joakim urma

Hello Paul and welcome to LST! I recommend you to not make the design yourself or have anyone draw it for you. Instead, look at a lot of tattoos until you get a sense of what kind of styles you enjoy. I don't know where you are located but chances are there's at least a couple of tattoo shops close by. Go check those out, look at the artists portfolios and hopefully you'll find an artist that inspires you and who's work is good enough so that you will trust her/him to draw a tattoo based on your idea. To get you started you can browse the blog where I post tattoos that inspires me: UGLY FREEDOM I also whole heartedly recommend you to read at leas part of this thread: http://www.lastsparrowtattoo.com/forum/general-tattoo-discussion/2396-what-makes-good-tattoo.html The info and opinions inside will help you while looking at tattoos, to determine the "quality" for lack of a better word. I always suggest people who are new to tattooing to get their first tattoos on a part of their body that's often covered by clothes. So you can chose when you want to show your tattoo and slowly get used to the thought of permanently changing the look of your body. Also, speaking from personal experience, if you keep getting tattooed your taste and ideas about tattoos will evolve a lot. Even if your first tattoo turns out to be super good, chances are that in a few years you'll be happy that you saved the more visible body parts for better work. Long winded message, anyhow. I wish you good luck and have fun getting your first tattoo(s)!

Thanks a lot for linking this! I found it very interesting and well phrased. I hope people who are new to tattoo culture listens to this early on. Freddy clearly has a really good and humble attitude, and cares a lot about tattooing. Very inspirational, thanks!

Due to travelling I fell out of my meditation routine that I had started and kept steady and ambitious for 8 weeks. Just as I was going to make time for getting back into it I hurt my back and now it's been another week with no meditation at all. Kind of a first word problem, depending on how you look at it, but a shitty thing anyhow.

@PizzaSteve Ugh! So envious of you! Jeff Zuck is on the top of my list. The kind of tattoo artist I could get a whole body full of if I were to start again and not collect from different people. So glad that that tattoo is at somebody from this forum (does that make sense?), it amazed me when it popped up on instagram. Congratulations!

@rufio Gonna have to find that magazine in store somewhere and read the story too :) Thanks for the heads up!

I was checking the London Convention line up yesterday. I'm going to be there that week end all ready but hadn't planned to get tattooed. By accident I was browsing the 2014 lineup, thinking it was this year. My mind was like "Mike The Athens.. Duncan X.... Eddy Deutsche, Ed Hardy, Filip Leu (and so on and so forth....).... wooooot?! This is some crazy shit!!!" and then I realized my mistake. Anyway, I ended up getting booked in with Mike Rubendall. So I am very happy True story

Been reading this over the past couple of weeks: Unruly Places: Lost Spaces, Secret Cities, and Other Inscrutable Geographies, Alastair Bonnett It consists of a lot short chapters about different strange places around the world, grouped in themes. There is one on Pripyat (Chernobyl), one on the Somalian pirate nest of Hobyo town, one of the "independent nation" of Sealand just of the Brittish coast, one of the enclaves within enclaves in India and Bangladesh. Besides info about the actually places the author goes through a lot of world history, sociology, economics, social- and cultural history and colorful anecdotes. I very much recommend this book too anyone, it's truly fascinating and each chapter is more interesting than the one before. Love it

@rufio Finally, my life goal accomplished: pale white ass in print for the public to view ;) Thanks for sharing!

Take care Mark, gonna miss your posts!

I started watching The Wire last year in January. Some friends successfully convinced me that I would love it back in 2011 and it took three years for me to start. In April I finally finished watching the second season. Yep that's right, it took me more than a year too watch two seasons. I suck at this... (I love The Wire thought, it's so good!)

Congratulations @beez!! That's great :) ---- I'm feeling more content, calm and happy in my life than I remember ever doing.

About the Vitamin D. I've heard you need about 20 minutes of sun per day to get your needed amount. But I guess it depends on how strong the sun is and which parts of the skin you expose. I think that the palms and insides of underarms are the best at absorbing. Second best is the upper torso. But a lot also goes in through the eyes, I think about 40 - 60%. PS. Don't know where I got this information from. Don't quote me on it ;)

@Lance Pain wise it's on par with feet maybe. But since the skin is so difficult it takes significantly longer, maybe twice or even three times as long to cover an area. Also as you try to stretch out the spot as flat and firm as possible you'll find yourself in strange postures that end up hurting really bad after a while. Anyhow, you've got my support of course! :)

I had my right armpit tattooed about 6 weeks ago. Not to post-whine in excess but let me tell you it was one hell of an experience. I wrote a pretty detailed post about it here, so I'm not going to repeat myself The healing process was actually not that bad. The first 3-4 days was a bit hard, difficult with finding a good sleeping posture and so on, but then it was not harder than your average tattoo. The scar tissue does not look worse than my other tattoos but I do think that it's probably a very scary spot to work on as a tattooer, knowing how sensitive the glands are underneath. There were some blow outs but they are slowly fading away it seems. The result was way beyond what I expected, considering how strange the spot is. I think Jonas Nyberg did a great job with the tattoo, but he told me that he's going to say no the next time anyone asks for an armpit tattoo. Haven't noticed any problem with my sweating, smell or otherwise, since. It was interesting to read your original post @bongsau, I will try to be more observant of my sweating and see there's some truth to what you heard. I plan to get my other armpit done before the end of the year. As far as tattoo experiences go I think that if you are going to do it, you better be prepared that it's going to be a rough ride. For people who have studied and practiced the art of taking a pounding from the machines, it is possible to do. But you are going to hate yourself for getting the idea haha :) Good luck!

