eisen777

I see the hands and face more of something you should do as an accomplishment. I know a guy pretty heavily covered, owns his own coffee drive thru franchises, but basically said he's waiting to do his hands till he can say he's a millionaire. This isn't some sort of self imposed dress code or rule by him, as he hire whoever regardless of tattoos, but more a way to reward himself for his hard work and accomplishment and at the same time not rushing into highly visible tattoos. He is still his own boss and most nights of the week you will find him at the local tiki bar or at some live music show, he's living the life, he doesn't need anything else to prove that.
Then I go into the mall to the cool kid clothing store or corporate "skate shop" and see the kid with ears the size of elephants and some graffiti style lettering across his throat and the only thing I can think is "douche" . He probably lives at home with his mom or at best with 3 other guys in an apartment living on a steady diet of top ramen and 211 and watching the same three dvd's over and over. I mean I can't judge too much, I did that too I just drank better beer so had no money for neck tattoos.
But the point is at that point in our lives most of us hadn't accomplished shit, hell we could barely pay rent on time. But the tattoo is supposed to tell me you are cool or don't conform to society because you do exactly the same thing every dumb kid does.
I know in a way they are sweeping generalizations and personally I am at the point in my life where dress codes about tattoos are about the dumbest things I can think of, but their is still such a thing as a right and wrong way to get tattooed, in my opinion you should live the lifestyle before you get the tattoo.
Also my tattoo choices in my 30's are way better than my 20's.

Started by torso with Thomas Hooper today

Today was my first day back to work after a 12 day vacation, during which I had my hand tattooed. I wore a Lycra material wrist support thing I found at the drug store. Flesh toned, pretty soft, and no finger holes; completely open at the knuckles. It hid the top of my hand perfectly and after a bit I didn't even feel it.
No one noticed. Not one question or comment. Since I always wear long sleeves at work it helps cause the sleeves hang low onto my hands. To be certain though, prior to leaving for my vacation I printed our current personal appearance policy and date stamped it. At the very moment I had my hand tattooed I was within policy (cover it). I know for certain no one has a hand tattoo. So, if they eventually find out, freak, and re-write the policy to ban hand tattoos entirely, I will be grandfathered in and OK. Gotta love being in a union.

I have a private movie theater, and we can stream from youtube. I watched episode 1 last night on a 25foot screen. So so rad.

Well hell, that doesn't surprise me, y'all paid Teddy the K's salary for how many years?!?!?!?!?!

That really sucks for that guy. This is also the reason why I have gave up wearing white shirts at work, they show tattoos REALLY easily (plus I always happen to spill coffee on myself).
The way I see it in the proffessional world you are an "asset". Companies choose the best possible asset for the lowest cost. Simple really. When people start to realize this, they will hopefully realize to keep your personal life outside of work (at least for us office types). My clients/coworkers don't know I like metal music, ride motorcycles, have tattoos, hell some don't even know I smoke cigarettes. Why, you may ask, because they are not my friends and it is a "whatever you say can and will be held against you" environment. The less they know the better.

off to see OM tonight. Should be excellent.

awesome.

I went to the record store and I guess Friday was record store day they had mayhem de mysteries Dom Santanas on vinyl which I don't have on record and is one of my favorite black metal albums so I was excited.

I went to the record store and I guess Friday was record store day they had mayhem de mysteries Dom Santanas on vinyl which I don't have on record and is one of my favorite black metal albums so I was excited.

I went to the record store and I guess Friday was record store day they had mayhem de mysteries Dom Santanas on vinyl which I don't have on record and is one of my favorite black metal albums so I was excited.

Any art collector that hasn't considered buying some of his work is failing.

