Stewart Robson

@daveborjes no toes stepped on. I agree with you. Everything I write here on Last Sparrow is initially directed at the people involved but I try to be mindful of anyone else who may read it in the future. That's why I mostly talk in general, broad terms rather than specifics. Everyone gets once chance to be a dick ;)

@jgoss1579 My first tattoo was on myself. It's still there. I did ten versions on paper, each time fixing parts from the previous version, to get it as good as possible before I even set up a needle. It's not about how much effort you put in or how new you are or how stoked you are to be makin' tats. It's about how the tattoo looks.

@jgoss1579 I don't think you need any more words of encouragement. Lots of people tell you you're awesome. I'm trying to be honest. I don't know a tattooer worth shit that's had 100% positive feedback. I can bet you I've had way more harsh things said to me than what I typed to you. Maybe you don't know it, but Shannon Shirley just handed you a golden nugget of information. I tattooed shitty lettering for years before I learned what he just said fairly recently. I still get shit for my lettering from the people I work with and are friends with. Here's my 'be nice' bit: You need to look at the way roses are in real life, not in an online tattoo folio, figure out how they fit together then figure out how to simplify that to be more tattooable. Try to figure out the rhythm and regularity of the way leaves grow up a rose stem, there's a pattern there. Figure out the way the veins spread across a rose leaf, then simplify that. If you were not tattooing in your kitchen, someone could tell you these things, give you examples and have you practice a few times in less than an hour. As you're on your own, it'll probably take you years. I know that because It took me years. Believe it or not, I'm nicer on the internet than I am in person. Particularly with people who want to tattoo. You usually need to get a tattoo from me before I'll give any advice at all. I don't think I'm a great tattooer and I'm not sure I'm 'recognised' but I try to do nice work. I've been fortunate enough to have been given advice that helped me grow from being totally shit to having people ask to get tattooed by me, in a shop where everyone turns out great tattoos every day. You should realise that the world of tattooing is pretty small, even though it's all over the TV and global. Tattooers all over the world know each other and visit each other, even outside of conventions. Threats on the internet are pretty retarded. You can guarantee I would have said the exact same thing to your face, but you'd know I wasn't just being a jerk to make you seem small. I was being honest. Something I'm reluctant to mention, because it's boring as fuck, is hygene. in 4 months, without any assistance, it's unlikely that you have even a grasp of cross contamination. I know it's possible to buy sterile equipment via the internet and that seems like you're 'safe' but cross contamination isn't about equipment being dirty. I know you're not going to stop attempting tattoos, people rarely do until they get good, or bored, but... If you're tattooing your wife/girlfriend/whatever as well as friends and strangers, do everyone a favour, learn and understand cross contamination. Otherwise you may as well all just have a bareback gangbang fisting party with every hooker and junkie anyone ever met.

