sophistre

@%1;: I was staring at that all day on instagram the day it popped up. It's so, so beautiful. The hair and those colors and, just, yeah.

I mentioned the 'whole suit by just one artist' thing to he and one of the other guys who stayed late watching us finish up. I think they were tickled, but also said they probably couldn't do that themselves. Too much fun to get art from a lot of people, even for them. I will remember that promise!

Yeah! They are my favorite part, too. That and the little yellow beak. He has a neat stripey body too, but that'll need a better picture to show. Thank you!! That's such a nice thing to say. It feels strange to hear it after spending so many years admiring other people's tattoos. (It's also strange to only have 3 and already be sad that I don't have more arms.)

The people who said they didn't think the elbow was too bad are all insane. Or they have magical elbows. More fun stuff on the arm with Greg. Took the photo from his instagram. Feels weird to include something this little this week when there's so much crazy stuff on my instagram from the Bay Area convention, but oh well! The trend of 'never actually doing what we previously planned on' continues. At this point I kinda hope it always does. And now I am done until the end of November!

Not gonna touch on the OP or the thread, but I just wanted to say: cancer-treatment radiation targeting tattoos get MY vote for toughest tattoos, full stop. A bit tongue in cheek, this, but:

Cartilage piercings are always a long heal, sadly. It depends on you, obviously, and the gauge you were pierced at, but, yeah. I was always tender for months. I've taken out more piercings than I will likely ever have again, for professional reasons years ago, but I still have some. Philtrum, septum, just took my nostril out to get symmetrical nostril piercings in about a week from now! And ears, currently stretched up to a very modest 7g. I probably would never have gotten my philtrum and septum pierced last year, but jewelry has come a looooooong way since the 90s. There's some gorgeous, classy stuff out there, these days. Jewelry-store quality stuff. Just take a gander at BVLA's catalogue sometime. I got some pretty stuff recently. My face is so fancy. (Though not as fancy as it'll be once I get those nostrils redone.)

I snooped around there when I saw that post about Jacob Redmond after posting my first tattoo. So much good stuff. Portland seems pretty well-off in the tattoo department.

@CABS: Oh, I see. That Cripwell suit with the legs, I guess? It's pretty amazing to look at. Who knows, it may wind up that way with my arms! I have so many mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, Greg is a great guy, he's nearby, and I'm totally thrilled with what we've done; it's fun to go in and flip through books of classic flash until we see something we like, and have him put together his take on it. It feels a little bit like getting a present every time I go, since I haven't known exactly what it'll be either time. I definitely wouldn't hate doing that indefinitely. On the other hand, I'm so curious about experiencing how other shops and tattooers do their thing, and that's on top of admiring their tattoos (and I'm still discovering new tattooers all the time, since I'm a noob). Tough choices! But, I feel lucky to have that kind of tough choice to make.

Amazing. This sounds every bit as apocalyptic as I feared. My tattooer asked me just before we started the first one if I was nervous, and I told him I was only nervous about doing a bad job sitting there, which was true. Now I know I had good reason to be nervous. I will continue to try to sit there...if not for the sake of my dignity, then for small dogs everywhere.

Haha. Do you? Why's that? I probably wouldn't mind, but there are so many amazing artists out there that it seems unlikely. Definitely giving him my whole arm, though.

@motsimus, thanks! It's funny you should say that...we were joking around about it. I think after the rose appointment, we're gonna do an appointment for a funny little Dietzel dragon. I guess technically that's still a badass animal and a flower, though... :o

Swellbow. I had not heard this word. Guess I should change my gym plans for that week. Thanks for the advice. Ice was pretty nice during the itchiest part of healing my last one, too.

Tattoo number two today! With Greg Whitehead again, photo from his instagram...not a great shot but it's good enough! Sounds like I'm coming back in a week to put a rose on my elbow, too. I'm guessing that one's gonna be fun.* *not fun

I usually only voyeur this section of the forum, but...I AM SO EXCITED FOR THIS. I might have to take a little field trip up to Snoqualmie now that I'm living in the PNW, since that's where most of it was filmed. Gotta celebrate with some damn fine coffee. And some pie.

@HaydenRose, I think those peonies just singlehandedly sold me on asking for a big fat floral something on my arm next. I was waffling on which idea to run with first, but...those are just gorgeous.

I had a poetry prof in university a million years ago who said something on the first day of class that I think applies to so many other things in life, and maybe it's relevant here, I dunno. He was addressing the perception of many freshmen that learning how to scan poetry, learning the rules of it, didn't matter, when so many of them took a shine to poetry after discovering e.e. cummings or Eliot's The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock -- in the case of the latter, mistakenly believing that it was free verse, which it actually isn't. But that mistake underlined his point, which is this: until you're familiar with the rules of a thing, until you understand the hows and whys of that thing, which often entails becoming familiar with its major players through history...you can't really meaningfully deviate from those rules. He said that he thinks it's important to break rules, but it's even more important to understand why you're breaking them when you do it. You start with the foundations, and then your choices have context and meaning, whatever choices you make afterward. Maybe this doesn't apply to tattooing, I don't know; I'm still learning...but I find that most people with knowledge of a subject will assume that a new person discarding the fundamentals of any given thing are doing themselves or the thing a disservice, for lack of having the knowledge to know any better. Maybe that's not always true; maybe a new person can just intuit those things and make excellent choices blindly. It does seem rather more unlikely, though.

@Tim Burke - Definitely one of the prettiest ships I've ever seen. I love those colors.

@SeeSea: Cozumel is just beautiful. I haven't been in years...I bet that all happened after the last time I was there (though I didn't know the reefs well enough to remember their names, so I'm not sure). Dad is landlocked and retired in Colorado these days, but I should definitely look into the Tuneup. NJ might be a little far to travel, though I appreciate the invitation. :cool: I also did my first (and only) shark dive on the Fiji/Tahiti trip. My memory is that it was mostly black tip reef sharks. And speaking of sharks, grats, @Mick Weder! (And now I will stop derailing tattoo thread with dive talk. :o)

I've been out of the water so long I'm pretty sure I'd need to be recertified, sad to say! I dove a lot in Cozumel, but a few other places...Fiji and Tahiti. That was before I was even fully certified. I guess it's handy to have a dive master for a dad! I miss it so much...though juggling diving AND tattoos in the hobby department sounds like a great way to never have any money. :o There are totally dive shops around here, which is crazy to me...but I hear there are gigantic octopuses in the Sound, which would be pretty cool to see, admittedly.

@SeeSea That tattoo makes me miss breathing canned air so much. And that eel is perfect. Love them.

I've been planning on getting a mermaid tattoo for a while now. I'm definitely planning to have her boobs covered up...not because I think there's anything wrong with bare breasts in art or for any other reason, but because I can conceive of social situations (particularly involving extended family) where I would be self-conscious and uncomfortable about having them on my person and therefore potentially on display, and I'd rather just feel unreservedly awesome about my tattoos at all times. So...to me, it's not worth it. I imagine this is just a subjective thing.

The blues in that backpiece are unreal, @Cork. And there's just so much to see. The longer I looked the more little things in it I noticed. So cool.