Abellve

That sounds awesome. I love the oddball stuff that challenges your body as a whole

I was waiting for it.

PM on its way. I typed and typed and realized I'm not that public...but I'm not so private I can't relate. My sincerest sympathies.

Welcome. I've seen some solid work out of your operation there.

Getting used to it, staring back and realizing that generally tattoos are for people who don't care what other people think of them are the best we can hope for in a judgmental world. That said, whether it's our tattoos or something else we don't have to accept rudeness from people. I expect a second look but I'm extremely unpleasant when people think they're entitled to be rude and disrespectful. I'm not one who subscribes to this idea that I did this to myself so I have it coming. Oddly, I find the generation that says young people have no respect or weren't raised right are the first to point, cringe and stare. As to The Bible, the Leviticus scripture that most people use was specifically written to one church in regard to the Cult of the Dead about it's practice of cutting themselves and carving themselves up for their dead relative and such -- not a general word against any mark on the body. Putting tattoo it the verse didn't happen til I think the NIV, which for those who care is a pretty distorted interpretation of The Bible.

@sbrookins, too true and the last thing this industry needs to do is give up ownership of some of the fundamental elements...like the building and maintaining of a client base, building a reputation and controlling what we do and how we're perceived. If you sell off pieces of this thing to the entertainment industry and outside interests you don't get to cry foul when they abuse it. Sadly people that have the opportunity to do so are selling everybody's shares since, for better or worse, we're all in this together to a great extent. And yeah, all that aside what the hell Facebook generation is this that people just shoot out emails saying their guy should be on your site? Even if publicists had a place in our industry, that's a piss-poor example of one.

See, I get that for music. So much of it is about exposure and broadening an audience. Tattooers having the broaden-your-audience mindset seems foreign to me. I always came up in the mindset that the way to increase clientele is do good work, treat them well and build a reputation organically. Is it slow? Yes but it's lasting. ...But I'm just old enough and just in this long enough to remember when tattooing wasn't entertainment.

When I bought it, it was already pretty far from original in little ways but it was black and silver. I don't know what it was originally. This Mist Green is the color from the next year's competition model. ...yeah, I know what you mean about the marriage thing. Fourteen years tomorrow.

Thanks, man. I've sworn at it and sweated over it a ton but it's my one good "thing".

Just did a 300 mile round trip from PA, up one side of Seneca Lake and down the other with the main mission being a stop at Finger Lakes Distilling. They have such good stuff there. I tried their new pot still Irish style whiskey and their White Pike, both good. Somehow I ended up getting two bottles of rye. Should've mixed it up in the whiskey department but their rye is particularly good. I had never been into rye til I had theirs. I came down from that lake with 8 bottles in that bag...2 wine, 2 gin, 2 rye and 2 brandy...and a couple of wine glasses that actually survived the trip without breaking.

Man, is that what it's come to?...never mind...yes. It seems like a publicist is someone you hire to speak for you when your work isn't...speaking for you. It's lost on me, this chase for fame. Do good work, make clients happy. I'm not opposed to acclaim but we have to do this for its own sake and if something else comes of it, fine. It should come your way because your work can't be ignored not because you paid someone to see that you're well positioned. All ubercurmudgeonly ranting aside, good on you for OV being the place to be seen.

Yeah, no shortage of amazing tattooers there. Welcome.

Rules? We have a guy who basically says, "is there a code of ethics? I wanna know so I can ignore it, say it's stupid because it doesn't work for me and my stripper-on-a-welding-table pseudocareer or even better, doesn't apply to me because I'm this new breed of super scratcher." Guess what -- you're the same as all the rest of them -- a scratcher, an infection in this industry. All the namastes in the world won't help you when the only thing worse than your work is the garbage you spew.

Yeah, don't be a scratcher. Don't be everything that established tattooers who care about their industry hate and expect to be treated like a welcome guest. Our job is to do good work and protect our craft, not pass on bits of information and make you feel welcome or applaud you for having the courage to openly be a hack.

...and lifestyle...how I live is my business, how I work is yours, mine and my boss's. So lifestyle only matters when it intersects with work habits. It can be a deciding factor though. If you can have a good conversation about a shared interest it can make for a nice experience but only if you're deciding between equal tattooers. I can't see getting a weak tattoo for good banter.

