Cork

I also thought tattoos had to mean something before I was allowed to get one. Depending on context, when people ask why you got a tattoo, I find more people mean it to be condescending. It's like they meant to say "Why would you do that to yourself?"

@stlm It should be someone's responsibility to tell Marius that he needs to take a trip to North America.

What's the ultimate piercing, but a bullet wound?

Holy hell man, I didn't realize how small that guy was.

Same. After 16 months I got relined.

Ha that's why the ivarro tag didn't hit you with a notification. Anyhow, kudos on the Instagram. I really enjoy the Sunday take overs.

Nice @Flo Ania! Saw those on Instagram and got jealous. @hogg Man, script is not my thing, but that... well I don't have the words. Nice tattoo.

Is it Iwar that runs the livedintattoos? I'm getting my internet personalities confused.

If there is one thing I learned in this 8 page thread that I created; you shouldn't have just called it San Fran!!! Had I known more about tattooing back when I made my trip to SF, I would have gone to Oakland to visit Temple and FTW.

It's not directly about the amount of black used. You keep harping on the saying that bold will hold. "Bold" does not necessarily translate directly in to "black". I have 3 tattoos. Only 1 has prevalent black shading that you are referring to but all of mine are "bold". Look in my gallery. My Oni, pre-color shading, looks just like your Spiderman does. It's almost like you're making the connection that ONLY traditional american tattoos can be considered bold. According to dictionary.com "Bold, adj. striking or conspicuous to the eye; flashy; showy". In tattooing it means that the details will still catch your eye and stand the test of time when put up against aging, whatever the style. Bold is not a style. Bold is an adjective to describe a style. Your Spiderman tattoo, among your others are not traditional American, but they are bold. However, I am not one to debate styles of old school vs new school. I can't even tell you what a "new school" style tattoo is. I would just refer you to trendy tattoos on Pinterest. I hardly know anything about tattooing. I only know what I like. That being said, to get back on topic, I cannot begin to opine on which type of shading ages better. Check out livedintattoos on Instagram, @ivarro runs that and there are a lot of great examples of aged tattoos. Maybe you can draw some inspiration seeing how some of those are shaded.

Whether you get a traditional tattoo or a new age tattoo, as a collector, you should still leave the decision of how to shade something up the artist. I can't begin to tell you what the old school approach to shading is versus new school. That shouldn't even matter. Your point about our opinions on what makes a good tattoo; yes, good shading makes a good tattoo. But how that shading is completed could be any number of ten different ways.

I let the artist worry about those things. That's why I only go to people I know I can trust as an artist.

Someone once described this style to me as "new age color bomb". But really I have no reason to hate other than the fact it's on the internet. Technically I can't critique because I'm not a tattooer, but those look like fine tattoos for anyone who enjoys the style.

@L2DB How long does it usually take you to heal? You're giving yourself about 3 weeks of heal time. I've been told to get past the flaky stage before doing anything crazy. It's very variable.

This is your first tattoo? Don't sweat it man. Love it for what it is and now you have a story to tell. Things like that put character in to the tattoo.

Yes! There was a spot on my butt that I could not stop from twitching. I imagine it's difficult to tattoo a flinching butt cheek. That was not an easy session.

I was cracking up in the first 5 minutes about bashing the term "Ink" when the damn segment is named "Ink". I bet the host was pretty embarrassed. Great video though, some fun factoids and info that I never knew before.

Never realized how much he looks like David Duchovny. I have an issue of TAM that he has an interview in and I enjoyed the read as much as the video. Thanks for posting. Shout out to @heathenist, his tattoo at 1:59.

My trouble always starts right at the peeling stage.

Haha, dammit. Lucky bastard.

@BrianH Very jealous of your healing. How much sitting do you do in a day? I end up sitting a lot, and I feel like having my back against something definitely was the cause of some scabbing.

@Wilhell I don't know about you guys, but pulling duct tape off my hairy butt would probably hurt as much as the tattoo. Both of those tattoos look awesome.

I'm speculating here, but I don't think that the sweat gland damage is significant. Here is my train of thought... The main function of the sweat gland is to keep you cool. According to the Wiki, the sweat glands in your armpits don't have that function. So if anything, people should be more concerned about sweat gland damage on every other portion of your body. Speaking from experience, I still sweat all over. And I know that my tattooed skin sweat glands still work, because during healing, if I were to break out in a sweat, the fresh tattoo would burn with the sweat. @mmikaoj any pics of your pit? Also I may say that it's a great spot for shunga, but I don't think I have the balls for it. Ironically I was considering a tanuki.

I've thought about getting my pits done. It's just such a damn good spot to hide a namakubi or some shunga. I've never heard about the damage of the sweat glands so I actually looked it up. From wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweat_gland#Eccrine First, this is why you should keep your pits trimmed; that bacteria just sits in there and stinks up the place. Second, I'm not an anatomy scholar, but from the sounds of it, if tattooing did indeed damage the apocrine sweat glands, I'd be okay with the loss. I'm pretty sure that the strip up the middle of a Japanese bodysuit is just superstition and not grounded in reality.

@BrianH Those finger waves are minty.