Stewart Robson

I'm sorry, but I don't get it. What's the rush? Who needs a large tattoo that quickly anyway? Is regular (shorter) sessions too much trouble? Even if you are traveling, I see no need to do 3 full consecutive days. I'm gonna stick my neck out here and say that every sleeve that I've seen (in person) completed in marathon sessions or super-close consecutive sessions heals pretty rough. I'd love someone to prove me wrong and i hope someone can but I don't see how you can heal a full arm while maintaining some sort of normal life (which includes moving your limbs, going to the toilet, moving food to your face etc.) without having some colour drop-out or whatever. I find healing larger tattoos to be miserable at the best of times, particularly around the ditch, elbow, armpit etc. For me, marathon consecutive sessions means another trip for touch ups, which negates the need to finish in a short space of time anyway. It usually takes just a little more thought from the tattooer to finish smaller sections of the tattoo with a mind to extending it later if the client doesn't want to live with an un-finished looking tattoo, or the manner CaptCanada described at the end of his post above. This can still be tough to heal, but is a more efficient use of time, particularly for people who travel long distances. But I guess you don't get so many bragging rights, just a solid, awesome tattoo. Please bear in mind that I have occasionally and begrudgingly, tattooed the same person on 2 consecutive days to finish a large tattoo before they leave the country/go to prison or whatever, so that probably discounts my opinion.

Hogg: eBay is shit and wouldn't add international shipping to one of the auctions, regardless of which check-boxes we checked while setting it up. If you message Valerie via eBay (from the auction page) she can add you to an 'exemption list' so you can bid. Sorry it's a round-about way to do it, but it's the only way we can figure it out. Thanks for the interest. Good luck!

Another awesome interview. It's great when two people talk sense in an eloquent and well thought out way. Thanks guys!

Hey, thanks for sharing (or promising to share). I'm super looking forward to seeing some of that stuff.

I'll be working there at the Frith Street booth with Valerie and Dante. I think Valerie is fully booked. Dante will be selling awesome machines made by some of the best guys around, ink and Tim Hendricks' pens. I will be tattooing whatever comes my way. - Last time it was flowers and lettering on fingers, feet, ears and eyelids. If anyone wants to make an appointment with me you can email [email protected] I think it's going to be a good one. I hope to see some of you guys there.

Before I say anything, I know this isn't a history lesson but I think any modern tribal discussion should start with Leo Zulueta- http://www.myspace.com/spiraltattoo Mundurucu Books does a few great but small books on tribal tattoos. http://www.mundurucu.com/books I don't have photos of 'good' tribal but places to look (in my opinion) are: Thomas Hooper - I love his heavy black Micronesian/Marquesan tattoos. - http://www.flickr.com/photos/thomashooper/sets/72157623072881930/show/ Curly from oxford, UK - http://www.tattoocurly.com/tattoos.htm Jondix, Mike from Athens, Tomas Tomas and Xed le Head have added different influences and taken tribal style tattoos somewhere new and often exciting. Rory Keating does great stuff - RoryTattoo.com Jun Matsui - http://www.lost.art.br/juntattoo.htm There are a few Japanese guys doing amazing tribal style tattoos but I can't remember their names right now. I see tribal tattoos as much the same as any other style, in that of you see it executed badly enough, often enough, you'll learn to dislike it. Unlike other styles of tattooing, I think it's very difficult to find good reference for tribal tattoos as most of the history is verbal. If you need reference for Japanese tattoos, American Naval tattoos, Californian or Russian prison/gang tattoos etc, it's relatively easy to find helpful reference these days. Most of the visual tribal reference we have is recorded by western explorers. In the next couple of months I'm due to start some Marquesan style shorts on a customer of mine. I'm really looking forward to it because a) I don't do that style every day so it's a refreshing change of pace and b) His reference wasn't the same gym flyer every else brings (the one with a muscular guy stroking his abs with swirly spikes across his chest and arm).

Hi, I'm Stewart, I work at Frith Street Tattoo in London, UK. I've been tattooing in a shop for 4 years, 3 of them at Frith Street (I was scratching at home for 2 years before that). I'm slow at joining in and replying to messages and stuff, but I'll try to make an effort here.