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Got this one a couple of weeks ago from El Monga @ Aloha Tattoos, Barcelona. Left shin, right below the knee, which the ears kinda wrap around a bit. The rest was pretty bearable, but those bits hurt like hell.

:D Sorry. But that could be a good sig...

Called and I'm booked with Mike Wilson on August 9th for a gorilla head with dagger. I'm excited.

First off, I want to welcome you to LST and I hope that you find yourself a happy contributing member of the community. This place has become home to many for some really great reasons. Secondly, I'm sorry that I'm going to end up being THAT asshole, as I don't mean to offend you but maybe provide some clarity into your situation. Everything that I'm about to say is going to be hard to hear, but when we take this sort of advice gracefully, we always grow. I think that your attitude about tattooing is horribly entitled. Nothing about tattooing is easy. Not drawing tattooable designs or script, not the clients, not your boss, not how your machines work, not getting into a good shop, nothing. Being good at these things takes years of really hard work!!! Now I'm willing to bet that your neighbor tattooed you out of his garage, so I'd imagine that it does look pretty easy to make a garage turd(I assume garage because you said neighbor, not neighbor who tattoos). I am also an artist who works with a wide variety of media, and the first thing that hit home for me when I did my first tattoo was "holy shit, this completely different from anything I have ever attempted in my life and it is HARD." I have noticed that the hard work ethic aspect of tattooing gets lost on a lot of people who have not served an apprenticeship. I also live in an area that is hypersaturated with great tattoo shops, and let me tell you something. *F*T*W* Tattoo - Oakland - CA doesn't even own a computer. George Campise of War Horse Tattoo is an accomplished illustrator and graphic designer who drafts everything he does by hand including t-shirt designs and skateboard decks. Of course using illustrator and Photoshop saves time, but it also cuts corners and ultimately limits your skillset as an artist. Nobody is going to hold your hand through this, if you want it, you have to truly want it and put in the proportionate work on your own. Again, I say this to help you out, and I do mean it gently. I would start by studying traditional tattooing and immerse your mind in traditional tattoo designs and history. I wholly believe that if anyone is to be a half decent tattooer, they need to be able to lay down a solid traditional tattoo. The design theory and application principles of traditional work apply to every other style of tattooing across the board. And also what @BrianH said, watch the interviews, do some reading, and commit yourself to learning about what it is that you do.

Bahahaha. Oh man. Only those with the most legit hatchet man tattoos need apply.

I'm booked with Mike Wilson on August 9th for a gorilla head with dagger. I'm excited.

I just had almost five hours done on my back today and I am SPENT. So tired. One session left. In the meantime, I am just waiting around for @Graeme to finish with Thomas. They are on hour six, I believe. Poor guy. I asked him how he was doing before I left and he said he was managing but that he was definitely in that "why the fuck do I do this to myself?" part of the session. A feeling I know well.

Fuckin A. The anxiety is going to kill me way more than any needle point pain. I've decided to nut up for the first glute/ham session and not take any painkillers. I watched that Horiyoshi 3 video where he said that men get full body suits to prove that they are men and they can take the pain. This is the mindset I'm going in with. We'll see if it changes, haha.

I have a friend who got "No Regets" or some variation on it, though I've only seen the pictures on Facebook. She got the intentional misspelling because it was supposed to be clever, because she's a writer, though I think she actually works in a coffee shop.

Looks like you have control issues. (Sorry, I couldn't resist.) I second what others have said: let it heal completely and see how it looks. It can take a month, sometimes even longer, for a tattoo to heal completely. It varies based on any number of factors. Good luck!

I told you that you should call ;) You just never know...

Wow! That's the attitude that every great tattooer had when they started. I've never worked in a tattoo shop with Photoshop. I've never showed a customer digital mock-ups or proofs. I can show a customer a sketch and have them in the chair before I could even open the file in Photoshop. That's not 'cos I'm old and slow (I was a graphic designer for a decade before I was a tattooer) I use a copy machine % +/- every day. but sometimes it's much quicker, ant the end result fits better if I draw it on the skin with pens or markers. Nobody was born great at lettering but you can bet your paint-bucket tool that they didn't get good by tracing fonts or typefaces.

Ribcage really and truly, honest-to-Wotan, hurts. Don't do it.

