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Jason Kelly at Live Free in Atlanta, GA. Nicest dudes. My girl got a sweet hour glass from Miguel O. Back of thigh is by far the worst tattoo pain I've felt. Goes right on to my ass cheek with the tongue, but Jason drew it straight on and was super fast and a true dude to the tradition of tattooing. Walked away with a cool tattoo, some prints from Miguel and a cool ass experience from all of them. Oh yea my appt got delayed because Myke chambers was getting tattooed by Jason. NBD Also, a drunk chick asked to watch me get tattooed so I said yes. She then proceeds to massage me and tries to cop a feel under my shorts all while getting tattooed. Thankfully Jason kicked her out. Fuxking weird

By Phil Hatchet Yau at Master Tattoo in San Diego, CA. What a rad dude to get tattooed by. I met Drew Linden there too, she's super chill! I thought Phil switched to a rotary at one point, but he was using lidocaine instead (which was awesome). I've met only one other tattooer that uses Bactine during tattoo sessions.

Yeah cheapness is another thing to blame on bad tattoos. The impatience to get something "now" without being able to afford a good artist really screws people. I understand not have the cash. I make little enough cash to be able to qualify for government aid for some things. I am not rich by any means. I just save up when it comes to the tattoos. I'd rather wait and get something awesome from someone good, meaning aside, then be impatient and just go get something cheap. I think the impatience some people have is a big reason for bad tattoos. BTW, when I say bad I'm not totally talking about what they're getting, but the quality of it. Will it last, will the design look good in 10 years? 20? 50?

I got this yesterday from Andrew Conner. The first image was bogarted from his Instagram.

awesome.

heres mine

I don't know where exactly I should post up.... But, the party is next weekend, I am keeping my word to my old man... I'm on a flight to JAX, FL... to get the artwork, and taxidermy, and neon, and home furnishings with two fellow Texans in tow.... This last week has been a true testament to the saying Mi Vida Loca.... The only thing I am thankful for is the tattoo family that has created a protective circle of love and support around Richard. It's opened his eyes as well as mine to how precious life really is, and how we are blessed. Crazy. Mad. Love. Love. Loyalty. Respect. Take care of tattooing, and it takes care of you. It's TRUE. Making this last run is about all the energy I have left, then I want to party.

tattood by me (mike harris) at churchyard tattoo studio in hitchin, hertfordshire englad

The way I got better tattoos was continually seeking out people that have more knowledge than me about tattoos, listen to what they say, pay attention to what they do and visit the people and the shops they talk about. People get bad tattoos because they don't do these things and they think they have it all figured out before they walk into a shop right down to how much the tattoo should cost. You don't have to be artistic or cool or even special to get a good tattoo, and having a good tattoo doesn't make you speical either (despite what your mom told you) you just have to be smart and humble enough to let the people who know what they are doing do their thing and be open to their ideas.

Always excited to see the internet working correctly. May as well share my LST success story, ha. I always wanted a tattoo, but all around me I always saw garbage, so I only had really dumb ideas for pieces I wanted done. I also spent all my money on drugs and booze so thankfully none of my bad ideas came to fruition. After I got sober I started thinking more seriously about it and during my research found LST and some blogs with quality work, I finally realized how awesome tattoos could be, versus the shit I see walking around town. Almost done healing my first piece, super excited to collect more!

I'm just much more of a whore than you are, @Lance. And here's the little tattoo I got from Horimasa (at the State of Grace Convention in 2006). He lined it by machine, but shaded it tebori (by hand). Still looks great.

The Letter of the Law: Laws for Lettering and Tattoos | Occult Vibrations Not judging, just some useful information.

Welp... I haven't posted on here in forever and cant figure out how to post a proper fucking picture of this little banger from today. Tom Waits inspired tattoo from the song Lucky day. - - - Updated - - - That looks retarded.

I don't like this complaining about price nonsense. Yes, large tattoos can be very expensive (though because you're not doing them in one shot you're stretching that cost out over months) but there are a lot of truly great, even world-class, tattooers who do amazing small tattoos that aren't going to break the bank. It's a matter of doing your research and finding those artists, and the great thing about tattooing right now is that there are SO MANY great tattooers out there, and making tattoos a priority in your life.

Nothing says hard core like a rose!

" If you watched the whole thing, you are probably also a fan of family guy. I think I'll follow up this thread by sitting down with my family to talk about politics and religion. Whoooo!

I am not trying to be mean, but the way I look at it good Music is creative, tattooing lyrics to a song on you verbatim is not very creative, I would say it's the antithesis of creative. Any good song should inspire strong imagery. There is so much tattoo imagery inspired by music, and vise versa. Look at the Social D Skeleton, Misfits Crimson Ghost, Tron and her Morrissey, Bikini Kill, Jawbreaker flash, etc. I remember the first time I talked someone out of getting a bunch of lyrics tattooed on them. They wanted all the lyrics to pink floyd wish you were here. I simply said why not get two fish in a bowl and the words "Wish you were Here" above it, it was the simplest idea and the first that came to mind, but never occurred to the client and blew her mind when I suggested it. Someone liking their tattoo is the most important part, but ultimately the point of this forum I feel is to open people up to ideas they never thought of, and help people get better tattoos.

