ThaliaCamille

@captaincabinet I've been away from this forum a while, and you've improved in leaps and bounds! This newest one in particular is gorgeous. @youthcrewalex love it, especially the shading on the horse. It's been a while since I uploaded anything, we'll see if this works... a bit of a rush piece for one of my uni subjects this semester.

My family is mainly Greek Orthodox. Though my parents aren't really religious, all the extended family's weddings, christenings and funerals happen in the Orthodox church. Greek superstitions are a mainstay amongst my older relatives. The first to come to mind is the "evil eye". Basically, there's a theory that someone, intentionally or by accident, can transfer bad luck or a jinx to you just by looking at you. Lots of Greeks carry (usually as jewellery) a blue eye symbol, which is meant to stare back at the giver of the "evil eye" to ward off the bad luck. My grandparents have a heap of these little eye symbols in the form of small paintings and random knick-knacks all over their houses. I've always thought it would make for a kind of cool tattoo. My other favourite is about bat bones being lucky (but never kill the bat, that's unlucky!). I think a little bat skeleton tattoo would be cool. Same goes for moths - a moth above your door means you'll get visitors, and moths are said to be a kind of protector (depending which village you're from). I can definitely see myself getting a moth tattoo. I've always wanted a crow tattoo, and I actually feel crows are good luck (we have a lot of them in my city, they're awesome), but most older Greeks I know will do anything to ward them off, and spit/say certain words when they see one for fear of being cursed by it. I just can't shake that old superstition of crows being bad luck, despite the fact I'm a total non-believer. I also have a tattoo based on Greek mythology. Even though it's not exactly superstition-related, the imagery feels very comforting to me.

This. So much this. I love your story :D Although nowhere near the same, I have some health stuff that's not fun (Fibromyalgia and Ehlers Danlos Syndrome). I felt quite negative toward my body, knowing I can't do the things I used to do, can't go out on a whim like my friends, can't run (used to be one of my big hobbies). Getting tattooed hurts like a mofo because of the hypersensitivity, but the achievement - getting to look at a part of my body and go "I sat through hours of pain for that" helps to pick me up on a bad day and remind me that I'm doing better than I give myself credit for. That there are still things that I CAN do, and having awesome artwork all over me is one. So yes, having tattoos has changed my life. In other ways too, of course - the way strangers interact with me has changed, but I can't say I have time or energy to think about that too much. Mostly they remind me that I kick ass.

@CercleRouge that last pic is gory as! They're all looking good though.

This is pretty great. Only two Aussies though, for shaaaaaame! :P If I may, I'd like to suggest Rachi Brains, Matt Cunnington, Anna Day and Jasmin Austin as a starting point.

Man... very slowly, compared to yours! My health being so crappy right now, I'm just focusing on getting my degree finished and doing little things to feel better, so no job. It sucks being too poor for tattoos, but it's really liberating having no obligations 5 days of the week! I did enter a pageant, though, which is insane and something I never thought I'd do. Good luck with the travels, it's an unusual and exciting thing you're about to do!

As far as I've been told (at least where I am, but probably in most places around the world), apprentices for the most part start making money when they start doing tattoos. It makes sense, in a way, since if you aren't tattooing you aren't bringing money in. There are other jobs where, during your training/study, you don't get paid. The first ones that come to mind are my friends studying teaching, nursing and pharmacy: they have to do "placements" for several weeks at a time during their course which are unpaid. It's just an unfortunate part of learning. That said, I think there should be some flexibility so that people like @captaincabinet who have other responsibilities can still have a second job to pay the bills.

I do have to say, I've always felt a bit uncomfortable about the fact that discussion of apprenticeships is considered "taboo" on this forum. I don't mean to say that we should have threads happening like "I wnt 2 aprnts, y no1 likez me?", nor that anyone is obliged to share knowledge or anything of the sort. I just feel it's a bit unfair that any time someone mentions a desire to apprentice, they get people jumping down their throat. I know it probably gets annoying for the tattooers here to constantly have people asking for an apprenticeship in real life, then to have to read about it online too. I think some of the more in-depth responses like many in this thread will serve better to lessen those incidences than some of the more harsh "keep out of my industry!"-type ones. On a personal note, I made the same mistake when I first signed up here in 2011. Since then, I've undertaken 40+ hours of getting tattooed, and absorbed as much of the general awesome-ness that this forum can offer. I still want to tattoo, but I know that I've still got a ways to go. This forum has helped with that, and I hope @Kahlan wont get discouraged and will hang around. Oh, and @Great Lakes Tattooing since you're the OP I don't want your point to be lost either. There are probably some dodgy operators who take advantage of keen apprentices when a paid counter-person/helper is probably what they need. It's a shame that there are bad attitudes on both ends: it gives a bad name to the genuine apprenticeship-seekers AND the genuine tattooers who want to take someone on.

While I probably can't answer most of those questions, for my own sake I'm gonna go ahead and say "yes" :P "Saturated" is something of a subjective term. It's going to depend a lot on physical location, for one thing. There's also the fact that a lot of tattooers =/= a lot of good tattooers. There'll always be those trashy shops in every town where anyone with a lick of sense wont set foot. Actual quality tattooing, in my opinion, is still way below a point that could be called saturation. If those who are putting out quality work can take on an apprentice and increase the number of professionals with knowledge and integrity, I can only see that being a good thing.

I've gotta admit, I never noticed the lack of black women in flash/tattoos before. I feel kinda stupid now. Done by Dusty Neal (more info at THE STATIC AGE, I started thinking one day how I )

Welcome, fellow Aussie.

Rad thread, thanks for starting it @Delicious ! I never knew there were so many awesome beards here. It's funny to see how different some people look to how I imagined them (or, conversely, how similar). Anywho, here's me being all Cheesecake recently in celebration of losing 10kg/getting more tattooed.

I quit my job and moved to the other side of town. Big, scary changes, but I figure before my health gets any worse I may as well "seize the day" and start doing stuff I wanna do. So far, it sure beats answering phones (lessened income aside :P )!

Having just finished the piece on my sternum/lower ribs yesterday, my opinion that the foot is the worst might be being challenged. All I can say is, judging by the bit that went onto my stomach, the squishy parts of my torso shall remain untouched for a loooooong time!

This reminds me of all the fun of healing a sleeve. It's looking great, can't wait to see more on it!