Iwar

You finally got it!! Congrats and welcome to the club :D

Finally got to visit State of Grace and get my Molly Monmon Cat from Horitomo!
He did an amazing job. Just spectacular. I sent several pictures of her and some descriptions of her favorite things, her personality and her character. She *loved* shrimp sushi and got an entire order for her 16th birthday, right before we lost her to cancer. Horitomo created a picture of her in heaven with a halo and surrounded by her favorite things - including that she is surrounded by catnip! The face is perfect. I gave him a decent size square footage and told him he could expand beyond the cat and add other elements. Her face is perfect. When he showed me the sketch, my eyes just teared up.
It was neat to be tattooed on the platform in the shop. It is a little sanctuary with neat drawings, books and items on shelves. He is a quiet gentle soul.
I tried tebori for the whites and I probably would not do it again. For many areas, I didn't even feel the first 4-5 pokes. It just felt like a shoving pressure but there was *no* pain. Then the last several shoves were painful. But around my hip was bad all around. I'm glad I did it, though.
Crashing out now holed up in the hotel with mom. <3 <3 <3

Steve byrne Rock of Ages austin tx

Got this wicked draw-on zen spider from Jonny Murdoch from Government Street Tattoo (Victoria) who is in Edmonton for the week.
Also this smug lil bumble bee too:

the idea of which came to me in a dream 3 nights in a row...then i googled "angry bumble bee" and bam! clipart reference on the first hit.
These toonie sized tatts are so much fun. Hooray for "recreational tattooing" lol.
Jonny's hanging at Champion Tattoo, Shawn Hedley's new shop in town. Super dope shop, nice hospitality, guess they got a bunch of ringers guest spotting in the future...better leave some space ;) Great tattoo talk yesterday and I got to see a backpiece Filip Leu and Kurt Wiscombe tag teamed up close. Amazzzzzzzing

I love these! The colours are fantastic, if a little unexpected
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THIS!

Closing thread. Please remember to be respectful and courteous towards each other folks. Let's try to avoid arguments and keep things on a positive note around here. Gracias.

Some of you have already seen this, but we finished my back yesterday. Some of it is still fresh and angry, so I'll get better pictures when it's healed and settled in. Dave Cummings at PSC Tattoo in Montreal did this. Dave is the man, get tattooed by him.

Second session with Kelly:

Got a new one yesterday, done by Valerie Vargas at Modern Classic from some Ed Hardy flash.

Well, now that PAX is over and I've had two days to sleep it off, I can get around to doing internet stuff.
@beez and I had a super fun time hanging out at Liberty a bit ago, because we decided we should probably go and get tattoos. Here is mine, by Christopher Ayalin:

Good times! Spent PAX wandering around the exhibition hall feeling like the leg of my jeans on that side was full of mosquitoes, though. Ha.

Tomo's new studio, Silk Needle, continues the Yellow Blaze tradition of being somewhat hard to find without GPS / phone map.
The sign is 'blink and you'll miss it'.
Nagaoka is a morning shinkansen's ride from Tokyo... 1.5 hours. The new studio is super comfy and Tomo seems to be planning a lot of conventions in Europe and Canada soon, he's energised.
We did 5 hours, which finished off my front after (I think) 4 years and about six sessions? All in Japan bar one. My bank account is glad that's done.
Drank some awesome Echigo beer on the way home and zoned out till I ate a restorative giant ramen. I lived on ramen this trip: All kinds! Soya base, extra fatty pork base, fish base... Cheap, tasty and hydrating.
Flying home tomorrow but this morning I had a consult with Shige and, all going well, getting a small piece from him at a convention in Europe in next while.

One half of my haul at the Montreal convention. By Tim Pausinger.

Went to the Montreal convention looking to get a walk-up. Jebb Riley was available, and he put this candle in a long space on my right bicep.

From Saturday... Bottom of shin/top of foot

Jeff Zuck @ Name Brand
Saturday night, went to see Motorhead for probably the last time. Fun and sad at the same time as Lem seems every bit of his hard lived 69 years of age. I've seen them almost 20 times and this was kind of a teary goodbye for me.......

little sum sum from Sheila Marcello @ Electric Tattoo in Asbury Park NJ

One more session on this Martin Hildebrandt tribute, by Rich Hardy. Damn did that lower torso session suck.

Damn people, tattooing has enough drama with all the reality show bullshit, can we just not bring that crap onto the forums? You don't like each other (or at least one of you doesn't the other), fine, I really don't care. I'm sick of it being brought up all the time. Just ignore each other. This is the best tattoo forum I've found and I don't want it to dissolve into petty fussin' and feudin'.
To the OP, if you're even still around (sounds like you didn't like people saying you shouldn't take a shortcut and you ran off), this course sounds like a horrible idea. The best way to learn about tattoos is to get tattooed. Find a shop, hang out there a lot, get a lot of work done there, and maybe you'll get a foothold in the business through an apprenticeship. I can't imagine anyone would want to take on someone who started their career this way, and I think in the long run, it'll just be limiting to you. In the meantime, just work on drawing and studying tattoos. Build up a good portfolio while you're making connections and don't fuck up anyone's skin in the meantime.
As for the forum rules, I don't question it. I don't really need to know all the details of the profession. Tattoos are expensive, hurt, and require a lot of time and skill. That's all I need to know as a customer. If you're going to not get tattooed just because a forum won't tell you how much so-and-so charges per hour or how much their backpiece cost, that's just pretty sad. I really think it's unnecessary.

Thought this might be of interest to some of you. All tattoo work by Diego Azaldegui.

Just booked with Chad Koeplinger for November when he's in DC at Tattoo Paradise. Don't know exactly what I'm getting, but I'm fuckin' stoked about it!!!

This forum was started by a professional tattooer, which should give you some insight into certain rules.
I appreciate everyone's civil responses in this particular thread.

Hate to break it to you, but that sounds like nothing more than a way for someone to get your money with no guarantees for your future. Spend your money on getting tattooed.

I don't think I ever posted a photo of my back in here. Its not entirely finished but we don't get to work on it too much. Done by my boss Jedidia Reid here in San Antonio Texas.

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Yo! Submissions had gone way down for a while, so we (the mods) decided a little break was in order. But fear not, I'm sure we'll be back in some shape or form in the near future :)

@cltattooing Are you kidding? That backpiece will be a WINNER!
Too bad submissions are down... I guess we all don't have that much skin left!