Graeme

Welcome! I don't have either of the Lost Love books but I've heard nothing but excellent things about them, and from what I've seen of Yellow Beak's other publications it's all first rate stuff. Your friend will be extremely psyched on getting that as a gift. I'd also recommend the Tattootime set published by Hardy Marks if your friend doesn't have it, because it's one of the best things ever published about tattoos, but you won't go wrong with Lost Love either.

Welcome Alex! Let me recommend Art Tattoo Quebec which is happening next month from 12-14 May. There are good local, national, and international artists there and it's a fun convention. At the very least it will give you a chance to look at portfolios and talk to people and see tattoos in person and get a good sense of what's out there. http://instagram.com/arttattooquebec

A big ol' eagle always makes for a great chess piece.

I think you should take a few hours and watch some LST interview videos before posting again. Nobody wants to hear every new idea you have every single day, especially when you seem to have no actual interest in educating yourself about good tattoos.

Here's a panther bursting free from a rose. This was done a little over three years ago by Chad Koeplinger and is a bit beat up like a tattoo should be.

Come on, man. Don't go around pretending that you're being victimized here when you have a history in this forum of not only ripping this place off, but ripping off other tattooers too.

Good times this weekend and even if we couldn't manage a formal LST get together I feel there was some good hanging out and getting together and talking in person is always so much better than doing it on here. Until next year!

@Intomyskin You will be fine. I am a brewer which is a physically demanding job (on my feet all day, lifting 55lb malt bags, climbing in and out of brewing vessels, many many flights of stairs, etc) and I was working the day after many sessions without issue. It was nice if I could get tattooed on a Friday or Saturday to have that weekend off but it's not necessary. The day after one session I took a five or six hour train ride and, again, it was fine. Same thing with aftercare. The day after my final back session my wife went into labour and my child ended up in the NICU for a couple of weeks so I healed my back sleeping on hospital couches and maybe taking one shower a day. No problems with healing. You're overthinking things.

Give it time to settle in. Black and grey, especially with the lighter grey washes, can take weeks or sometimes even months to settle in and the red to fade from it. I don't see anything there to worry about.

Let's wing it. I'm getting tattooed at 11 and A. is getting tattooed at 3 so there will be a baby handoff happening sometime there and a lot depends on his mood/napping. It's not his first convention though so hopefully he'll be okay. I'm sure we can make some kind of hanging out and sharing tattoos and stories happen at some point.

Bad news! The brunch place I had in mind doesn't take reservations and because I have a really small window of time (my kid gets vaccinated at 9, I have a tattoo appointment at 11) I'm going to call the brunch off and suggest that maybe those of us going to the convention on Saturday try to grab a drink there?

I'll post in the next couple of days about brunch arrangements. I've had a super busy past few days and I haven't had a chance to make the reservation yet.

Something like this would be great: https://goo.gl/images/lH7kNO

If you're going to get a different design from a different artist why are you showing us this? If you go to a good artist you'll get a good tattoo. If you go to a dogshit artist you'll get a dogshit tattoo. Concept doesn't matter. Simple as.

You're not going to get a more favourable response by reposting the same thing. I think you got what you paid for with the design. If you want Japanese, even with non-Japanese elements like you want, at the very least go to somebody who understands and has experience with Japanese tattoos, because it looks really bad if you get it wrong.