Hands On

welcome to california, @motsimus. not sure what the schedule is like, but this is truly one of the best conventions with plenty of world class artists gathered in one place. if you could find a way to work it into your trip, i'm sure you'd enjoy it.

My thoughts exactly!

I wonder if he'd be down to do other monmon pets or if the Frenchie is a special something for someone special. I know the SOG team is Frenchie crazy. Definitely looking forward to seeing that one completed.

not sure how long ago you got tattooed by this artist, but he may have improved enough over that time enough to increase his price. also, moving to a different shop, he is likely held to the way they run the shop and may not get the option to give you a special. in my experience, artists try to fit in clients they've worked with in the past before new clients. maybe try dropping by the shop instead of calling. if you call and speak to a shop manager, they probably don't know the relationship you have with your artist. good luck!

Answering your questions, in order: It's looking fine. It is possible to redo the line work, but it is not worth it. Yes. ;) No removal and no cover up. You're welcome. It looks "sparkly" because it's a fresh tattoo. The top layer of skin hasn't healed over yet. Give it time. It seems like this is the third thread on the same tattoo. If you don't want the conversation to get buried, you can just reply to the old thread and it will bump... no need to keep creating new threads every couple weeks. That being said, there has been great advice in the prior two threads. Go back, read those replies over and over, and try to not dwell on minor imperfections.

healing must've sucked. i hope he found a good pal to put some lotion on his back.

i was stuck on who i wanted to do my back for the longest time, but it all came together last year... seeing @ironchef's collabo put the light bulb above my head, then seeing instagram pics of jondix and chad traveling together in Nepal illuminated it. they're both the best dudes and i thought their friendship, mindset, and contrasting styles would make for an interesting collaboration. i knew they both frequently attended the SOG/SFO convention in Oct., so i sent 'em an email with the thought as soon as it hit me in April. lucky for me, they were both super into it! we bounced a few emails back and forth and they ended up drawing on a Philippine eagle on top of frontal skull in Chad's hotel room at 12:30am, after the first night of the convention. most of you can probably guess who did what. (photo taken by @ian) it was great to experience the magic happening right behind me... although i couldn't see what was going on, i could feel it and hear it. i've had individual artists draw on tattoos and an usually artist thinks and does what they do pretty quietly... but when both of them are drawing and thinking together, they have to verbalize those thoughts to each other. i had the pleasure of listening in on these two tattoo geniuses' thoughts as they shared. speaking of tattoo geniuses, another piece of magic happened... just as they were finishing up the drawing, Mike Wilson and a few other folks visited the room. Chad happened to be a little stuck on how to position a wing, so Mike chimed in with a perfect suggestion, getting in on the collabo! after that, i basically had to sit tight for 35-45 minutes while they attacked me and lined whole the damned thing. there was some artistic and technical discussion during the tattoo, but there was one last piece of collaboration to be done... i had originally requested to incorporate one of the symbols from Jondix's 108 Marks book. this was to be the last thing they were going to tattoo, but instead of going with the symbol i requested, they decided to collaborate and create a whole new symbol. they took turns drawing a piece of it and passing the sharpie back and forth to each other. when they were happy with it, Chad made it permanent. i've since had one more session with Chad out in Napa. Jondix won't be making it to the SFO this year, so he's trying to convince me to get out to Barcelona or London, but funds, the wife, and work schedule are iffy. i can't wait to see it come together, but i'm patient enough to wait for things to align. i'm waiting for the artists to share pics before i do.

i clicked on this thread because I thought there was a chance it was Game of Thrones related.

diggin' this thread. dreading the knee ditch and inner thighs. here's what and who, so far... Upper left - three wise monkeys: my brother - tribal knife: myself - gypsy head: jill bonny Upper mid - third eye skull: my brother - sun, moon, web knees: trevor taylor - hardy bulldog: myself - butterfly: myself - daruma and candle: myself - umbrella eye guy: trevor taylor - green flame/symbols: myself - doll head: shawn barber - BnG snake: myself - flower: beppe strambini - fox & stars: hideki kobayashi - horse head: myself - bird: myself - cherry blossoms: my brother - 408: my brother Upper right - snake and kewpie: christopher ayalin - lucky 13 cat: matt arriola - eagle and clipper: mike Wilson - hippie snail: my brother Bottom right - horse head/ring of flames: myself - shark: myself - BnG pattern: myself Bottom mid - naismith: cris cleen - fu manchu snake: jeff rassier Bottom left - holey heart: myself

i got this winged dragon from Steve Boltz at the BACOTTA back in 2010... top/back of my shoulder.

is it the one on Tattoo Age? Black Gold Records

welcome to LST!

welcome!