In Atlanta GA. And got tattooed by Jason Kelly. Had to wait behind myke chambers to get finished first (no big deal). But I got a snake/skull combo on the back of my thigh and it fucking sucked. The tongue goes right onto my ass. I now see (a glimpse) into the pain of an ass tattoo. The guys at Live Free are stand up guys and was quite possibly the best experience at a tattoo shop I've had. Ill post a pic at the end of my vacation with more details. I do think ill be taking a tattoo hiatus after this considering I've gotten tattooed almost every month this year. And rents due so that's kinda important I guess.

Doug Hardy was here the other day and told us about being in a bar talking to a guy who struck up a conversation with him about his tattoos. At one point the guy said, completely seriously. "Y'know I always wanted to get a tattoo, but I never knew anyone that died." Thanks TV.

Terrible cell phone picture, a little red n bloody, but you get the idea. Yesterday was a blast -- ran into @Perez and an hour or so later got one knee webbed. Hopefully we can knock out the other one next week or soon.. Thanks again dude, you're the best.

At last my koi with Japanese maple sleeve is finished and pretty much fully heeled. The work was done by Mo Coppoletta from the Family Business in London, done in seven sessions between December and May. Pictures also posted on the May tattoo contest thread elsewhere on this forum.

Ok, I'll play, though it is a tough month on this thread once again with lots of superb entries already. My sleeve has recently been finished and has nearly healed, the work was done by Mo Copoletta at The Family Business in London, it took seven three hour sessions which between December and May. I have already posted a few in progress shots but this is the finished product.

Thanks for the idea!

I am curious why bad tattoos are so popular. I mean, I can understand that someone who knows nothing about tattoos goes to a bad artist and gets a badly done tattoo. I did that myself. What I don't understand are why tattoos lacking any creativity or art are so popular. For instance, why do people want to put typewriter text on themselves? Why do they want so much text but no images? Why do they want flowery, descriptive text but not an image of what that text is describing? This makes absolutely no sense to me. I've been as dumb as anybody regarding tattoos but one thing I've never had pop into my mind is to want words describing beautiful things rather than the beautiful things themselves. Another one are the fads like the inifinity symbols, the text on the wrist and the exploding birds thing. Back in the 90s when I first got a tattoo the fads (the fairies, the curly tribal stuff on the lower back) at least were flattering. The current fads are so ugly. I saw a girl with the exploding birds and it looked like someone had attacked her with a marking pen. The small crap on the wrist thing looks like you're trying to sneak crib notes in to the test. The straight lines of text tattoos are so unflattering to men and women alike. I just don't understand. Am I just an old fuddy-duddy complaining about the youth of today? Has there actually been a real change in the culture to prefer ugliness over color, shape, texture and art? Any ideas?

every time someone walks into our shop the first thing they ask for is the price, they dont care to look at our work or view a drawing its just the price. I think that with popularity of tattooing increasing there is a natural increase of tattooers commited more to the money and less to the craft. In my general area there is 4 shops that have some very unexperienced people running them, one is a 22 year old that is barely going to open with zero shop experience, hes tattooed out of his house for god knows how long. Another got fired during his apprenticeship and opened up tattooing for 30 bucks/hr and 20/hr if he finished other peoples work around town. Another guy will tattoo you as long as you can sit for if you give him 150 bucks. What do all of these dudes have in common, no real apprenticeship and no respect to tattooing therefore theyre not educating the client that tattoos arent cheap and should be respected in that sense. You can tell the level of their delusion based on how bad ass they think their cheap work is...they even snub your quality work purely on the price paid for it while rockin some of the worst tattoos ive seen. Its all about the education of the community and the purification of those that are actual tattooers and not just glorified scratchers

lol ok? anywho, yeah, people should like their tattoos. if they do, thats great. they have to live with it. Doesn't mean the world has to change their sense of aesthetics to fit the person's views of their own tattoo. Lol the world isn't gonna pat you on the back for your tattoo choices. And, just because a tattoo has meaning doesnt mean it looks good.

A guy from the little city I came from... Yup.... Got too much "good" stock. Still scratching people since 2009

Damn, that is SO GOOD! That should be required reading for everyone who is thinking of getting a text tattoo. In my opinion, plain text tattoos on their own say nothing to me. A couple of well placed words in a larger design can, sometimes, add something to the piece that I would not have thought about if the words had not been there. Its rare, but it can be done very well. A line of text above or below a tattoo add nothing to the design, in fact they can really detract from what the design should be - bold and readable.

Hi,she is 20 pnds,14" shoulder ht,6 yo,her name is Zephyr she can levitate too ! :D . . . .

