Graeme

I took the original post to mean more like the tattoos Mike Adams is doing (I am sure I've seen other people doing stippled Americana tattoos too, but Mike Adams is the first person to come to mind) than Hooper, Jondix, etc tattoos. I think those Mike Adams tattoos look cool, but I do feel that it's something that people are going to play around with a bit but that probably won't stick around for all that long. Time will tell. When it comes down to it, it doesn't matter either way. Get the tattoos you want to get. I also think that part of the problem with all the information about tattoos being available on the internet is that there's just too much out there and not enough good sense about it. It's absurd that somebody with no tattoos could go into a tattoo shop and ask for a tattoo to be applied with a specific technique. Find a good tattooer and trust him or her to know what is best for the execution of the tattoo.

"Now suck in your gut!"

Those Phil Holt tattoos are so fucking good. He has this amazing one in his portfolio (actually, he has a lot of amazing ones in his portfolio) of a full front...neck to front of thighs...with a dragon and a kind-of biomech skull that is INCREDIBLE.

EXACTLY. Probably less time at the gym and more time drinking beer too.

Do you mean "like minded" as in neo-Nazis and weenie vegan hipsters?

Have a friend who happens to take pictures for a living and when you are staying with him when you're visiting his city for a wedding/tattoo appointments, have him suggest taking pictures of your tattoos and then have him set up an entire photo setup with backdrop and lighting in his living room on a Sunday morning and get good ones that way? Because that's what I did, though I haven't posted them up here because I feel kind of self-conscious about posting those kind of pictures on here. I did instagram some of them though.

But they are important and influential Yelp reviewers so they'd better get a good tattoo!

If you want to be able to hide a tattoo putting it on your head is one of the worst places you can choose.

Here's mine, done by Chad Koeplinger at the 2013 Montreal tattoo convention.

I can't wait to see the pictures, all of you are going to get exceptional tattoos.

Ugh, so jealous of you two!

@HettyKet If you look at tattoos on a long enough scale, everything is going to look dated eventually. Good tattoos are still good tattoos though.

Stipple-shaded traditional is, in my opinion, absolutely a fad. I feel like they're the kind of tattoos you'll be able to look at and pinpoint a two-year window in which they were made. I don't think there's anything wrong with it as a technique as such (a large part of my forearm is dot shaded) but I don't trust anything where the technique is put before other considerations. In other words, a tattoo isn't cool just because it's dot-shaded. It still needs the characteristics of a good tattoo concerning the strength if the drawing, silhouette, placement, composition, etc.

Oh shit, she's the person with the dick collar? That tattoo is amazing!

They were tattooing before the convention opened so it was probably more like a 6-7 hour backpiece, to be fair.

I haven't seen more than a handful of photos of Dave Lum's tattoos, but did he really *hide* the dicks in those?

I don't know if it's a matter of skill. I have a friend who got his first tattoo over the weekend at the convention. He's wanted a tattoo for a while and I invited him along to the convention because it's a great place to look at tattoos and get a sense of what's out there and he went to the convention's website, followed links and went through portfolios, got a sense of what he liked stylewise, contacted artists he liked with his idea, and he ended up with a really rad tattoo from Bobby Tripp and had a great time. Fundamentally, he wanted a great tattoo and he understood, without any prompting, that getting great tattoos takes time and research and work. And I think that's rad. I guess with that tattoo I posted what bothers me the most about it is that it really speaks to a lack of curiosity. Like if you love this tattooing thing so much, don't you want to learn as much as you can about it? Don't you want to get tattooed by people who are doing things that inspire you and make you want to be a better tattooer? Filip Leu is guesting at a shop a couple of blocks away from me right now and he's tattooing a bunch of tattooers who are already doing amazing tattoos but who are probably going to learn things from the experience that they're then going to bring to their tattooing so that they can do even better tattoos. That makes me excited. That's the kind of stuff that I love. But yeah, I basically agree with you that you can't really force people to get good tattoos. They have to want it.

Here's one that bothers me: This one was done at the Montreal convention over the weekend, and it's on a tattooer. Not a good one, mind you. I just don't understand it. It wasn't a matter of access because there were so many great tattooers working there over the weekend, and if you wanted traditional there were plenty of people who do great traditional who were taking walkups...Todd Noble, Chris Hold, Tim Pausinger, Scott Althen immediately come to mind, people like Phil Holt who maybe don't do traditional but who are fucking incredible seemed like they had time, and I'm sure there were plenty more people who could have done a great tattoo. Money? We're talking a convention here, not somebody's kitchen table, so it's not like this was a $30 tattoo. Never mind that a tattoo like that wouldn't be worth the money if it was free. That it's on a tattooer especially bothers me because a tattooer, of all people, should know better and should be seeking out tattoos from people who inspire them and who make them want to be better tattooers. I try to not let the tattoos other people get bother me and just try to get the best tattoos that I can because I love tattoos, but this shit just stinks.

Damn, that's a legacy.

I don't understand how being proper and respectable is anything to aspire to.

My ass is already spoken for. Naked lady reclining on a hotdog is still going to happen though.

I love so much about this. YES to wide varieties of tattoos and tattoo experiences. That shop looks so fucking cool.

I've been tattooed by Tony D'Annessa who started in the late 50s and is still tattooing at PSC Tattoo in Montreal, and Danny who tattoos at Tatouage Artistique in Montreal and he started in '81 or '82 I believe.

Poutine in Toronto? Pfffffffffffffttttttt!!!!

It was seriously great meeting you all! It's really nice putting faces to names and finding out that you're all super cool, friendly, easy-going folk in real life as well. I hope that we will all meet up again...perhaps next year again at the Montreal convention? I'd also really like to thank Val and Pierre at Tattoomania for putting on this convention year after year. They always get great tattooers, it's super fun in a gorgeous setting, and it's really a pretty incredible event. Like getting the chance to see Filip Leu and Kurt Wiscombe knocking out one-session backpieces? That is the stuff of legend happening literally right there, and we are so fortunate that there are people like Val and Pierre who love tattooing so much that they're putting that incredible amount of work into making it happen.