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.

You're approaching this all wrong. Instead of asking what's the minimum you can do to have an acceptable tattoo, maybe think about asking what you can do to get the best possible tattoo. Either way, it's on you for life, so you might as well go for the good option.

I hope he comes back sometime soon. I had the chance to briefly talk with him when this video was taken and he was really cool. I'm a nobody, just some guy who likes tattoos, and he was really friendly and down to earth, and he was super interested in my tattoos and asked all sorts of questions about them. I thought it was great to meet somebody who has been involved with tattoos for pretty much his entire life and he still clearly loves them so much and still gets excited about them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naeJE6Rw7PE Three years ago Filip Leu and Kurt Wiscombe did three collaborative backpieces in three days at the Montreal convention, and here's a short documentary they made about it.

I'm going to suggest a Saturday pre-convention brunch as an LST meetup if anybody is interested. I have an appointment right when the convention opens at 11, and my kid has an appointment for a vaccination in the morning, so it will have to be early-ish, like 9-9:30 near my place, which is a quick metro ride away (about ten minutes) from the convention. Let me know if you're interested and I'll make a group reservation. We can always grab a drink or a coffee at the convention too.

I don't care for either of them. I think it's a pretty half-assed way to express that you're a "science nerd" by going with a small tattoo of an outdated model of the atom. It's generic and pretty blah, like people who get a tattoo of a couple of musical notes to represent a supposed huge and overwhelming passion for music. If you're super passionate about science, take the above, very solid advice @Dan gave above about going big and get something big and bold that relates to something more specific that you're interested in. I've seen some great tattoos of Darwin's finches, for example. If you're interested in atomic physics, figure out a way to represent some wild quantum shit in a visually interesting way. Take your time, look around, and above all else, do your research on artists so you can get something that shouts loud and proud that you're a science nerd.

I saw yesterday that Scott Harrison just uploaded a movie he made in 2004-2005 to YouTube. I haven't had the chance to watch it yet, but with the following description, I can't wait to make the time for it:

Listen to what your artist says about how to heal and care for the tattoo and follow his or her directions. If you have any questions or concerns, follow up with him or her. Soliciting advice about healing on the Internet is a terrible idea.

Bizarrely underrated strategy. It's funny how quickly you can get answers by picking up a phone, even if sometimes the answer is to send an email.

Maybe it's just because the back is the back, or that you're tougher than me, but a lot of my backpiece from Dave didn't feel very gentle. Not that it really matters, because Dave is an incredible tattooer and a great guy, and whatever you get from him is going to turn out fantastic.

Agreed with the above regarding wrapping or the -derm products. I've consistently had pretty good heals, not always perfect ones though, rewrapping my tattoos. I actually didn't wrap a small one I got about six months ago because I was out of Saran Wrap and I figured because it was small it wouldn't be a big deal. The thing scabbed and healed sort of crappy. Go figure. Next time you get tattooed talk with your tattooer about it.