Not at all. This may help answer everyone's questions as to "how" it works in kind of simple terminology, PicoSure - How it Works Laser Tattoo Removal. Basically, shorter pulses of light allow the pigments to become "more" efficiently fractured into smaller pieces, thus allowing your immune system to carry them away more rapidly. Looking at the photos they provide, I wouldn't exactly call them stellar, and that's my consumer point of view, not one who operates a laser. The cross removal shows hypo-pigmentation pretty bad (where the tattoo was is now lighter), and some of the comparisons w/ the Q-Switched laser are meh - the one shows 20 treatments w/ a Q-Switched laser, that's excessive. The interesting part to me is that it operates at 755nm, where Q-Switched Nd:YAG lasers operate at 1064 / 532nm, and have the flexibility of also operating at 585 and 650 with a few changes to the hand piece. This allows far more versatility. I'm hoping to head to a seminar this fall in Vegas where I can get my hands on one of these at a convention and really see what the big hub-bub is about.

This is a funny one because on the one hand I see people with people's names written on their necks and few other tattoos, or big paragraphs of text which is pretty illegible and I think 'what in the name of all that's holy were you thinking?!?' On the other hand I think who am I to criticise ? It's their body, they may absolutely love their tattoos. When they look in be mirror that neck tattoo proclaiming 'Shug' for all to see might make them happy. Is that not the whole point or tattoos ? They are for the person who wears them not for us. Not everyone is going to get what I perceive to be a beautiful tattoo and actually that's ok with me. If we were all the same the world would be an incredibly tedious place. I have a few script tattoos. They don't mean anything or sentiment. I'm a big word geek and just love the way slightly unusual words look in fancy lettering. Last night I got 'Vagabond Soul' tattooed script. It won't make any sense to alot of people but I love the way the words look. Anyhow I digress. There's my contribution :)

so your saying you want to have more one night stands as a memorial to your dead pets?

The technology is shorter bursts of light mean less heat, in turn means less damage to the surrounding skin tissue and yield faster healing with more efficient fading. 2-3x faster removal? That I'm not so sure of. I can't see a tattoo that would normally take 12 treatments being cut back to 6, but maybe down to 9-10, that seems reasonable to me. Pico- - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The Nd:YAG laser you're currently being treated with is a nano-second laser, or a billionth of a second burst of light at a time. The Pico will be firing at a trillionth of a second, but from what I've read they both still operate at 10hz

Figure as it's up on Xam's Instagram I'd throw this progress shot here too. Colour in a couple of weeks, got all the black done in basically a couple of hours earlier today at The Family Business in London. Man has that shop changed since I was last in a couple of years ago, it's at least doubled in size with a new brighter, modern feeling area built out into the next door shop. Tons of artists there as well now. Photo by xamthespaniard • Instagram

Hipsters pay my rent haha. Over the last couple of years I guess I've unintentionally started to specialise in animal tattoos. A lot of which have clothes, monocles etc.. Gotta give people what they want :) I just count myself lucky I'm not doing infinity symbols and stuff turning into birds all day.

Alright, so I got my first tattoo. Marie Sena, Dedication Tattoo, Denver

..and some more progress on the background.

some more progress on my back. started coloring the face and sword. done by jess yen. no filter!

Looks awesome @ironchef and @velodemon Here is the start of mine and I love it! Dana Helmuth all the way.

More from Rubendall at Kings Avenue on my back. Shaded in the rest of the back of my left thigh and added some color to the peony and dragon's tail!!! More pics when I'm all healed up! Enjoy!

Posted this over in the May tattoo of the month contest. Just finished a couple weeks ago. I don't have any real crisp pictures of it. I'm stoked to have it finished. Work by Rodney Raines, Ace Custom Tattoo, Charlotte, NC.

Not another single visible tattoo, yet she gets her face inked, and inked in a way to guarantee her trouble in about any city. Oh yeah. I'm sorry if it makes me old, or lame, or judgmental, but the tattooer that dreamed this up should be shot. .02

I feel sorry for those who go to a shop and still get a shitty tattoo. I would like to blame all the people tattooing out of their house for shitty tattoos, but realistically they still only represent a small portion of bad tattoos done. On a slightly related note, I poked around the ads on craigslist portland today and found that many of these people offering cheap tattoos either aren't bad or are posting pictures of others people's work to trick people which is probably the case as their seem to be some difference in approach that don't add up. Tattoo Tattoo Tattoo Tattoo Tattoo great tattoos here Now here's a shop located on probably the busiest intersection in the the most hipster neighborhood in portland, been there for years cranking out shitty work and their are three other shops on that street who's work is comparable. jesse's tattoos | Facebook Picking between the fake portfolio of the craigslist guy or the shop that clearly doesn't know what they are doing? I can see how people would rather go with people off craigslist who they don't realize are fake vs shops like these.

Poor little alien butterfly thing:( ... looks like it got hit by an electrified semi going 90 mph down the highway to hell.... and the stepped on by Hitler.

I saw a girl come into the shop with a memorial piece she had gotten done for her father. "Daddy's Little Angle" I suggested instead of covering it up, we just put a speed square underneath and say he was a carpenter.