You must be joking, right? ... right? Seriously, not that I'm even close to being a scientist, but having all those chemicals on you every day will probably be a bigger danger to your skin and your health than getting a bit of unfiltered sun. I used to be really paranoid with the sun and my tattoos, and get stressed if I had to be waiting for the bus for 20 minutes in t-shirt and no sunscreen on. It's not worth it, all that stress. Now I cream up when I know that I will be in the sun a lot. Normally I don't bother. It's easier to just move to the shade after a while if there is no 50+ around. Perhaps I tend to wear long sleeve shirts a bit more. I think it's a shame if you let some over-protectiveness around keeping your tattoos pristine stand in the way of having fun and enjoying life. You are going to age, your tattoos are going to age, and you will die eventually. (Could be that I have this attitude because I never cared about being a lot in the sun, getting a tan or hanging out at the beach anyway. It's not a part of my life, so when I do spend time in the sun I can allow myself without feeling some "guilt" around it. My favorite weather is when it's cold enough for normal length jeans, but you can walk around in a t-shirt if you want to. Oh, and also I live in Sweden so that helps, we only got 6 weeks of summer most years haha..)

Shiiiiet, people been getting awesome work lately. Hats off ya'll!

I always walk around stark naked, as to not obscure any of my tattoos No but seriously... For me, part of the tattoo magic is that whole tattoos seldom gets seen in the best angle and the best light for a long period of time when you view them on other people. It's part of the charm I think, that they are a bit secret in that way. I love seeing just glimpses of well made tattoos pass by on the street or half a tattoo peek out under somebodys sleeve. Sometime the mood is right to ask them to show the whole tattoo, sometimes that's not the case. In my opinion, my tattoos are for my enjoyment first and foremost anyway. I don't think about how other people will or won't get a good view of them (except for job interviews or formal settings when they could be distracting) Talk to me in a tattoo shop or convention setting and I'd be happy to drop my pants most of the time. Not to be too much of a elitist snob but I think tattoos are for the initiated, who love and respect the art. I don't bother a lot with how my tattoos are viewed by "plainskins" when I'm out and about in every day life. Wear the watch or don't wear it, whatever you feel like that day. And enjoy your tattoos. There enough is time to get naked in front of mirrors in your privacy or with whoever you want to share it with. Just my 2 cents

Thanks for linking this! I've only seen the first few seconds of it seems very promising. Looking forward to see it all!

Thank you a lot! :) Here's some photos for the OP @Sol James: Joakim Mathiasson – Le tatouage intégral | Le Blog du Mondial du Tatouage

@jimmyirish It's cool and inspiring to hear about your practice! It's so fascinating and fruitful to bridge the gap between body and mind, and to go deeper into both. For me, and my short trial with hatha yoga, the postures were not tricks in way that I wanted to compete with others. It was more like they coaxed me to keep trying and to feel good about myself when I "landed" something. The patience, humble attitude and work ethic I all ready had from 12+ years of skateboarding. But yeah, I hope to get back into it. I moved out of my old commune house that I shared with four friends, and now that I live with only my girlfriend I have more space and calmness around me. The yogic meditation I can really recommend. I'm on the last of my 8 weeks course now and soon I'll be on my own. I feel that it's been a great learning experience and a good challenge. While you should not try to analyze and tinker with your own philosophy while you are meditating, I feel that the practice taught me a lot about my life and how to have a positive attitude towards all sorts of things. You find yourself discovering patterns of thoughts and behaviors, that you have while trying to meditate but also outside. And many of the things you need to learn focus on while meditating, and the thoughts and expectations you place on it, I feel has helped me a lot in thinking about my life journey. I don't know, it sounds like new age bullshit, I for sure would have thought 3 months ago, but after having had these experiences I can understand what I just wrote.

@suburbanxcore Yeah that wolf is so good!

Booked in with Koeplinger for late august. Stoked :)

@JasonTO I'd say with your example, just go for it! Sounds associative and good to put blood next to a reaper, maybe there is blood on his scythe. I've seen it many times, it can look just right. On a personal note I can really enjoy when things that don't seem to fit together are tattooed next to eachother. In my head it creates this strange dynamic synergy effect and all sorts of makeshift associations open up. That's part of the fun with smaller tattoos in my opinion. Over time you will see how the "interpretation" of compositions and individual tattoos change or get more complex, depending on how you change and the things you learn.

http://www.thelondontattooconvention.com/artists/2015/ ... too early? I'm planning to go. Would be nice to meet some other LST-people there! I'm booked in at the private studio of Alex Reinke on the monday after, but might catch something small during the convention too. Visited with my brother two years ago and it was a lot of fun. Got four palm sized tattoos that time.

This might be a bit early, but.. I just e-mailed Alex Reinke about perhaps getting tattooed in late september. Holding my thumbs hard for this!