As far as tattooing goes, most Japanese, traditional style work is based on folk tales or religious/devotional stories or artwork. So Japanese stuff is a mix of Buddhism and Shinto. Shinto being Japan's 'Old religion'. Buddhism grew from a sect of Hinduism, in India. Many of the Buddhist tales involve long arduous journeys to spread the new religion to the people of the world, starting with Tibet, through China and it's surrounding countries, eventually to Japan. In India, Buddhism was mostly a small sect or cult but in China it took it's own flavour and was adapted to suit the climate, existing folk tales and myths. That version of Buddhism travelled to Japan and mixed with Shinto to evolve into it's own flavour of Japanese Buddhism. That's what we see in traditional Japanese tattoos. Many of the Japanese gods and mythical beasts have equivalent Chinese names, sometimes tattooers use the Chinese names. There are very few people working in a strict Japanese traditional style. Most tattooers, especially outside of Japan tend to work in a more broad 'Asian' style (although they focus on the japanese style). Taking elements and stylistic touches from traditional devotional artwork from across Asia. As @Kev already mentioned most of the decorated skull tattoos are based on real decorated skulls from Tibet, like the example above. There are also smaller, more cartoon-looking skulls that could be mistaken for sugar skulls. They are often used as decoration around ritual instruments or artwork. You may have seen Filip use them as decoration on a larger skull's decorated cap. Because other Asian countries don't have much history of decorative tattooing, it's not really possible to follow their example directly within tattooing. But the religious designs are awesome and people want large tattoos. That's why you find a mish-mash of broadly Asian influence wrapped in a mostly Japanese frame or background. The interesting this is, the more you delve into the histories and myths of various distant and unconnected cultures, you notice many of the same elements. Swastikas, winged spirits and pyramids are good basic examples. (As a side note: it was cool to stand in a temple in Japan and notice Borneo style tribal patterns on the panel frames). Jung called these 'Archetypes' (although this refers more to conceptual ideas and relationships, not graphic shapes) I call them 'fair game' for including in tattoos. It's my opinion that it's one of our jobs, as tattooers, to understand these elements to better apply them to tattoos and to guide the style and subject of our work more in line with historical or human tradition. Wether we admit our understanding or explain these archetypes to our clients is of no consequence. This is one of the many reasons I'd rather tattoo a witch/crone holding a twig instead of a gent holding a pipe. But that's another story. I don't want hippy clients asking me to channel their mystic history into their Celtic, Navaho, Saxon, Russian armband/finger tattoo. Nor do I want to stick an eye in a triangle on anything and everything. I tried to shed light on this, but I think I just muddied the water more...

@jgoss1579 I hoped your photos were a joke or at least someone trolling. If you've had 100% positive feedback you're asking the wrong people. You need to stop tattooing in your kitchen. It's sad that a post like this can go a day without anybody saying anything, deleting the post or whatever.

That's because your old mate makes his opinions based on the internet and tv shows, not the real world. He obviously has never seen Oliver take walk-ins all day and totally nail every single tattoo drawing, regardless of style in less than 15 minutes. Then execute every tattoo, regardless of style, cleanly, quickly and accurately without rock star attitude. Just to make this clear, Oliver manages to give walk-in customers what they want and make a great tattoo that he can be happy with and other tattooers will appreciate. Think about that for a minute... walk-in customers who don't give a shit who he is... and just want a tattoo they can like.... great tattoos... It's a rare talent among tattooers and even more rare among 'artists' who make tattoos. Making great tattoos, making customers happy and having a great time while being so fucking cool to everyone else in the room and helping tattooers less experienced than him, yeah, fuck that guy. I'd hate for the guy who does my awesome tattoo to have a toothpick, like ewwww, gross, totally not cool.

@cragdw tell Bert I said "Hi" Sorry, I'm not posting a picture of the tattoo Bert did on me. You'll get an awesome tattoo.

Congratulations!

@OutOfIdeas You should ask the person who's going to tattoo it. I tattoo paintings all the time. Raphael, Durer, DaVinci etc, etc. Every time I do praying hands or the classic Jesus head, it's from a painting or drawing. If your friend painted a tattoo style image, it will probably need tweaking a bit but you should just have a good tattooer design it for you or choose some flash. If it's a non-tattoo style painting it may need simplifying or tweaking or maybe just tattoo a portion of it to suit the body part you want it on. If something needs tweaking, it's not usually because I want to add my own personal touch, it's because it won't work as a tattoo. Like Ursula said, if its a cool painting, it's probably gonna be fun to tattoo but not all good paintings make good tattoos.

For me it's not like re-posting things from various places on the internet should be forbidden here. Once we upload it, it's public anyway. That's why many tattooers watermark their images. I was commenting on they direction some of Last Sparrow seems to be taking. I thought we were supposed to be intelligent ant thoughtful. Yeah we can goof off every now an then and have a laugh but on the whole we can be an interesting and intelligent bunch. Last Sparrow is 'better' than other forums and sites because of the effort it's owners and users put into it. If the only effort we can muster is to copy/paste a url, then we are on the down slope. Artist/tattooer credit, contact information, location etc, it important. Even for someone 'everybody knows'.

