Graeme

Go with the bare breasts, because if you decide you don't want them you can cover them up, but you can't go the other way. Who are you planning on getting it from?

I feel that he posts on Instagram every so often saying that he has availabilites...just looking now there's a post from a couple of days ago saying that he's going to work some extra days over the next couple of weeks and wants to do some fun one session tattoos. I think there are very few tattooers who are really that difficult to get in with if you really want to get tattooed by them.

I hope it's Crayolas because Sharpie is hard as fuck to wash off.

@keepcalm I'd also highly recommend Margot Mifflin's Bodies of Subversion. It's specifically about women and tattoos and it's a really well-written, intelligent, and insightful book. The third edition recently came out and it shouldn't be expensive. I might have a couple of books sitting around elsewhere but on my shelf now is: Burchett - Memoirs of a Tattooist Cooper - Tokyo Tattoo 70 DeVita Unauthorized Flash From the Past Gilbert - Tattoo History: A Sourcebook Hardy - Wear Your Dreams Hardy - the Tattootime hardcover reprint Higgs - The Doomsday Bonnet Higgs and Ranson - Morph Traits Horitomo - Monmon Cats Greg Irons - various books and comics JBxH3 Kitamoto - Myths, Gods, Legends Kitamura - Bushido Malone - Bulls Eyes and Black Eyes Mifflin - Bodies of Subversion (2nd and 3rd editions) Stony - Stony Knows How TAM - issues 1-5 hard bound There's a lot of stuff I'm not including here that isn't directly related to tattoos, like reference books on Asian art, Buddhist iconography, books about the myths and legends of Japan, books on folk art, ornament, and art generally that have been very helpful to me in understanding tattooing and just art as a whole.

That Cripwell suit is beautiful and so perfectly executed, but I find it a little too perfect for my tastes. Looking at those tattoos, I don't know if I get much of a sense of the person who has them. I guess aesthetically I prefer a more organic mish mash of tattoos where you get tattoos of different ages complimenting and clashing with each other and you get a whole that transcends any individual tattoo.

@9Years I saw YOB around when Atma came out and they were touring with Dark Castle and I will enthusiastically second them being a must-see band. They are one of those very few bands that are so good live that everything else other than the music is totally irrelevant.

This isn't exactly "news" as these have been out for a while, but Scott Harrison recently put out the second issue of his Weltworld comic. It's dark, perverse, grotesque, and just plain weird, and I mean that in the best possible sense. You can buy them here: The Artwork and Comics of Scott Harrison

I hadn't heard BONGRIPPER prior to starting my back. Going on the name, I assumed they were probably some kind of Eyehategod-influenced sludgy kind of whatever, but they're not that at all. I should see if Dave has "The Great Barrier Reefer".

Nice one! New YOB is pretty great too: Been getting tattooed to a lot of BONGRIPPER lately. Dig it.

I can only speak of the ribs as part of the back, but I don't find them to be even close to the worst part of the back. They hurt, but it's a regular kind of tattoo hurt (just sharper and more intense) where a lot of other parts of the back fall into straight-up awful territory.

Welcome Josh! Those tattoos are bright and bold, just how we like em here!

I might be in the minority here in having this opinion, but I hope the general public doesn't stop seeing tattoos and tattooed people in a negative light. I have a hard time having sympathy or patience for people who claim that they're discriminated against because of their tattoos, especially when these people work in shitty low-wage, low-job security jobs. Where I work I saw a guy with a nice neck tattoo have an interview to be a busboy. Guess what? He didn't get the job, because if you're getting your neck tattooed while applying for jobs that pretty much any chump off the street can competently do, you're a dumbass. I probably wouldn't hire you either. For me, part of getting tattooed and becoming an increasingly heavily tattooed person is accepting and taking on something that most people don't understand and being okay with it. I think that responsibility, that willingness to put yourself at the margins, is an important part of getting tattooed, especially when into getting into less concealable areas.

Welcome to LST and Mike Dorsey is your man.

That one was cool the first fifty times I saw it.

I do it out of habit, not addiction.

Nothing wrong with getting tattoos simply because you like them. It doesn't have to be an "addiction".

If you can't manage another small one at Smith Street there are plenty of other great shops in the city that do excellent traditional and can take a walk-in. Check out Flyrite in Williamsburg or Greenpoint Tattoo in Greenpoint.

Ditch is such a shitty heal even at the best of times. The arm looks great though. I love a good frog tattoo, and the frog/mushroom combination is such a winner.

He isn't tattooing very much anymore, but Bill Baker at the Pearl has a really amazing wrestling sheet. I don't believe there are pictures of it on the internet--as it should be with some things--but it's really good. I want something from it at some point.

I believe it's three quarters. ROSS HOGG, BANHAMMER THYSELF!

Agreed with this. I think this new, simpler direction he's going with his tattoos is really great. That's a really beautiful tattoo, excellent start @sophistre, what's up next?

I'm sorry Mark, that's rotten.

You'll find out how they are soon enough. - - - Updated - - - Dave is so good. There are a lot of really cool things in the way he designed it that aren't obvious in the photo like how the water on my arm carries over onto the back and how the water on the back of my thighs is readable as a continuous wave from the right angle. The background is so pretty and gives this really great balance to the toughness of the tiger and snake. He's such a good dude too, and that really really helps during rough sessions.

This isn't work-related, but on that point, when me and @Pugilist were flying to Spain earlier this year I had the misfortune of having my seat next to this uptight, middle-aged woman who couldn't stop fidgeting in her seat for the entire length of the flight. Anyway, I wore long sleeves onto the plane, but when I was settled in, I rolled my sleeves up because we were crammed in economy and it was warm in there. It didn't really matter that I have nice tattoos (or that I was wearing a nice shirt at the time either), that lady saw a guy with long hair, a long beard, and tattoos on his forearms and it made her uncomfortable to the point that when she got up to go to the bathroom during the flight she took her purse and ipad with her, presumably because somebody who looks like me is going to steal her stuff. On a flight. And whatever, I don't really give a shit because a) I've made a choice about how I look, and part of that is understanding that some people associate that look with unsavoury characters (as if the real crooks aren't the ones with the expensive suits and haircuts); b) I like that tattoos still scare at least some people, and I hope this is always the case. But basically the point I'm trying to make here is that for people who aren't interested in tattoos, they're not going to notice artistry and craftsmanship. A tattoo is a tattoo to them.

Welcome! I think you have some solid ideas there, but I think you're looking at putting too much in a single tattoo. The map idea on your back is great, but you'd end up with much stronger tattoos if you just got a map on your back. The back is big, but it isn't that big and if you want to start putting little designs in the countries, it's going to end up really cluttered and unreadable. What I'd suggest instead is get the map and get those other tattoos (lady head, a hand of cards, a vignette with a volcano in it) as totally separate tattoos. I'd maybe even start with those, because they wouldn't be large, if you get them on your arms or legs, they're pretty easy spots, there are plenty of great tattooers all over the world you can pick up tattoos as souvenirs, and you can see if you like it before you commit to a really serious spot like your back.