Graeme

People work they way they work, but what I like about focusing on one area is that you end up sending most of the time getting hit with a shader which is a lot more pleasant, relatively speaking, than four or so hours of lining.

@Shaun1105 Canadian is usually okay unless the artist specifically says otherwise; check with your artist if you have any doubts. @BrianH I believe that I brought a backpack last year to bring shorts to change into, snacks, water, etc.

@peaceridge Research tigers in ukiyo-e and you'll find a lot of reference for not fierce tigers that would still make for really excellent tattoos.

I wouldn't go to a doctor for that. It looks like some kind of irritation, quite possibly from hair growing back, but it doesn't look like an infected tattoo. Leave it alone and give it time to heal. Healing tattoos look all kinds of gnarly and they can be worrying at times if you don't have a lot of experience getting tattooed, but they're usually fine.

We've had two really great sessions, but there's still SO much left to do. We need to line the rest of the background, put in the scales and patterns in the snake, colour the whole thing in...I knew that a backpiece was a huge commitment before I started it, but I'm only now really understanding what that means. It gives me a deeper appreciation of the tenacity and dedication it takes to wear a backpiece, and that there's a lot more to it than just a huge, beautiful tattoo.

Session two on my back. Mercifully we stuck to lining and shading the background on my upper back. Next time I think we're hitting the lower back, ass, and thighs, which I'm sure is going to be a lot of fun. Can't wait.

@Shaggy That's looking amazing. Are you done with the black shading? Second session on my back later today, pictures to follow.

Black and Blue is up-island in Nanaimo, I believe. Rob Noseworthy does indeed do great tattoos. A friend of mine has a great tattoo from Bobby Tripp who works there, and I've heard nothing but good things about Bobby as a person as well. Steve Moore also tattoos in or around Nanaimo, I assume at some kind of private studio, and he's amazing. In a kind of similar style, there's also Dave Knight's shop, Second Street Tattoo in Sidney, BC. Dave tattooed at PSC Tattoo in Montreal for years and moved out west a couple of years ago. He does really great work.

Nice intro, welcome to LST!

Welllll, you did say a week ago no more after the Cole Dunn tattoo so technically you're still good. :cool:

Welcome to LST Joe. Great tattoo, who is the artist?

I live in Montreal and I see Yann Black's tattoos around a fair bit. They are 100% not my thing, but it's solid work and you can read his tattoos from across the street. Style and taste is another thing but I think for what his tattoos are they're well done.

I use Chrome and it worked fine with it, so it could just be a browser issue.

I suggest an eagle fighting a post asking about what you should get as a tattoo because that kind of thing is personal and shouldn't be decided by group consensus. Trust me, it'll look super cool.

Dave who is doing my back, and incidentally has some really incredible Roper tattoos himself, has a pretty similar story about his back, but he got his done by Trevino and would make trips down to Austin to have multiple day sessions. I guess if that's what it takes to get the tattoo you want, that's what it takes, but I too feel lucky that I'm able to get the backpiece I want without any crazy travel. I'm only one session in but I'm already willing to say that getting a backpiece is a really humbling experience. @hogg This is 100% true.

You can try letting it heal.

The things I have to look forward to. Full backs are stupid tattoos to get. Stupid, stupid tattoos. What is wrong with us.

@Mark Bee That's a real bummer, I hope you manage to sort it out with work before that. @HaydenRose Get tickets at the door. You'll probably have to wait in a bit of a line to get your tickets but it's never that long. You should totally come if you can!

Kyle Hollingdrake who tattoos at the Okey Doke in Toronto wrote a thing about a specific design website, parts of which relate to the matter at hand:

Kristen - please go away. You have nothing to contribute here. You don't have tattoos, you don't want them, and nobody here is interested in looking at your drawings except to make fun of them. Nobody here would ever suggest going to anybody other than a tattoo artist for a design, and what you're doing has absolutely nothing to do with this site's mission of educating people about good tattoos.

And you'd know this because you've been tattooed how many times again?

You mean tattoo artists, "tattoo design" websites are a scam and a "tattoo designer" isn't a thing.

A tattoo enthusiast has tattoos. You're a tourist at best.

I kind of don't understand why names get singled out here. I don't have my wife's name tattooed on me, but we each have two of the same tattoos that might look like birds to folks who don't know, but when I look at those tattoos, they're aren't that much different than a name tattoo in terms of symbolic value. And for that matter, I've only been getting tattooed since I've been married and because tattoos are something we enjoy and do as a couple, and travel fairly frequently to get tattooed, so the tattoos and the whole experience of them is intertwined with our marriage. It's maybe not as obvious as a name, but it's still there. Bottom line is that tattoos are for adults and part of being an adult is making choices and decisions even if you might end up wishing you'd done something else some point down the line.

Welcome, I'd love to see pictures of your tattoos if you'd care to share them. I don't get the opportunity to see much of that West Coast stuff out my way, but the guy who's currently tattooing me has some ten year old single needle Jack Rudy script on his wrist and it's beautiful and is aging perfectly.