Graeme

I think some of his tattoos, like this one, are cool: Some of them, though, I feel that I've seen other people do before.

I can almost have sympathy for them on the first season with, I imagine, casting agents playing up the "best tattooers in America" angle, but if you've seen the quality of the tattoos and the judges pointing out what's wrong with them, so there aren't any excuses about not knowing about what is or isn't good, and you still apply? That said, the appalling tattoos on veterans episode bummed me out because those people deserved better.

There's a lot of great advice here from David Bruehl about nutrition and tattoos that is well worth considering: Nibble and Sip Revisited: Tattoo Nutrition « Occult Vibrations Also be well-rested. This, in my experience, is the most important factor in managing the pain. It probably won't be the greatest five hours of your life but at the end of it you're going to end up with a great tattoo. Plus you'll have tough guy bragging rights here for doing a five hour session on your ribs.

Welcome aboard! Those Phil Sims tattoos you posted are great.

I would probably go with a nice, well-hopped pale ale like a Sierra Nevada or a Dale's Pale Ale. IPA is always nice though.

Found an online copy of it. Now you'll never wonder what beer you should drink the next time you're having pomegranate tart with walnuts for dessert. And yet pizza is nowhere to be found there...I'm going to assume that's because pizza goes with everything.

Hi and welcome! Who is doing your tattoos? My wife recently got tattooed by Marie Sena who tattoos in Albuquerque (it was done at the Montreal convention though) and it's a great tattoo.

It's a German style of lager that should be malty, reasonably bitter, but not aromatic. According to the handy beer and food pairing guide I have on my desk here, it goes very nicely with pear fritters. Here's one set of commonly-recognised style guidelines if you want to learn more about different beer styles: BJCP Style Guidelines

Awesome! I bet he's glad he waited, that's a great tattoo.

No, of course I'm not saying that everything that happens on the internet is automatically okay. I completely agree with you when you talk about the "me too" attitude and that the derivative stuff tends to be soulless, and I think that's probably inevitable when people haven't done the tremendous amount of work that Hooper/Jondix/Albrigo/Xed/Tomas Tomas/etc have. I wasn't there when these guys were working all of this out, but I will say that from the short amount of time I've spent so far being tattooed by Hooper that I am in awe of his work ethic and the depth and breadth of material he's drawing from, and that I don't even come close to understanding the extent of it. And this isn't even getting into the technical ability to pull off the stuff he does. I'm sure it's the same with the rest of those guys, and it sucks when people think that they can capture some of that by tattooing, as you put it, "a skull over or under a doily". As for the rest of your comments, I accept those. Apologies if I came across as glib or as a dick (and that Amanda Wachob comment was way out of line). I have a lot of respect for this place and I've learned a tremendous amount from it and I'd like to, if possible, contribute something positive to it and not be a part of turning it into every other forum on the internet ever. So (genuinely) thanks for the kick in the ass.

I agree with a lot of what you say, but isn't this the nature of the internet? I think it was posted somewhere on here...maybe it was on the thread about negative space between tattoos...about how the Smith Street guys put "forcefields" around their tattoos and put pictures of them up on the internet so see how quickly it caught on and it happened within a day or two. I've recently seen a whole lot of pictures on the internet of Amanda Wachob knock-off tattoos. Why the fuck anybody would want one of those to begin with is beyond me, but that's why I post on a black outline forum. More to the point, isn't this the nature of anything creative? There are the originators of something, and there's the copycats. Some people are just going to copy or do their versions of these tattoos, some people are going to figure out what these guys are doing, look at where they're coming from and what they're influenced by and are using as reference and try to do something fresh with it. Same as anything else.

Some of Hooper's influences: Curly Mike The Athens Alex Binnie Xed LeHead Tomas Tomas - - - Updated - - - I love a lot of this stuff obviously, but the tattoos that grab me most are the ones that are still figurative, like Hooper's. I'd love to see some of that more abstract/geometric Xed/Tomas Tomas stuff in real life because while I can appreciate photos of it, it's a little too abstract for me to love and want, but I bet seeing it in person and the way it sits on and moves with the body would be really amazing.

