Graeme

I've done it and I think one of the super fun things about tattooing is walking into a shop not really knowing what you want and getting something that feels right at the moment. I'm thinking of trying to get a walk-in somewhere next week when I'm visiting my parents. Spontaneous tattoos rule.

Still doable if you add about 45 hours driving to that!

Tomas Tomas just got on Instagram: Instagram I really hate that Dotwork Damian tattoo posted above. It looks like a grandmother's lace doily.

Excellent suggestion and Portsmouth NH where Chad regularly guests at Congress Street Tattoo is less than an hour away from Salem.

Haha when I lived in Glasgow a person I worked with moved to Seattle and everybody was jealous of her.

Yeah, I like all that stuff so Blood Ceremony is totally in my area of interest. I'll check out that second album to begin with I think and give it an honest listen. I've been meaning to check out Jex Thoth because I really like what she did with Sabbath Assembly. If you haven't heard them, check them out. I only have the first album but it's really cool retro-y psych with her on vocals. They're playing hymns from the Process Church's hymn book. Integrity it isn't. In that vein too, I really love The Devil's Blood though they are sadly no more.

I saw Blood Ceremony opening for Pagan Altar about three years ago and I really wasn't into them, but I always hear people who I trust about music talking about them. I should give them another listen. This thread made me listen to Red House Painters. I forget that I really like them.

I meant that comment more towards the original poster who asked for the flash, sorry for the confusion.

Somebody should correct me if I'm wrong, but it's a Jerry design that he took from an advertisement for ammunition. If you want the flash, don't ask for it here, go to a shop and ask because if they can't find that particular piece of flash they shouldn't be doing the tattoo anyway.

Thomas Hooper does my favourite squidmitts. A couple of examples stolen from his instagram:

I pretty much disagree entirely with this. First, it presumes that you understand the reasons why people get the tattoos they get. I read recently, it was either on here or on IG, a tattooer (I think for some reason that it was David Bruehl, but I'm not certain about that) talking about how there was a point in their career where they were tattooing a lot of yin yangs. The tattooer asked those clients what religion or philosophical belief that the yin and yang belonged to and none of them could give an even close to accurate answer, but that regardless of this, they were seeking to achieve a kind of balance in their lives. Horiyoshi III says in an interview in the book JBxH3 that a lot of people who get tattoos of Buddhist deities don't even know what they mean. They like the appearance or the name of the god, and maybe they learn more about it after. So even within what you describe as a "culture" people are getting tattoos that are outside of their realm of familiarity. Second, it's useless to talk about culture as this monolithic thing. If you want to talk narrowly about western traditional tattoos, a lot of those are sailor tattoos or military tattoos, or are deeply rooted in those cultures and traditions, and if you want to talk about people "staying within their own culture" a lot of us wouldn't have the tattoos we have. Third, at this point in time there are very few tattoo traditions that are "untouched" so to speak and aren't influenced by tattoo traditions from elsewhere, and I don't see this as in any way a bad thing. Shit, this isn't even a new thing. I read or heard somewhere...maybe it was from an interview with Horiyoshi III again?...that Japanese tattooing and this whole body compositions were originally influenced by Polynesian tattoos. You look at classic Western tattoos and you'll see all kinds of Asian influence there with dragons and what not--George Burchett went to Japan and observed the masters at work--not to mention that way that Sailor Jerry took that Japanese influence and brought it into Western tattooing with those incredible backpieces he did which have been so influential on the way we get tattooed now. What about Ed Hardy, who synthesised so many things into his tattooing? What about Thomas Hooper who does very European tattoos but is very open about how much he's influenced by Polynesian tattoos? I'm going to say that most of the exciting things that have happened in tattooing have happened precisely because people didn't "stay within their own culture".

Yep, Rhode Island or New Hampshire. Strongly leaning towards Rhode Island at this point for a number of reasons, and me and @Pugilist have talked about including a visit to Boston as part of the trip. No firm plans made yet, mind you. A New England LST meetup would be great.

Yeah, the plan is to have my right forearm done by him with some sort of Tibetan motif, possibly a dragon. Right now it's just a matter of figuring out travel and timing and what not given that my tattoo priority at the moment is saving money to start my back in the summer. I've been super impressed with what I've seen of Tom Yak's work, and my wife really wants to get tattooed by Robert Ryan (so do I for that matter) so a trip to Electric Tattoo is certainly something we'll eventually do as well. Sorry to derail your thread @AwakenTD

I don't recall where I heard it but Yoni Zilber may have even apprenticed under Avi Vanunu. Yoni's tattoos are absolutely beautiful. I need to make plans to get tattooed by him.

Ah cool! About all I know about tattooing in Israel is Avi Vanunu who also tattoos there/maybe owns the shop? Anyway, post up some pictures!

That's the sci-fi Rock of Ages, right? I love that tattoo. I'll throw Chad Koeplinger's name in here again. He covered a lot of my shin very quickly (under two hours) and the tattoo healed up really nicely and bright. Thomas Hooper gets it done too. He finished my arm from shoulder to wrist in around twenty hours which I found to be super fast especially given the intricacy of the tattoo. Fastest I've seen but not experienced personally were the backpieces that Filip Leu and Kurt Wiscombe did at this year's Montreal convention. They were doing full backs in 4-5 hours. It was mental.

I hope to get down to have it finished in late February, so I'll keep you posted!

Welcome! Who is doing your tattoos?

Great tattoos and welcome!

I had no idea Mina Aoki has only been tattooing for a couple of years. Jesus. I assumed from her tattoos she'd been at it a lot longer than that.

I got started on this tattoo by Ron Henry Wells last while he was guesting at Tattoomania in Montreal and we'll finish it at a later date. Sorry for the not great photo, it wraps a bit so it's tough to get a good one. As always, it was a real pleasure to be tattooed by Ron, and the Tattoomania crew were very gracious hosts. I love tattoos.

Welcome and I'll second the request for pictures.

Hello and welcome! Who are you getting tattooed by?

Top ten of what I actually listened to and enjoyed most in 2013, edited to not have duplicate artists, and in alphabetical order: Current 93 - Of Ruine or Some Blazing Starre Graveyard - Hisingen Blues GZA/Genius - Liquid Swords Iron Maiden - Seventh Son of a Seventh Son King Crimson - In The Court of the Crimson King Matthew Sweet - 100% Fun Mercyful Fate - Don't Break the Oath My Bloody Valentine - m b v Saint Vitus - Born Too Late Wu Tang Clan - Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) I'm old.

Haha, I had a job like that once. They monitored internet use so I couldn't dick around on the internet without getting in trouble for it, but I could download Word files of classic novels from Project Gutenberg and read those. I have a Kindle that I got as a gift a couple of years ago and I liked reading on it, but I stopped using it once e-books started getting comparable to the price of buying paper copies of books. Basically I think that e-books are a noxious idea, and they are only worth it when they're significantly cheaper than buying hard copies. At least if I buy a paper book I actually own that book. I can sell it if I want to, the bookseller can't suddenly revoke the book for whatever reason, and I'm not forced to buy my books from a company that I think is shittier the more I learn about it. I actually found myself buying paper copies of some books I bought on my Kindle and that I really loved. I am currently reading Excession by Iain M. Banks and it's really good fun. - - - Updated - - - It strengthens the immune system.