw japanese and American Traditional. I would say for the most part all these shops are professionals and aren't going to take on a tattoo they aren't comfortable doing and would refer you to someone who could.

Plenty of room trust me. You have to remember your arm curves around so essentially you have the distance equal to the circumference of you arm as tattoable space and obviously however long your arm is. So even if your pythons aren't the size of Hulk Hogan's you should still be able to get a nice sized tattoo about the size of a sheet of copy paper on your upper arm. You might not hear that the idea sucks because they want to make your idea into a good tattoo. The guys at Pearl Harbor won't bull shit you, I am sure they would rather turn you away than put a bad tattoo on you. But they can turn a questionable design into a kick ass tattoo if you give them the leeway to do so

Yes and No. You don't have to bring in the exact thing that you want, but you should have examples of things that you like, it's your homework for a custom tattoo. The idea is that they draw what you want the first time. If you just went in and said hey i want a medevil dragon and a wolf and I am cool with whatever you want that would be one thing, but clearly you have very specific ideas about what you want and how you want it to look. Just do the best you can, ultimately they are going to draw a tattoo for you, so just give them a starting point.

My buddy just got a skull and snake at that shop by Chris Barnett, turned out really nice.

That tattoo is not very well done, It's kind of splitting hairs to criticize the anatomy of something that doesn't exist, but it's just not right, and the shading in the skull is not very smooth. It's looks like two different designs shoved together instead of a solid cohesive tattoo design. I would shy away from using other tattoos as refernce to be honest, especially if you don't have a keen eye for detail yet, also most tattoo photos are taken from weird angles and if someone tried to trace it, your tattoo would be out of proportion. Not to mention there are way more bad tattoos than good out there. Find some illustrations of the dragons you want, hit the bookstore and or library, a nice clean illustration will be something your tattooer will appreciate.

I didn't have to google it, it was on my camera still. But yeah that kind of stuff can make a good tattoo for sure. Good Luck.