Julio Avila

ida bounced that bitch out the shop.
and then id burn that fucking flame shit doofus is wearing

i think misspelling of words is up there.
also, backwards tattoos. you guys see that TATTOO WARS show? it was awesome!!!!!!!!!! you see the one with mike rubendall up against bugs? i like the way they showed mike doing his homework researching his design and doing some sketching while bugs went to his mechanics place to work on a hot rod. come tattoo time, mike did an INCREDIBLE job. bugs on the other hand decided to just draw his design on. and drew it BACKWARDS!!!!!! thats some crap you learn in the first week of an apprenticeship. not 20 years into your career.

i made an appt to get a rose and my moms signature in a banner by scott. he showed me the drawing and goes.... "i think its too big. what do you think"
i say..."whatever you think is best" he goes..."ok" now im the dude with the biggest rose tattoo on his neck ever haha
sat down in the chair and he reaches over to a literal pile of machines. there had to be at least a dozen all up on top of eachother. he spread them out a bit and grabbed the two or three he needed. i think i owned two liners and a shader at that point in my career haha. it was such a cool ass experience.
and for future reference, if you let scott do what he wants, you end up with a huge neck/face rose or a grim reaper riding a rooster pointing up at your "good times" haha
one last thing... got to meet Hector Fong there. cool dude for sure!!! havent spoken to him in a while. i hope hes doing well. and i remember scott yellin at him then callin him "a chinese mexican or whatever the fuck you are"
went to the closing party/auction. it was awesome but shitty timing. it was in february when i had nooooooo money. i just got back from a trip home. wanted to bid on a rassier painting, but my roommate wanted to as well. i let her buy it. she got it super fucking cheap!!!! i hate her guts now.
oh i remember noah also scraping shit off the floor with a razor because eddie said he fucked up haha

i made an appt to get a rose and my moms signature in a banner by scott. he showed me the drawing and goes.... "i think its too big. what do you think"
i say..."whatever you think is best" he goes..."ok" now im the dude with the biggest rose tattoo on his neck ever haha
sat down in the chair and he reaches over to a literal pile of machines. there had to be at least a dozen all up on top of eachother. he spread them out a bit and grabbed the two or three he needed. i think i owned two liners and a shader at that point in my career haha. it was such a cool ass experience.
and for future reference, if you let scott do what he wants, you end up with a huge neck/face rose or a grim reaper riding a rooster pointing up at your "good times" haha
one last thing... got to meet Hector Fong there. cool dude for sure!!! havent spoken to him in a while. i hope hes doing well. and i remember scott yellin at him then callin him "a chinese mexican or whatever the fuck you are"
went to the closing party/auction. it was awesome but shitty timing. it was in february when i had nooooooo money. i just got back from a trip home. wanted to bid on a rassier painting, but my roommate wanted to as well. i let her buy it. she got it super fucking cheap!!!! i hate her guts now.
oh i remember noah also scraping shit off the floor with a razor because eddie said he fucked up haha

jerk offs that insist on watching you tattoo every line on their arms with their face all up in your work area.
i just move my machine in a manner so its up their fucking nose. cool out homie, you got the rest of your life to look at your inspiring dreamsicle tattoo.
people that give you five pages of a book and want you to draw a representation of said shit pages.

Yuppies.
I know this us a huge generalization, but they usually get the wackest tattoos!!!!
They get super small super detailed crap in a super private spot. Coming into the shop acting like they are such huge rebels. Wanna be a rebel? Buy a Honda instead of a BMW.
Reminds me of one of my favorite jokes....
What's the difference between a BMW and a porqupine?
Porqupines have the pricks on the OUTSIDE.
*nothing against BMW owners. Just yuppies

im also gonna add tiny ass upside down lettering on the wrist......in white

Trees. In the last two years I've done about 100 of them.
Trees with hidden words or initials anywhere in the design (in the trunk, branches, or roots)
Hidden words or initials. If you've got something to say, SAY IT!
Arm bands. They break up the arm in such weird spots it makes it difficult "add to" or expand on with future tattoos.
Cherubs. Naked babies?! For reals?!
Art. You really need V. Van Gogh's "Starry Night" on your arm? Go buy a t shirt!!
Superman logos. You are from right here. Not Krypton
This list can go on forever. Sometimes it's not the what that you are tattooing but the who. Arrive on time, be respectful and don't figit around. Bring a good story to tell. Tattooers love em! Most of all, leave your tuff guy attitude at home. You ain't as tuff as us.

valerie vargas

i think its not too difficult to get tattooed by somebody you really want if you are patient. WAIT. get in contact with the person, let them know what you want, drop off a deposit and wait. save that spot you want to get tattooed for that tattoo.
people bug out when i tell them they gotta wait two weeks for their tattoo. like they are going to die or go to prison in that time. CHILL. if you aint a pain in the ass, itll happen

Anyone mention Eddy Reyes? Secretsidewalk.com I think that's his site. I think he used to be in Fremont but moved? Still in northern California though. Super nice tattoos and a really cool guy.

