JVandal

So, I just had a second sitting on my tattoo. During the initial appointment the artist (Johnny McDevitt, Insight Studios) and I weren't sure about leaving skin breaks in the banners. He was very cool about it and didn't rush me to a decision on the spot. He just said to wait and see how it healed up and make a decision then, and if I wanted to fill them in he would do it for free. After it healed I debated for a couple months, since I really liked the effect in the top banner, but I didn't think it worked in the lower one. Anyways, earlier in the week I emailed him that I had decided to fill them in. He was really cool and got me into the schedule tonight. What was really cool about the whole experience is that instead of just filling in the breaks in the banner he went the extra mile. He reworked a couple of lines that hadn't healed very well, and he went over all of the blue in both banners. I have run across the sentiment on the forum a few times most recently in the Jeff Cribb interview that people would "rather get a shitty tattoo from a solid dude than a great tattoo from a shitty dude", but if you get a solid tattoo from a cool dude then so much the better, right? I guess I just got lucky since I got tattooed from Johnny as a walk-in during a charity event. Just wanted to give a shout out to a solid tattooer. Insight Studios Online - Johnny McDevitt

Holy MF shit that is right up there with the dude who put a chest piece on his cat...Russian Artist Gives His Cat A Chest Tattoo , although russia is a common theme.

You can probably download the kindle app for you tablet and then read it through there.

Yeah, Deano Cook would also be an obvious choice for underwater realism, if you wanted to take it (the right arm) in that direction. He was on Tattoo Wars on TLC a few years ago you can still find the videos on YouTube if you were interested in checking out his work that way. first video:

Yes it is available on Kindle. You could actually pre-subscribe so that it downloaded automatically when it became available, already on the second time reading through :)

Here it is, not healed though, only pic I have at the moment.

Thanks Graeme, I just read through the Japanese Symbolism thread, which was great. I will definitely be picking up Bushido in the near future, and checking out the Gomineko books as well. I also like Stewart Robson's suggestion about checking out Japanese art on iTunesU.

Hi Everyone, I got my first tattoo a couple of months ago, after seemingly years of deliberation, and now I can barely wait until I have pulled together the cash for a second. I am located in Chicago so there are a lot of great artists to choose from, which doesn't make it any easier to wait. I am interested primarily in collecting american traditional and japanese inspired tattoos and I came across the site while digging around the web for background information. If anyone can recommend an informative reference book/website on japanese tattooing I would appreciate it. Some of the better ones I am currently aware of are GODS of Japan, A-to-Z Photo Dictionary of Japanese Buddhism (Buddhist & Shinto Deities), which isn't directly related to tattooing per se, but does have a lot of background information. Also, I have heard good things about the book "Bushido: Legacies of the Japanese Tattoo" by Takahiro and Katie Kitamura. Anyways, I think that probably covers introductions. Cheers, Joe