Graeme

@hogg I don't know if this is what you're looking for because it seems to be Tibetan/Indian in origin and not Japanese, and I don't know the symbolic connotations of it, but maybe a damaru?

I say this now that the weather is pleasant, but I would rather endure a Montreal winter than a Montreal summer. I can't do the heat and humidity. And to make this summer even less pleasant, I start my back in July.

You have two ears and one mouth.

@Colored Guy I have no words. I'm really sorry, man.

Six pages and no Amebix yet. Gonna fix that:

Welcome! You can go ahead and ask any questions you have right here.

I know you said no shunga, but get a shunga tattoo! Or a crab.

I'm curious how Amanda Wachob's tattoos will age. I don't say that to be snarky, I'm genuinely curious. I think that because a lot of her tattoos are abstract that they might not do too badly in the long run, relatively speaking, because they don't require the structure that, for example, a watercolour style hummingbird like the one posted earlier in this thread would need to keep it readable over time as a hummingbird. I have to wonder about the craftsmanship here. I feel that I often hear people talking about how this is a "new" style and how nobody knows how it will age, and I think that's total garbage. The Music & Sea Tattoos issue of Tattootime has an article by Doc Webb from 1982 where he says "[many] have gone to extremely thin line, no shading. This had happened before. The many who stayed in business long found when the colors faded, as they seem to do, if you only had a faint outline and no shading, you had no tattoo." It's been tried time and time again with the same result every time. Either people are doing these tattoos without an understanding of the history of tattooing, which is a problem, or they're giving people tattoos they know won't hold up essentially because there's a demand for it, and that sits really uneasily with me. Are people who want these tattoos being informed about this? I hope so, but if you google "watercolor tattoo" after a couple of pinterest/tumblr links there's a website from a guy who seems to do these tattoos saying that they'll age just fine. I guess when it comes down to it, I fundamentally agree with you that it's people's skin and money and if that's what they want and what makes them happy, then they should go for it, but for me, I think for the most part this kind of thing isn't what I would consider good tattooing. Different strokes, etc.

Isn't part of the problem with "watercolour tattoos", beyond the fact that they often look like crap to begin with and are only going to look worse from there, that the people who seem to want them seem to not only not really care about tattoos but they don't really care about watercolour either? Watercolour is such a beautiful medium and I love the way that you can get these beautiful translucencies and how the paint works in this kind of indeterminate manner when you're painting on wet paper. It would be super cool if people who wanted "watercolour tattoos" wanted them because they loved Turner's watercolours, or Sargent's paintings, or something like that (not that these would translate into tattoos!) but instead it's almost always really rough sketches with splotches of colour. @Tesseracts that Batman you posted makes me think somewhat of the tattoos done by guys like Adrian Lee, Phil Holt, and Steve Moore.

Welcome! You should get tattooed by Mike The Athens.

Where's the Earth Crisis troll face picture when you need it?

Do you work twenty four hours a day? I get not having the internet at home or on your phone but surely living in London you have access to public libraries or internet cafes or other places you can do this outside of work. We all manage it. You're lazy and a time waster, go away.

Steve Boltz is pretty often there...he's been at the last three anyway, so I wouldn't be surprised if he is there again this year. Mike Wilson was there a couple of years ago as well and he was supposed to attend last year but cancelled. I read an interview with him in Tattoo Life where he talked about injuring his hand or wrist, which I would guess had something to do with that. Anyway, I don't think it would be completely far fetched to see him attending again.

I know that I'd be bummed if you started spending a lot less time here, but I get it, and I feel a lot of the same frustration. There's so much good, reliable information here, and there's really some truly amazing stuff in Scott's interviews, that I feel if you can't be bothered to do a little bit of legwork yourself, why are you getting tattooed in the first place?

I'll have to see, but I'm leaning pretty strongly against getting tattooed at the convention this year because I'll be two sessions into my back and I think it will probably be smartest for me to put my money and energy into that (unless, of course, I find that bag full of money), but that means that I'll be around to offer moral support, witty banter, snacks, and the like. Drinks will be on me afterwards.

There isn't really any doubt about how a tattoo like that will age. Anyway we've been over this kind of tattooing a thousand times on this forum before and if somebody isn't willing to look through the forum, find those threads, and put a little but of effort of their own into researching their tattoos, I don't see why we should put any effort into serious replies.

That style is called a total piece of garbage.

We'll figure out the meet up closer to the convention, but @Shaun1105 if you need to leave town earlier than Saturday night, I am totally up for arranging an LST pre-convention brunch on the Saturday morning, or any other plan that's going to include as many people as possible.

I had close to that at the Rochester convention with Thomas Hooper and it was okay, but Rochester is a pretty small convention and while there were people standing there and watching it wasn't crazy like it would probably be at a larger convention. I'm also a hairy ugly dude so people tend not to linger to look at me. I have noticed that at conventions the cameras really come out when it's a young, attractive woman getting tattooed on a place that would normally be covered by clothes.

The most important thing is that everybody is there for POUTINE DAY. Which I guess will depend on when most people are available, so maybe Saturday?

At least you can scratch playoff hockey off the list, am I right?

I haven't been getting tattooed nearly long enough to have any credibility to say this, but fuck, I hope tattoos go out of style really soon.

I'm not an expert on this, so perhaps somebody else will be able to offer better insights than I can, but I think it's typical to approach a bodysuit piece by piece so that you'll start with your arms or your back and finish those before starting on other parts of your body. I can't think of ever having seen an entire suit lined before the shading is started. Congratulations on setting up the consult, I hope it goes well, and you're going to end up with something truly incredible.