Daaaayum I'm glad somebody brought up dick warsaki. My old boss has a huuuge front thigh piece by him. Huuuge buffalo head. If you get close enough you can see a tiny Indians head he tattooed in the animals eye. It's fucking amazing!!! Tattooed Dicks nephew a handful of times. He bugged out when we told him all about his uncle and how famous he is to us guys haha

the best people that work in this style are unknown.
i came up in l.a., and growing up id see, and still see to this day, people with really beautiful black and grey tacs, lettering and portraiture and other staples of "chicano" tattooing, but were done by nonames, in prison, county jails, firecamps and kitchens. it looked green! id always look at that stuff when i was a kid.it would almost always be girls. topless girls in sombreros on a forearm. and i remember always trying to get a good look at it. i still always try to look at it. a lotta this stuff was done in the late 60's to the mid to late 80's, with the heyday being in the 1970's. a lot of cool looking tattoos were made in the 70's. in the 90's it took on a different look. still cool but a little different. not as blue.
no one invented it. no one started it. some people just capitalized on it. it become popular. not so long ago a lot of tattooers were doing that kind of work, bob roberts was doing it, ed hardy. the fad went out, and they went back to what they knew.
but some people started with it, and stuck with ut. the two best known "names" for this stuff are negrete and rudy. i think they might be about the same on the art level, but i think negrete is the better all- around tattooer. jacks got him on lettering for sure, but jack is a beast on letters in general. negrete learned to tattoo in prison, so his work retains that purity, that packed in, dense, blueish black hue. hes good at more stuff i think, then jack.
then theres lesser known but just as important arteests, like baby ray, brian everett and tony olivas. dick warsocki, romo, flame, creeper, lady blue, mahoney, montie and brown (RIP).
all those people have been doing the kind of work your talking about, for a long, long time. i think some of them get associated with "chicano" tattooing, but in reality they did a lot of other stuff, a lot of biker style shit, or typical 70's tough guy motifs. They did as many sombrero girls as they did single needled grim reapers, starry space scenes, naked girls, pegasus and other winged creatures, unicorns, led zepplin winged dudes, butterfly's, zigzag men, Harley Davidson shields, vikings, castles and wizards handling business. That stuff is cut from the same cloth as cholo stuff.
later.

No not at all.
Specially mike giant. Fuck no.

About a month ago I was tattooing this young lady. Tattooed her young husband several times before. Good people. So I'm tattooing her back and she's sitting in a chair. Her husband and work friend were there for support. We are all hangin out and having a good time when the friend starts babbling some numbers. I stop tattooing and look over and chuckle, "what?!". I see the look of panic in her eyes and realize she's saying a phone number. She mumbles," call my husband, call my husband". Her voice was really faint like she was a mile away. She stands up and goes into a full epileptic seizure. I put my arms under her arms to guide her down so she doesn't hit her melon on anything. She's sitting on the floor still freaking out with her back pressed up against my shins. Then I see the puddle start to form under her ass.
Somebody calls the fire dept, they do nothing, and she finally comes around. She doesn't believe us that she went into a seizure bla bla bla.
Oh yeah, what did the friend do while this was happening? She ran out the shop crying!!