It kinda sucks that many of the 'live' threads on this forum are turning into tumblr.com. I noticed it first on the backpiece thread. People just re-blogging shit without credit or comment. I thought we were here to discuss, hopefully to learn and grow, not mindlessly spread/spam something we saw and liked.

It's only a matter of time. It's cheap to make with a tried-and-tested formula. People like to watch it and people LOVE to talk about it. That's why this type of programming has flooded the schedules over the last 5-10 years. Tattoos are just the most recent application of the formula. Right now, as I type there's a reality/contest show with a wedding theme on the tv, next it's probably cooking or someone's children. Crappy tattoos are the tip of the amoral tv iceberg. I'm still waiting for The RunningMan to hit the schedules for real. I'm just left thinking - A conversation about how good something is lasts 5 minutes. A conversation about how bad something is can last hours.

genericjenny don't listen to strangers on the internet! ask your tattooer. If you've seen their work healed and it looks good, listen to what THEY tell you. Especially for your first tattoo, if you have any questions or concerns, call the shop. The saying goes: The only stupid question is the one you don't ask. Good Luck.

By saying that you feel a question brewing, you are effectively asking that question. The physical effects of tattooing ARE interesting to many many people. As are the emotional, social and the spiritual effects. I'm interested in them. These are the things that most tattoo forums have always been and still are full of. Most of it starts out interesting, then small kernels of mis-information are expanded into giant boring half-truths that become 'facts that everyone knows'. After a while all the 'chatter' drowns out the 'signal'. I know this to be true by what I hear customers say while in a tattoo shop, convention or while getting tattooed. I understand that it's not possible or desirable to get tattooed every day, or to sit around in a tattoo shop every day but the fascinating nature of tattoos just won't leave you alone so you need a 'fix' of tattoo's magic here and there. I know what that's like. I wasn't always a tattooer, surrounded by his favourite tattooers everyday. The only reason I said anything now is because looking for information online about tattoos is like reading a book about learning to swim. Or feeling like we know about altered states or psychedelia by reading Naked Lunch and Doors of Perception. It's real-world, thing. Anything other than the real thing is just a distraction, or entertainment to pass the time. It turns us into tourists. Locals only tolerate tourists if they can benefit from them. Some of the reasons Last Sparrow isn't like other forums is because one of the founders is a hugely respected and accomplished tattooer. His peers and people who look up to him trust him, so they participate. Meaning that here, there are actually great tattooers (not just people who do tattoos) who can contribute and reduce the chance of mis-information, idle tourist-chatter and help tattoo enthusiasts to have a richer experience. Then there is me. The best way to learn anything about tattooing is to get tattooed. Put yourself in harm's way. Meet others with tattoos, attend conventions, visit tattoo shops. But most of all, get tattooed. Do anything except browse and ask questions online. Then when you share your experiences with others it can help them and enrich their lives. Again, In my opinion the best tattoo magazines available to the public are: Tatto Life Tattoo Energy Total Tattoo The others fill the spectrum from crappy, through insulting, to parasitic. But I'd rather read any one of the Tattootime books anyway.

