Graeme

Pictures to follow but I had a great session with Thomas Hooper today and my sleeve is nearly lined. On my forearm there's a nautilus shell with an almost acanthus leaf-like pattern in it (Haeckel's Art Forms In Nature has a shell like this in it) amidst Japanese water with water cascading over it. On the inside of my arm is a Haeckel-inspired mandala and next session we'll cap off my shoulder with an atmospheric mandala with flames and clouds. Really kind of amazed at it and feel so fortunate to have a tattoo so beautiful.

I got a kindle a couple of years ago as a gift and really liked it at first, but since amazon raised the prices of ebooks (I recall reading something about publishers being butthurt about the prices amazon was charging) I can't be bothered because to me, an ebook is only worth it if it's significantly cheaper than a paper book. A couple of months ago I bought a new mass market copy of The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss for about ten dollars at Indigo. That was the cover price, no discounts or anything like that. When I got home I looked up the book on the kindle, and it was around $12. That to me is absurd, because not only am I paying extra to "lease" the book, there aren't printing, warehousing, distribution cost, retail overheads, etc there. In theory once you make one digital copy of a book and have the infrastructure in place to distribute it, your costs are so minimal, and I resent paying the same or more for the digital copy. I can't see myself really using e-readers with that being the case. I also really like paper books, though I did find the kindle nice to read on and after I got used to the device it felt pretty much the same as reading a paper book. I don't like that there's no cover art (or poor cover art) but that's kind of neither here nor there.

An hour and a half until my appointment and I'm excited! We talked about some really cool ideas last time and I'm looking forward to seeing how they work out. I'm sure I will have pictures soon enough.

Please tell me you got a cholo pug.

Can't wait to see the pictures of your tattoos, and welcome! Having just gotten into NYC about an hour ago from Montreal for my next tattoo session, I am jealous of people who live in NYC because the sheer number of AMAZING artists in this city is unreal.

That rules! Congratulations! I kind of wondered seeing your drawings on IG, some very good stuff there.

I'm on Xbox Live as Fancypaw but I basically only play Skyrim and not very often at that. I like playing video games but I usually have better things to do with my time than play them.

Leaving shortly for NYC for my next session with Hooper. I think we are going to try to finish my forearm.

I feel that Ron could make a reasonable living just tattooing people from LST at this point.

Between last month's winner and @else 's tattoo can we amend the rules for future contests to say that all tattoos can enter but only combinations of panthers and cobras may win?

Welcome to LST! I got my first tattoo at 31 as well despite wanting one was a teenager and I agree, the nicest part about waiting until you're older is that you are in a better place to get good tattoos. Any pictures of your Dana Helmuth piece? We'd love to see it.

That's a great tattoo. In addition to the suggestions here, just give it some time. It always takes a while to adjust to a new tattoo and how you feel about it right now might not be how you feel about it in a few weeks, months, or years.

That's kind of a bummer. I was hoping that the best way to contact him was through performing some kind of arcane ritual.

Haha no, those shirts are stupid and annoying. The worst are the "Tattooed and Employed" ones because it's like tattoos are so mainstream that nobody thinks you're a badass for being tattooed. Trying too hard bullshit that stuff is.

Yeah, I can see someone like Gerhard Wiesbeck (don't know where he is in Germany though) being able to do something cool with this but it would, I think, have to be fairly abstracted and perhaps not still readable as a map.

Nice, they are both excellent tattooers. I need to stop by The Pearl and get something the next time I'm in Toronto.

Hey Mark, welcome to LST. Who is doing your tattoos?

I'm not an artist but my feeling is that's a really cool map but it isn't really a tattoo and while I can kind of see how a really good tribal or blackwork artist could make it work, I'm still a bit wary especially since you want straight and crisp lines and how the design depends on them. Lines are going to thicken and lose their crispness over time, your body and your skin is going to change and slacken, and I can't see the design holding up super well over time. Again, I'm not an artist and these are my half-informed opinions, but if you want to go for it, make sure you find an artist that has examples of something similar to what you want in his/her portfolio.

To be fair, most things can be improved by adding Sabbath.

Hi and welcome. There's only so much we can tell you here about what you can do with that tattoo, your best bet is to find a good tattoo artist and talk to him or her about it. Where do you live so that we can suggest good people in your area?

Great Odin's beard, who thought our lord and savior looked like this!

If I'm calculating it right, it's a 7.5% dilution which I think is pretty significant and is probably fairly noticeable, especially if you were to taste the two side by side.

There are no stupid questions, only stupid people.

I thought this is a forum for good tattoos. Why is this even a question?

I don't know where that is but people here are going to suggest that you either get tattooed by Mike Wilson or David Bruehl. You should listen to these people.