polliwog

I like how watercolor tattoos are to this forum what Bose is to audiophile message boards...

You're certainly free not to take her seriously, but I'm still interested in the question of whether or not this is copying. Anyway, I think the notion of someone else doing her style of tattooing is, at least, stupid, since I imagine part of the appeal for people who have her tattoos is the name/fame...

I feel like this has covered why obviously bad tattoos are popular, but maybe not so much why well-meaning people end up with just-okay tattoos. To my mind, crafting an outstanding tattoo involves many variables that just aren't applicable to many other types of visual art. It's even more confusing when you add in the variable of personal taste. I work in a bookstore and need to be well-versed in children's picture books so that I can make recommendations, so I see a pretty wide variety of illustration styles that I love, almost none if which would work as a tattoo - you can look at many picture-book tattoos as unfortunate proof of this. There's wonky line weight galore, and colors sometimes migrate, but, if the composition is solid, the looseness adds to the charm of the illustrations. I find myself disliking anything that's too bright, clean and/or cartoonish. Likewise, classic flash, when executed cleanly, looks fantastic on the human body but frankly wouldn't excite me too much outside of that context. Not to mention that you can't, for instance, pick up your local paper (if you're in a metropolitan area with a reputable paper, which is increasingly rare) and read at-minimum competent tattoo art criticism. I think it's at least partly a matter of retraining your eyes and learning how to look, which is something that might elude even a fairly careful person. - - - Updated - - - Having said that, if you get more than one iffy tattoo, it's your fault.

They just really, really don't want me to get another one. "Why don't you design a t-shirt instead?"

Just wanted to agree with this. I wasn't sure of my own feelings regarding the earlier post I'd made and was interested in a more experienced point of view (though nobody seems to want to take me up on that). It seemed like a grey area to me. Do you somehow have more ownership of brushstrokes than another tattooer, if that's a style you've become famous for?

I'm fascinated by them, too. This is worth watching if you haven't already seen it: "

Just wondering if anyone else here likes Mulysa Mayhem. Sorry, most of her images aren't on Good Mojo's site but are on her Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/mulysa.mayhem

My favorite so far has been, "Were you drunk?" Because I would totally ask for a custom tattoo while blasted...

I was looking at the work of a local tattooer recently & was impressed until I got to a picture of Amanda Wachob-style multicolored brushstrokes on the shoulders. While it wasn't a line-for-line copy of any of her tattoos, it made me uncomfortable - not to mention that it seems like a poor idea to imitate the signature style of one of the most visible artists around at the moment, since you'll probably come up short. Just wondering what you all might have to say about this type of copying.

I really like this tattoo - one of the better animal portraits I've seen. Look at the personality in the dog's face! I hope its wearer has made peace with it.

So cool. I'd been mulling over when/where/what to get for my first tattoo for years without much direction and just jumped headfirst into it a few weeks ago (like, choosing design & location relatively quickly) after a lot of indecision. It felt like a good way to get started, but I think a lot more actual planning will go into the second one.

This sounds really great and I'm actually excited for you. Good luck! I have plans to do something similar when I can afford it.

I got it done a little under 4 weeks ago. It's still a little dry and itchy and textured, so I'll definitely give it a bit longer before I consider cleaning up any lines. Thanks! I do like how it reads from a distance & think all changes from the original drawing were the right ones! Simple but slightly weird is pretty much my aesthetic. I think well-done realistic and Japanese tattoos look great on other people, but I could never wear them.

Here's one of the least shitty of all of my shitty laptop photos. It's based on a Charles Rennie Mackintosh watercolor sketch and the partial coloring is intentional. I feel a little self-conscious posting something so simple when faced with all the amazing tattoos on here.

They were in Italy. Came home to a tattooed daughter. (I'm 27, though, so...)

Hi everyone. I'm from outside of Boston, MA and recently got my first tattoo. I will probably have many questions but will try my best to answer them pre-emptively by looking through what's already on here. I work as a bookseller at an indie bookstore. I'm a woman, if that matters. To begin, I'm wondering if anyone else on here has hypermobility-related issues and, if so, what effect hypermobility might have when it comes to how a person's skin handles ink. Considering that my joints are naturally more flexible than most (I'm not at the Ehlers-Danlos end of the spectrum, but I can do the creepy bending-one's-thumb-to-inner-wrist thing and tend to hyperextend my back), will the connective tissue in my skin potentially make me more prone to blowout and other problems? I tend to discolor easily after getting a cut, though my scars don't usually raise. My tattoo experience so far has been that I've healed quickly and lost virtually no ink after removing my bandage (as in, I wore a light t-shirt to bed the night after being tattooed over a largeish area of my upper arm and woke up to a still-pristine shirt), but some of my linework is a bit mushier than I would prefer. This was not an issue that I had noted in my tattooer's portfolio work, though I doubt I have as practiced an eye as most of you all. I'm not totally upset about this, but I was wondering if it might have anything to do with my particular biology. I also made the potential mistake of using glycolic acid lotion on my arm several times in the lead-up to my tattoo in an attempt to exfoliate well, and, while I could find a lot of information on using AHAs to fade tattoos, I found little about AHA use prior to tattooing. Unfortunately I don't have anything capable of taking higher-resolution pictures than the lousy camera on my laptop, but I'll try to get a photo soon. Thanks for taking the time to read this. I'm a bit of a nerd...