Sorry for keeping this off-topic... @Dr Benway you just did. I said this a week ago to someone else: Just get tattooed. But in a nutshel: 1) Tattoos get old, they fade and spread. 2) The skin reacts by bleeding a little. A bigger nutshel: 1) Your body doesn't want tattoo pigment inside it so your skin tries to break down any foreign object that's introduced. When it can't it forms a protective layer between the foreign substance and your body to prevent it from migrating into your system and vital organs. Obviously humans get old and as tissue ages it's properties alter a little and systems fail to perform as well as they once did, so the protective layer recedes slightly and the foreign body has slightly more real estate than it originally did. Your body has more success with some pigments than others. This isn't to do with the colour, it's more to do with the chemical and mineral composition of the pigment. This isn't an event, it takes decades. (I fear I've opened that same can of worms about "what's tattoo ink made of?" again. - please find that old thread and read it instead of asking me). If you want to know how your skin reacts to sharp trauma in general I'm sure google would be more helpful than I ever could. I only have just enough 'bothered' to talk about the bits that pertain to tattooing. 2) Your skin bleeds when it's punctured in an effort to flush out foreign bodies that attempt to enter through the skin. Your pain receptors signal to your brain that you need to pay attention to the area under attack so you can flee or fight. (You can't do either while getting tattooed, you also have to be quiet) To assist in the flight or fight response your body produces extra adrenaline. That's useless to you while you're getting tattooed and the flood of adrenaline can make you feel faint or light-headed. This is why it's good to eat a light meal before getting tattooed, to help your blood sugar stay level when the adrenaline wears off. On a personal note I've found that large scale tattooing affected my skin in general. I became more prone to dry skin and some detergents irritated my skin where previously I'd experienced no ill effects or allergies. I found that once an area was tattooed it was slightly more sensitive to touch for a few months, not much, but just a noticeable increase. This has become a normal part of my life so I rarely notice it anymore. -------------------------- I started typing a breakdown of the healing process but realised it's fucking boring and it's been said 1000 times online before. The reason I participate in Last Sparrow is because it has the potential to be (and often is) interesting. If it's just another place for know-nothings to ask ill-thought-out questions, for people to say "Hi, I'm new, lol" or for people to share their sub-standard tattoos/drawings/whatever to coos of amazement, then what's the point? There are many forums that cater to those needs. These things aren't the reason I don't post here much. The reason I don't post much is because I don't always have anything useful or interesting to say. I've learned some very interesting and useful things here. I didn't learn them by asking the same question 50 others asked the same month. There's more to learning than asking questions. There's more to asking questions than typing the first thing that comes into our heads. This forum and threads shouldn't be giant repetitive FAQs. We (The Last Sparrow 'community') are better than this. Can we talk about something interesting now please? Or at least share interesting or funny things we've found. Or at least keep thing on-topic.

I get asked this every few months. When I was doing more walk-in type tattoos I got asked every other day, at least. My answer was always: "Most tattoos are pretty weird. It's weird to get tattoos animals you've never had direct experience with or that don't exist onto your body. It's odd to get a tattoo of a prostitute or stripper, or a mode of transportation, or a word out of context, or a reproduction of someone you never met, etc. Mostly tattooing, by it's nature is weird. But the weirdest tattoo I've done is a grocery shopping list on a guys forearm, in neat handwriting, from wrist to ditch." That's weirder than the eyelids, heads, assholes, palms, satanic shit, sexual stuff, dolphin penis guy etc. So that's my answer. I work with Miles, who used to work at IntoYou in London back when tattoos were for weirdos and freaks. Some of that shit blows my mind. Maybe I'll ask him for permission to share his stories. On the other hand, maybe some of tattooing's folk tales need to stay off the internet and remain an oral tradition.

I expect to see, but know I won't enjoy seeing: bad tattoo versions of sixties/seventies style artwork. Greg Irons, Dave Mann, Rick Griffin, Ed Roth etc. I hope I'm wrong... Oh yeah, we'll see more Mayan stuff.

I loved it. looking forward to the next one.

@ChrisvK Nobody believes you when you say you don't want to be a tattooer. But like everyone else says, practice. Practice, then practice some more. Here's a golden nugget: Doodling requires you to repeat shapes with your hands. Drawing requires you to use your mind more than your hands. Good luck.

Hahaa! I forgot about the armband thing. In the last few years the number of people asking for hand/neck tattoos when they have (insert single digit number here) tattoos has increased to the point I've considered bringing back the 'illegal' story. Taking 20 minutes to explain to a whiny teenager why the world isn't fair, twice or more every day? Or taking 20 seconds to tell them it's illegal? Tempting, for sure. So we just say "Sorry, we don't do them" Which is more fun than you'd expect, especially as I get to say it while I'm tattooing someone else's hand/neck. @ShawnPorter Brevity is the soul of wit.