Todd Noble

I would say the subject matter they paint is very similar and the color palette as mentioned, but Conn's stuff has so much more going on and is looking for a much bigger effect. Cleen looks like he is trying to keep it simpler. If he was trying to rip off Conn, I think he would make his paintings a little busier, try to incorporate background elements that Conn uses. I think clearly Cleen has been influenced by Conn, but that can be said for pretty much this whole generation of tattooers. Same with Dan Higgs and even Aaron Coleman, I see a lot of these guys in the tattoos people do everyday, and I don't think people are ripping it off, they are just doing what they think looks cool.

Consultation at Yellow Blaze tomorrow. Glad I'm not under the needle till the weekend- couldn't sleep last night due to the time difference. Got out of bed and went for sushi at Tsukiji fish market at dawn.

@CercleRouge my point, or at least one of them was that this 'style' is so special and interesting, I'll be sad to see it become a recognised tattoo style that anyone thinks they can have a go at. That's my main point and just because customers ask for it, that doesn't mean tattooers should fill their portfolios and instagram with it.
Maybe I should add here that I have done tattoos in this style. I've done a lot of tattoos in a lot of styles with varying degrees of success.
I've done tattoos from Duncan X's flash and loved every second but I didn't pass it off as my own work. Same with dotwork mandalas and OpArt designs. I even added them to Japanese style sleeves after Binnie's flash but again, the photos didn't wind up in my folio because I didn't want to make a point of imitating something so fresh and interesting. I'd rather take the mechanism of their layout, approach and influences of their work and apply it to something else because a slightly tweaked version of something new and exciting doesn't make the copy more exciting.
Maybe I'm just being crusty and crotchety when I preferred it when the only place you could get any decent work of this kind was In2You in London and LTW in Barcelona.
I also think that your little dig comparing traditional tattoos to McDonalds was a little ill-though out and reactionary. Already in this (only 3 page) thread we've seen the 'same' compositions, patterns and images repeated by various artists.
I' not trying to change anything. I know that anything new and interesting will be imitated so quickly that it's difficult to tell which came first.
I'm not trying to tell anyone what to get tattooed or who to get it from. People like what they like, that's cool.
Maybe I should use less words: Just because someone tattoos like Jondix or Duncan, that doesn't mean they are anything like Jondix or Duncan.

Something like this?

The real thing that upsets me o is if the kid really wanted it and some asshole tells them they cant do it it just makes the kid feel like crap. Its not really about the world of tattooing here for me, more about the children. FOR GOD SAKE WILL SOMEONE THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!!!!!!!!

started today with my boss... we decided that since we put a backpiece on my chest, we should do a chestpiece on my head.

EDIT: just realized i forgot to mention... by Josh Cruse, of JP Cruse Professional Tattooing, in Wichita, KS. i'm used to posting things to my friends on Facebook, where i don't have to clarify as much.

so cool!!!!! I bet you had an awesome time over there next to Zach too haha- did you see his photo of the inkmaster asshats
- - - Updated - - -
2 this weekend- Went to Richmond Saturday and had a great time meeting folks and hanging out with good friends, and finally got to meet @CultExciter who is indeed a true gent with an amazing sleeve and now a good start on another!
First up is side-o-neck by Matt Bivetto, my go to guy and one of the finest and most humble people (and artist) you could meet.

So after getting back to Roanoke at about 2AM I headed up to Keepsake in Arlington the next day to see Tomas Garcia, another one of my favorite people and a visionary artist- I was going to do the other side of my neck but it was too swollen soooo Tomas crafted me an amazing portrait on my calf:

I am clearly into super tough guy imagery :-D

VT isn't too far from rochester. probably like 4-5 hours. there's surprisingly a decent amount of quality tattooers that attend.

this is a ways away, but the convention that is in rochester has a pretty stellar lineup-zach nelligan, greg christian, marie sena, mario desa, krooked ken, jr tubbs, just to name some of my favorites from last year. how the hell do i only choose one or two?

Fuckin a guy, what a great start to your arm.

Mario Desa was kind enough to tattoo me at the Richmond Tattoo Convention.

I started my clean arm!

here's my new one from duncan x, from a bruegel engraving