Daggboy

My experience with surgical scars (about 7 years old) is the ink always took well, and the tattooing hurt less than normal skin. It was almost pretty numb getting tattooed. Conventional wisdom says the longer you leave scars the better the final tattoo will be. Let it settle and definitely not when it's angry and raised. As for bad skin, nothing will save you from that! I have weird skin on my hips with stretch marks and ink doesn't like it. Especially some white has taken years to settle.

Awesome! I just re-watched this tonight because I'm seeing Filip this weekend to finally start colouring in my backpiece with him - finally! Somehow I ended up at this video while gathering my thoughts on colour options. All I can say is, for those who've spent some time with him this is a good representation of his flexible and inquisitive mind, together with his humble nature. I'm always doubly humbled as to how, after a couple of hours with him, you stop thinking of FILIP LEU and he just becomes Filip. It's a special skill I'm sure gathered from years of interacting with people in a certain state (frenetic, groupies, then in long periods of pain etc) but I'm always pleased to interact with his mind and how thoughtful he is about many things. Though we often disagree! I think what makes him a great tattooer, aside from the obvious, is his genuine humility. It always strikes me as something which surely must enable him to learn from the people he meets, and at the risk of sounding cynical & bitter, is what stops over confident young guns from becoming better. I'll keep saying it again and again, the best tattooers are always the ones who'll look you in the eye properly when they shake your hand. Anyway, enough mythologising. If you want some work from him, just ask! I think he's happy to take on work he fancies. Now onto some colour decisions for my back...

I know Filip Leu is going for the opening in early July coz he can't tattoo me if that helps :))

I think this year is going to be a really amazing Convention because of the line up and some specials. I didn't know Horitomo was going, but what a score! Alex Reinke is going to be launching a book about Mick of Zurich, which'll have loads of unpublished work from Mick's massive repertoire of work. The Leu Family will attend and they only do London once every 2 years. Same with Sabine Gaffron. Kurt Wiscombe is going. And Mike the Athens!! Now I'm gonna go lurk on the convention's instagram to see what else is up.... Now if i see Mike Roper I'll really fall off my chair. I have to say though it's a crazy convention even as conventions go. I mean the cross contamination that goes on in those toilets is insane. Get tattooed early I guess and try not to touch too many things!

Traditionally, peonies blossom in summer, cherry blossoms come out in spring and only very briefly.

Coming very late and possibly reviving this thread, but that amazing front piece is by Jun Matsui, one of my favourite blackwork tattooers. He is Japanese/Brazilian & I'm pretty sure at the time of that tattoo was still living in Tokyo. No idea on the plan or otherwise of that tattoo. A great combination or collaboration no less!

By coincidence, I have just moved cities to Canberra and realised that I am now living around the corner - literally 2 streets away - from the site where I started collecting my very first proper tattoos in 1996. So I've always travelled to get tattoos. Back in '96 I travelled from Sydney to Canberra (280km) to get tattooed by a dear friend who was apprenticing with a really great artist called Ex de Medici who's now pretty much stopped tattooing and I think is working on her amazing paintings. For the last few years I've been travelling from Aus to Switzerland to get tattooed by Filip Leu & Sabine Gaffron, an incredible experience. Filip is starting my backpiece this year and even though it's super stressful getting all this money together to do it, once I am there and we start working it all feels worth it. The advantage also is that he tattoos faster than lightning, and has a very unique approach to large scale work. I've given him a few key elements I'd like and the coverage and I don't think he'll plan & draw the design until our first outlining session! And that's usually with visiting tattooers watching, asking him questions and hanging off his every word. Don't ask me how he does it but it really is watching genius in action. That said though, the first time I took a regular train and then a little 2 car mountain electric "train" up to the tiny mountain village where the Leu Family studio now is, I was laughing all the way up at where I was travelling to to get a damn tattoo!

Thanks man! I am still unfinished... we have the robes to pattern and colour, and Filip wants to hammer INSIDE the belly button!! Inside!!! In 4 months, I go and start my back with him. Adulthood here I come! Hope you're well :)

I keep popping in and out of this website, but I do love that you guys keep at it! Anyway, here are a couple of photos of my front piece from Filip Leu & Sabine Gaffron, in progress. I'm adding a selfie taken close up while lying on my couch because it cracks me up how I look like a piece of fabric :))

Hello fellow tattooed lawyer! Hey at least you had 2 other people in law school! Back to relationships - I don't think it matters w/r my partner has tattoos or wants them, so long as she gets why I do and doesn't say or think dumb things about them. Basically, a tattoo-educated person. My girlfriend had a large tattoo before we got together and she wants to keep going large, but our basic disagreements now are about colour or black/grey. I'm trying to move away from too much colour and she loves the stuff!

Nice! And you've got space higher up too if you want to add from the torso coming down, or small souvenir pieces. Rory: The backpiece artist is really flexible, having worked large pieces around alot of other people's work, so he'll leave space if I want him to anywhere really! I'm just going to write down my ideas as I get them and run them by him so we can talk about different options. One option is to get someone who used to apprentice with him to do the thighs. I really love this other tattooers work, and there are elements of their work in common which would flow nicely.

Or bunny hopping up those SF hills Hogg?

Focus people!! :) I spoke to someone with eminently more tattoo wisdom than me who suggested I should talk to the tattooer doing my back and he can leave the space for me to collect round the front. Also, wise person reminded me that the traditional Japanese design does tend to have separate images for the front of the thigh, joined by background to the backpiece of course. I am now leaning towards 2 large images not right on the front or sides, but slightly to the side. If you can imagine where that huge muscle sits. Yes, I have that huge muscle:)) No seriously, the older I get, the skinnier my legs become! Still have no idea about what those images would be though, throwing around 5-6 ideas....

I'm going to try and restart the wildly unpopular topic of thigh tattoos here! I'm currently in a tattoo-dilemma (happens once every couple of months it seems) where the prospect of planning my work badly has me breaking out in cold sweat. I've spoken to the tattooer I want to do my backpiece and it's all OK, and we decided he'd do my back, bum and back of thighs. This leaves the front of my thighs to collect 2 large pieces and I was thinking of frontal skulls or masks. Except I've always had a soft spot for large thigh pieces that go along the side of the thighs, down from the hips and to the side of the knees. Do you all have an opinion about side vs front thigh pieces, when one's thinking about backpieces too? Logic would dictate front and leave the back to the backpiece, but I'm wondering if sides would work too and not interrupt the back too much. Any ideas would be appreciated!

Geometrics, mandalas and flowers work really well on kneecaps. I decided to get mine filled in with a mandala by Jondix and will probably do a matching one on the other knee. I like these sorts of designs for the "in between" places, if you're not planning on using up the whole leg for a continuous design. And, btw, was almost painless!