Gruff is fine, rough around the edges, down to business...I'm the oldest most curmudgeonly 30-something you're likely to meet. In this line of work you don't often have to be charming but you don't get to be rude or abusive, assuming the client is neutral to good. What we do is or can be taxing so I don't think every tattooer needs to turn on the charm every day but if you can't treat people with reasonable baseline of respect then you have no business subjecting them to your bullshit and taking their money. No level of acclaim or experience makes this less true. If you can't work with people...don't work with people. It's not all about the tattooer and what he's good at but what he can offer someone and I think the experience is part of that. That said, people shouldn't go to a shop and mistake it for a trip to the mall either.

I think Ami like a lot of the people bringing tattooing to the forefront is a capable tattooer or better but consistency suffers when you're playing to the camera, polishing and keeping up the persona that keeps you on tv, not to mention have a camera crew over your shoulder, big equipment all in the way...pointing no fingers, It has to be said that the whole tv circus environment has to take the focus off of the actual work. Documenting what someone is doing, with respect to the process is one thing -- putting them on a stage or in the middle of a three ring circus is something else. The only finger I can point is at the people who are willing to trade in consistency and quality for celebrity. What's bad for the individual tattoo is bad for tattoo as a whole. Respect the craft, respect the client and hold the whole entertainment industry suspect. It's not their job to take care of tattooing for us.

And me without a Facebook acct. Perhaps they could be posted here so we could see what doing fairly well on your own looks like. We love threads with photos.

@G.Uristti

Funny, i auto-corrected that in my head and knew who you meant...it just didn't quite sound right. Ha.

Looks like a no from what I'm gathering. He's in it to make money (his words) and get all the hard earned information he can Google. His apprenticeship didn't move fast enough so he decided to throw it away and kickstart a career in his apartment. Time has already told. You are indeed a scratcher. Here, you may not find what you're looking for exactly but there's a good chance you'll find what you should -- if you heed what experienced and established tattooers have to offer instead of throwing out whatever doesn't fit with your idea of how it should go.

Ha, yeah I hear you. I was just scrolling around, revisited the thread and thought I'd post up some specifics. I have a tendency to ramble.

exactly. And in quoting high, you adversely affect your name. To him and the people he speaks to, you charge exorbitant rates for simple cleanup work. At the end of the day, he gets to be who he is openly without sweating how it's received and so should you. Neither of you has to explain yourselves. Judgment is deciding what other people should do, integrity is deciding what you should do...always do one and seldom the other and you should be alright, in work and in life. Two weeks ago, a guy came in on a busy walk-in day wanting an iron cross with a swastika wrapped around it. We simply told him we don't do them, we're not the place -- short and sweet, on to the next. Further back, I had a guy who wanted to clean up some old stuff and expand it into a sleeve. What he showed me was no problem but when he came back and took his shirt off, he revealed a huge swastika on his ribs and some SS insignia, stuff like that. He made his choices in life, that's his business. What I do is mine so I gave him some good ideas for the reworking of his current tattoos, told him I don't do that stuff but I can work around it with the new work. No lengthy discussion needed. He was on board with the solid ideas I had for his sleeve so I turned up the soul music and got to work. He got some great tattoos, I turned him on to quality work and he came back week after week, then sent his friends in. Had I bullshitted him until he left instead of speaking freely we both would have missed out on the chance to get some good work going.

I don't do that stuff, not because I'm half Puerto Rican which is the case but because I choose not to makey money on stuff that's in direct opposition to my conscience. You don't have to pass judgment to tell someone straight up that they're entitled to get what they want but they won't get it from you. I understand that it can be difficult for the first time it walks in the door and you're unprepared so get prepared. Determine your boundaries on how you choose to make your living and stay true to them. Everyone I work with knows what I will or won't do and respects my decisions. What I believe I don't push on people but I believe firmly enough that I never feel conflicted. A lot of us got into all of this because we choose to live on our own terms. I've never felt the need to trade that in for a day's pay.

Nice stuff on here. I guess if it's open to bikes too, I'll throw mine in the mix. 66 Triumph Trophy with its newly painted tank, used to be black.