As far as tattooing goes, most Japanese, traditional style work is based on folk tales or religious/devotional stories or artwork.
So Japanese stuff is a mix of Buddhism and Shinto. Shinto being Japan's 'Old religion'.
Buddhism grew from a sect of Hinduism, in India. Many of the Buddhist tales involve long arduous journeys to spread the new religion to the people of the world, starting with Tibet, through China and it's surrounding countries, eventually to Japan. In India, Buddhism was mostly a small sect or cult but in China it took it's own flavour and was adapted to suit the climate, existing folk tales and myths. That version of Buddhism travelled to Japan and mixed with Shinto to evolve into it's own flavour of Japanese Buddhism. That's what we see in traditional Japanese tattoos. Many of the Japanese gods and mythical beasts have equivalent Chinese names, sometimes tattooers use the Chinese names.
There are very few people working in a strict Japanese traditional style. Most tattooers, especially outside of Japan tend to work in a more broad 'Asian' style (although they focus on the japanese style). Taking elements and stylistic touches from traditional devotional artwork from across Asia. As @Kev already mentioned most of the decorated skull tattoos are based on real decorated skulls from Tibet, like the example above. There are also smaller, more cartoon-looking skulls that could be mistaken for sugar skulls. They are often used as decoration around ritual instruments or artwork. You may have seen Filip use them as decoration on a larger skull's decorated cap.
Because other Asian countries don't have much history of decorative tattooing, it's not really possible to follow their example directly within tattooing. But the religious designs are awesome and people want large tattoos. That's why you find a mish-mash of broadly Asian influence wrapped in a mostly Japanese frame or background.
The interesting this is, the more you delve into the histories and myths of various distant and unconnected cultures, you notice many of the same elements. Swastikas, winged spirits and pyramids are good basic examples. (As a side note: it was cool to stand in a temple in Japan and notice Borneo style tribal patterns on the panel frames).
Jung called these 'Archetypes' (although this refers more to conceptual ideas and relationships, not graphic shapes) I call them 'fair game' for including in tattoos. It's my opinion that it's one of our jobs, as tattooers, to understand these elements to better apply them to tattoos and to guide the style and subject of our work more in line with historical or human tradition. Wether we admit our understanding or explain these archetypes to our clients is of no consequence.
This is one of the many reasons I'd rather tattoo a witch/crone holding a twig instead of a gent holding a pipe.
But that's another story. I don't want hippy clients asking me to channel their mystic history into their Celtic, Navaho, Saxon, Russian armband/finger tattoo. Nor do I want to stick an eye in a triangle on anything and everything.
I tried to shed light on this, but I think I just muddied the water more...

20 yrs ago at ''American Grafitti'' the late Eric Hogan did a little modeling, came back with a bunch of ambigously gay post cards, very funny. he tried so hard to be hard.

So here's my amended list:
1. Palms
2. Lil Wayne Style face junk
3. Larger scale Russian Prison work on non Scary Russian Mobsters
4. Female tattooists taking on dumb "professional names" blurring the tattoo artist/suicide girl line.

Trees. In the last two years I've done about 100 of them.
Trees with hidden words or initials anywhere in the design (in the trunk, branches, or roots)
Hidden words or initials. If you've got something to say, SAY IT!
Arm bands. They break up the arm in such weird spots it makes it difficult "add to" or expand on with future tattoos.
Cherubs. Naked babies?! For reals?!
Art. You really need V. Van Gogh's "Starry Night" on your arm? Go buy a t shirt!!
Superman logos. You are from right here. Not Krypton
This list can go on forever. Sometimes it's not the what that you are tattooing but the who. Arrive on time, be respectful and don't figit around. Bring a good story to tell. Tattooers love em! Most of all, leave your tuff guy attitude at home. You ain't as tuff as us.

I'm totally going out for next season. If for any reason, to help keep people like al and b tat from being on it. Ugh

I'm totally going out for next season. If for any reason, to help keep people like al and b tat from being on it. Ugh

I'm totally going out for next season. If for any reason, to help keep people like al and b tat from being on it. Ugh

Thoughts on e2:
Ton Jones isn't "heavily tattooed". He's just heavy.
My fiancee's 81yo Jewish Bubbe used to have the same sunglasses that Chriss Angel... errr.. Navarro is wearing on the car challenge.
Peck calling James "hillbilly" was funny.
Al Fliction's glasses are stupid. As stupid as Al Fliction.
I want to see Peck and Nunez tattoo a pig in a 32* meat locker, pinstripe a car and braid Navarro's hair to match Al's goatee.
I want to eat crawdaddies with James at a hoedown.
I can't believe the producers didn't have a backup for psoriasis guy other than two tons of fun.
I feel bad for having watched another episode.

valerie vargas

ahhhh the fabled almighty "balance" of clients. that shit is haaaaaaaaaaaaaard.
work at a flash walk in only shop and youll dream of doing big custom stuff. get too good and let all your clients know you can draw and you are drawing every night for tattoos only. work work work. then you dream of doing a shitload of kanji and script names.