polliwog

Excited to be going to The Torchbearer to add to my arm soon. It's nice to be going back to someone who's already tattooed me.

The colors of the maple leaves are so perfect. They're making me notice elements of the design that I hadn't seen before.

Renegade was a totally enjoyable mess! I just (finally) bought a copy of The Fallen and am both interested in and fearful of what former band members have to say about him...like, you know how the sausage gets made even if you would rather not be reminded of it in detail.

This is a great thread and I've loved reading everyone's responses so far. For context, I was born in 1986. When I was 13 I got into pop music and the Internet in a big way...I was on various newsgroups and message boards for bands (and then got invited onto "private" offshoots of those message boards for being chatty). I was an avid Livejournaler and still keep in touch with plenty of folks I met there in the early 2000s. I've always felt like a bit of an uncool nerd because a lot of geek cultural touchstones like Star Wars, Dr. Who, high fantasy, musicals and so on never connected with me. Instead I was the sort of obnoxious teenager who read Georges Bataille and made sure you knew it. I really deserved a punch in the face. When I was 18 I started listening to The Fall, and in keeping with past practices became involved in their online community. A bunch of really amazing people were on their message board; I've met a ton of them over the years and have traveled to the UK multiple times basically to hang out. So many positive connections go back to The Fall. It turns out there's a pretty hardcore group of tapers, etc. in the UK and probably some in the US, too, though who knows if the band will ever play here again since things never end well for them when they do. Replace the mental image of a Deadhead with one of a genial hard-drinking 40-something Yorkshire man and that's who I spent a lot of my early 20s hanging out with. I can understand the resentment some folks might feel towards subcultures in the Internet age (if you can even call them that) vs. before that, but for better or for worse that's the story of my teenage nerdiness. The Internet really can help you to find "your people" if you're growing up in an area where you struggle to make friends...of course it can also keep you inside and alienated, depending on how you use it.

My thigh tattoo was really only a PITA for a couple days, and I'm a slow healer. :D Poke, poke. Seriously, @cltattooing's art keeps blowing me away. It's incredibly impressive to witness someone with talent and drive becoming seriously good at their craft. More so for me because I get discouraged really easily when it comes to anything creative and so am extra impressed by the grit it must take to grow and evolve like that. Hope this isn't too weirdly effusive, it's totally sincere.

Upper thigh? Also you should totally do it.

I don't really get itching so much as an electrical nerve tingle that periodically shoots through the healing area. It's not a feeling I've gotten from anything else before. Pretty weird.

How did it work out? You can bet I got righteously drunk the night I had to sleep on the floor at LaGuardia withut my luggage.

I love that pig so much.

8 hours on your foot = you are a beast

Speaking of deep fryers, I just went through the humiliation of trying on new bathing suits (even the most body-positive person could get bummed out when faced with women's swimwear) and am now feeling like, fuck it, tattoo over everything.

I don't want to flog a dead horse, but Jennifer Billig put up some pretty cool pictures a couple weeks ago. This is just a tiny picture on a computer screen but I'm in awe of how durable a good tattoo is, and how skilled a good tattooer is. If it hits me in the gut the style doesn't really matter to me. Yay tattoos!!! This makes me want to go get more right away.

Just a head's up, there are a bunch of work-appropriate (unless your workplace is very formal) cap-sleeve dresses at Uniqlo right now. (No white leggings, though...guess everyone else had the same summer leg-covering idea.) As for the Megan Jean Morris tattoo above, not my style at all but who really cares. It seems to imply rape to me, though the other one with the air vent reminds me of tentacle hentai. Insert long and tedious conversation about fantasy and BDSM and feminism here.

Given that there exists a multipage discussion (including polite disagreement!) of Eddy Deutsche's current vs. older work on this forum only a couple pages back, the detour that this conversation has taken is pretty absurd...

Cory Kruger was one of the first recommendations I got after joining this forum...of course now he's in Chicago, not Clinton, MA. I feel pretty stupid for not getting on that sooner. I don't think the people you listed are necessarily unappreciated here, it's just not the type of work that a lot of posters are getting. And if traditional is misunderstood then it's nice to have places like this as a corrective...

I think I'll be joining a lot of you in sobriety, at least for a while. It turns out that drinking makes me pretty depressed these days, and it's time to figure out a better way of coping with shyness.

@SeeSea What about a cotton/linen shawl to cover the edges of the tattoo? Linen seems to be everywhere at the moment. Also liking how elbow-length sleeves seem to be a thing right now. Whatever corporate entity decides on clothing trends for women has come up with a lot of work-friendly tattoo covering solutions this year. (The bookstore where I work is surrounded by clothing stores for women.)

This is a shame. (Not trying to single you out or persuade you to keep posting if it doesn't give you anything back...it's just a bummer if tattooers are put off being here.)

I think there has been some eye-rolling at stuff like this on here, but it's a bit more complicated. The other day a tattooer who I follow through various social media made it clear that he was happy to do stuff like this, didn't feel it was beneath him, etc. - I mean, presumably as long as the requests weren't for upside-down images or a trend that will age terribly. I appreciated that. There's also a difference between discussing trends that you find unflattering (for instance, I've read a defense of 90s lower-back tribal somewhere on this board on the grounds that it sat better on the body than today's exploding feathers) vs. being a dick to an actual person with one of those tattoos...though one thing can turn into the other. But yeah, things that young girls/women enjoy or turn into trends are often seen as a bit gauche, too. At this point I've started to resent "white girl" as shorthand for a specific kind of embarrassing taste, but that's another discussion... It seems like there's been more of an effort lately to avoid trend-bashing and to focus on the positive, which is great.

I'm just some person on the internet, but it looks good to me. The black and grey looks really nice next to the color since they're all nautical and done in a similar style. And even if they didn't match (which they do), well, tattoos that don't totally go together can look really good, anyway. When you get tattooed at a pretty good rate it can be easy to second-guess yourself, so maybe a breather would help? If you have some months to finish your arm, that is.

Soooo...congratulations on finishing your eagle @exume. The pattern on the snake is perfect.

Some people have reported getting a heat rash under the -derm on hot, sweaty days. I kept a close watch for this when using it over the summer. I don't think it would be breathable enough for a gym session.

You are clearly a beautiful and intelligent person, and that sounds very hurtful. My partner was sitting across from me on my laptop as I was reading your post - knowing that he doesn't like tattoos, I asked him what he thought about your friend's statement. He looked baffled for a moment and then said, "What the fuck? Why would anyone say that?" So this person doesn't need to be into tattoos, but he does need to not be an asshole about it. In a broader sense, I think we're deluding ourselves a bit if we think we have any idea of what our partners are going to look like as we get older. Not to be morbid, but accidents happen and limbs are lost, faces are scarred - people have stayed with their lovers through much worse than an aging tattoo. Yet, for instance, the Internet loses its shit if a woman ages the "wrong" way (trying too hard to look young, looking too old, etc etc etc).

From a personal standpoint: I have one-point tattoos so far. I am sometimes impulsive. Don't really see an issue with my tattoos possibly conveying this about me...