nice bike, @Mick Weder ... there's a couple existing motorcycle threads on here, but looking back on 'em, they didn't seem to really take off. check 'em out: http://www.lastsparrowtattoo.com/forum/random-crap/228-lsters-who-like-motorcycles.html http://www.lastsparrowtattoo.com/forum/random-crap/1361-motorcycle-riders-out-there.html

i think this is about where i'm at... i check out whatever tattoos i come across and usually only take good long looks at the good ones. i don't pay too much mind with the ok or mediocre, but sometimes there are tattoos that are just a little off and i find myself trying to figure out the puzzle of what could have been done better. either way, i think i'm looking at the tattoos objectively and definitely not trying to judge the wearer. most comments, if any, are quietly made to my angel of a wife who always keeps me in check when i get outa line. this has helped me start to keep myself in check in my own head and only point out nice work to her. in a few of the LST interviews, Scott Sylvia has mentioned something along the lines of "you can't trust a tattooer with good tattoos." this obviously isn't true across the board, since there are many great tattooers with GREAT tattoos... but the point is well taken. on a side note... when i have no tattoos showing, i usually keep my lookie-looing to a minimum, lest i get mistaken for a plainskin. being on that side has made me wonder what amazing tattoos could be underneath the clothing of fully covered lookie-loos staring at and critiquing my tattoos.

thanks for the pointers, @MadeIndelible ! a few of these are a little trek, but we could make a day of Stinson Beach and the Marin Headlands for sure.

he's got all kinds of nicknames, depending on his mood. we've called him chuckleberry when he's got the goofy, tongue out smile. others include stuckleberry (when he won't leave my wife any breathing room), snuggleberry (when my wife won't leave him any breathing room), hucklescaredy (4th of july and such), huck, huckabee, huckle, HB, Hbeezy, huckybooboo (my wife hates that one). needless to say, he'll answer to anything. as far as play date goes, we've since moved down to The Bay area, so he prolly won't be going to Marymoor anytime soon, sadly. love that place! anyone know good off leash areas in CA? I frequent the Fremont park, near Lake Elizabeth.

The recent activity in the "awesome things we've been doing" thread has been pretty canine based, so I figured it might be nice to a have a separate thread where we could go dog crazy... then I figured that folks probably have more diverse pets than just dogs, so I went the unbiased route and opened it up to all animals. I'll start things off with my corgi/shiba inu mix. he's almost 4. we adopted him in Nov 2012. his name's Huckleberry. this is him after a good day at the 40 acre dog park in Redmond, WA...

wow.. I was way off... looking at the dragon and not yang. my bad!

looks like it might be just above the left ass cheek

that's a good start to the tattoo. If you don't trust the original tattooer, you can probably find a good tattooer willing to bring some life to it.

I emailed Adrian Lee and he said that it'd be great to post anything about the exhibition and that it'll be up for two months. Here's a few photos for your viewing pleasure:

of course! do you think the artists or Analog would mind it tho? I'm assuming not, but I just want backup... similar to @Stewart Robson asking Taki's permission before posting Perseverance pics.

it was definitely nice to meet everyone! sorry I couldn't chat as much, since I was keeping my buddy company as he perused the art. the show: by the time I got there, folks who had already seen the art had overflowed to the sidewalk, where they were lit up by the lights of the shop/studio/space or whatever they would like to call it. if you haven't already checked out Adrian Lee's instagram, you should. there are photos of the epic gateway into the space. the art show was like most others, except the music filling the room was from a live pianist playing stuff a bit cooler than you hear at Nordstrom. I made a couple passes around the art before I met @MadeIndelible who was already chatting with @bugxjuice. I heard that it might be an open bar, so I went to confirm and was helped to a Moscow mule. I made another round, my buddy got there, and I treated him to a round at the bar and took a closer look at the art with him. the art: amazing, as expected. I'm not sure how long it will be up, but if you're in the area and it's up, you should definitely check it out. be sure to take a look around the entire space. there's a few little gems here and there. within feet of the entrance is work by Freddy Corbin, Jondix, Tim Lehi, and Chad Koeplinger... good way to start a traffic jam. There’s a few pieces in there that just made me stop, stare, and appreciate the work. The entire time, I was considering how each related to the theme of rebirth. - I always love seeing Chad’s work in watercolor, since it’s so different from his style of tattooing, but of course still very much his style. - Horitomo had little great Monmon Cat piece, of course… killing it. - Timothy Hoyer has detail that makes you basically have to put your nose on the glass… I imagine the brush he used had about 3-4 strands of hair touching the paper… on some single needle shit. - Adrian Lee’s piece is straight up OCD. Basically the same exact image 6 times, rotated, exactly the same, almost line for line. Nuts. - There was one piece that left a lasting memory in my mind. I later brought it up with my buddy and he definitely remembered it too… said he looked at it, wanted to look at it longer, but also wanted to stop looking at it at the same time. It was sort of a modern day take on the ouroboros, but with a dude instead of a snake… and instead of eating his tail… well… you could imagine why my buddy wanted to stop lookin at it. very tasteful. ;) I wasn’t sure if photos were allowed. I saw a guy with nice DSLR taking photos and I asked him if he was hired or if anyone can take pics. He said he had no idea and he definitely wasn’t hired, but no one was stopping him. So have a pretty good set of pics… not all inclusive. Next question is, do we think it's cool to post ‘em here?

the question "how many tattoos do you have?" will probably have a bunch of LSTers stuck for a little while.