On Instagram a little while ago Doug Hardy posted a picture of a Phil Sims reaper from the 80s that he managed to get a picture of and it looked great. Same thing with these. I hope my tattoos look as good after that long. Guess this proves, yet again, the importance of getting good tattoos.

It could be because I'm a long-haired and bearded burly dude with skulls tattooed on my arms, living in a place where I feel I see more tattooed people than non-tattooed people, but I don't really experience people asking me about what my tattoos mean. I think that women on the whole get this a lot more than men. People mostly leave me alone. I was a little bit concerned about getting "what does it mean" questions about my (in-progress) sleeve because there's a specific visual reference there that I don't really want to explain, but thankfully the raven's head there is hidden by a t-shirt so hopefully I'll mostly avoid that question while I figure out a stock bullshit answer. I have nothing against tattoos with meaning (for that matter, I have nothing against tattoos without meaning either) I just think that the way most people go about getting a "meaningful" tattoo is all wrong. From what I've seen on the internet, the "meaning" takes priority over the strength of the image, and that's all backwards. You're going to associate your tattoos with whatever meaning you choose to give them anyway, there's no need to have hidden initials or a representative number of flower petals or whatever there. I spend too much time looking at pictures of tattoos on the internet.

My grandpa served in the Navy in WW2 but didn't have any tattoos. If he had any there's probably a decent chance that I would have gotten a similar design, but it works out because his ship's badge was of a leaping tiger so I'm going to get a tiger tattoo instead.

Erik Desmazieres. This hits all the right notes for me:

That's tattoos. Doesn't matter how good your tattoos are, who did them, how much you spent on them, some people are still going to see you as a lowlife because of them and that's part of the deal.

I'm at work right now and can't watch this, but is this such a bad thing? Seems to me that if people want to tattoo they'll figure it out (maybe the proper way with an apprenticeship, maybe not) but there's no good reason to encourage people to tattoo.

Hooper did this foot as part of a full squid leg: I was lucky enough to see it in person while it was being worked on and it was knock-you-on-your-ass good. I'd love to do something like that with my feet but I'm not in a place in my life right now where I can heal something like that.

Look, nothing against Dobermans and Pits but I think we all know that your tattoo artist is always right, and while I've never been tattooed by Lal Hardy, I have to defer to his superior knowledge and say that Greyhounds are the best. Sorry, just the way it is.

Bunch of old Scottish tattoos here: Mike Bialek's instagram One that was likely done by Jimmy Todd:

Mike Bialek, a tattooer from Toronto, has a treasure trove of old tattoo photos...some Canadian, some not...on his Instagram: Mike Bialek's Instagram Doc Forbes circa 1970 here:

I am super stoked that Lal Hardy is a greyhound guy, because greyhounds are the best dogs.

@Deb Yarian posted a scar coverup recently on her instagram that was nothing short of amazing. Which, I guess, proves the point that people have made here that you need to go to somebody good for this.

Right now the tattoo I am working on means about a 360 mile drive each way...I did the same drive for the consultation. I have absolutely no regrets about it because it's a tattoo I am super stoked on and get excited to look at by an artist who I greatly admire and who if I could choose anybody to tattoo me, with no financial or travel constraints, I would still get tattooed by. I'd hate to settle for something less and then regret later on that I could have gotten tattooed by people I REALLY wanted to get tattooed by but didn't because it was inconvenient. I also totally understand feeling a real need to get tattooed--my wife's tattoo artist actually called me a "bitch in heat" once (not to my face though...if she had I would have found it hilarious...and true) because I was climbing up the walls being in a tattoo shop not getting tattooed. But still, tattoos are worth waiting for.