Greetings! I lack the ability to draw a straight line, nor could I tell you what differentiates decent art from garbage half the time. In the past I could have given a damn less, as the repercussions of this just resulted in tacky art on the walls and getting my ass beat in pictionary. When it comes to tattoos and looking for good artists though, this lack of education can perhaps result in some poor choices. To remedy this, I have been going through the threads here (http://www.lastsparrowtattoo.com/forum/general-tattoo-discussion/2396-what-makes-good-tattoo.html ), and making baby attempts at drawing (seriously, it's like a t-rex trying to type or do pushups). I have come upon a couple of youtube sites and books that have been helpful. I'm sure this will be baby stuff for the real artists in here, but hopefully for the layman who has time on their hands it will help identify the good from the bad, give them something productive to do, and also appreciate the work that goes into the process. Proko - YouTube 5-Pencil Method and for books The Big Book of Drawing: András Szunyoghy: 9783848002498: Amazon.com: Books If anyone has any other suggestions on books, videos, etc for the uber green horn, I would love to see them!

I might have missed it but I didn't see Rose Hardy mentioned yet. Spider eyed lady is on my ankle ^_^

Hi Lynne and welcome to LST. A week after a tattoo is too soon to tell how it's going to look once it's fully healed so give it some time to settle into the skin and see how it looks then.

Must be Valkyrie day on Istagram; Dusty Neal: and London Reese:

Finally got all the springs changed on my old Beetle. It's 3.5 inches lower in the front now. I had help from a neighbor in exchange for a few cold beers and me whipping up a couple of pizzas on my grill.

Ooh I am going to have to go look it up! Cool! We are headed down to Brooklyn again tomorrow. Looking forward to it! It has become such a ritual.

Never posted this here, Kevin Leary Family Tattoo, Chicago.

I was waiting to post this until it was healed up and haired over. Chris O'Donnell. Completed at Saved Tattoo, Kings Avenue, and Chris' private studio.

I'm tattooed damn near all over, and I can safely say that the ribs were far and away the worst for me. Way worse than the ass, spine, kneecaps, and feet. Listen to what Killercook76 says in the post above this one. All of it. But hey, you're 16, and as such, probably don't give a shit what a bunch of old strangers on the internet have to say. Signed, An Old Stranger on the Internet

Heavy hitters already this month... Done by Stefan Johnsson @ California Electric

Chris Garver Invisible NYC - - - Updated - - - not sure how to add a lager pic..

Got this Rock of Ages from Joe Ellis while he was guesting at Lab Monkey Tattoo:

Love that placement. El Monga is the nicest guy ever.

She is so precious!! look at that beaming little smile!! you can tell she's so proud. congratulations, man :)

Too cute! I love this age! Makes me miss my kiddos at school.

I didn't find glutes/hams/back of thighs etc... to be that bad. Shins/calves have been my worst experience though I haven't gotten my kneecaps done yet. But we are all special snowflakes and feel pain in different ways.

Super cute dude!

"Indian red" sounds a little too un-politically correct for elementary school...

Nice, My sister got sent back a year cause she was color blind and couldn't tell the difference of Indian red and brown. Let's just say her 1st grade teacher was a bitch.

I like the selection of marker colors. Brown, Brown, Brown, Brown, and Brown. Don't want to over stimulate kids today with too many colors choices. :P

Dennis at @ProvidenceTattoo again.

This thread should help :) http://www.lastsparrowtattoo.com/forum/general-tattoo-discussion/2396-what-makes-good-tattoo.html

I have quite a few "The Goon" that I cherish deeply, but they are worth way more than a j@&%#lo tattoo.

Thanks for this! Reading it now, enjoying it a lot so far.

I went back and put the link in my original post (#1170) so you or anyone interested don't have to look it up. Have a blast in Brooklyn! Wish we were in Brooklyn today...we have a bunch of friends & family there. Post pics...

I would just give them a call or shoot them an email, that'd probably get you further than asking any of us ;)

I keep having the same debate with myself, and am often asked by people whether I would extend my two half sleeves. I have two half sleeves at the moment and can't decide whether to extend them into three quarter or full sleeves if at all. Then on top of that question there is always the problem of final choice of subject matter as well as whether I really have the money.

I'll give this a shot. Done this past April. Jamie Macpherson Unity Tattoo in Vancouver.

Just got this lady put on me this afternoon by Mina Aoki at Fun City. Now I just need to figure out what to cap my shoulder with and I can start filling in the smaller spots. Three hours out and already planning the next steps....

Here's the result of my 6 sessions with James Spencer Briggs at Memoir Tattoo in Los Angeles. He worked around and improved upon the nautical star with my daughter's name above it that was already there.

Man, all of that texture freaks me out. Laser removal is no joke, makes you appreciate getting good tattoos to begin with. Cool video, I definitely enjoyed watching this!

The Kings Ave crew has been great about putting up temporary screens when I have to drop trow, hahaha. Mostly because they don't want the other customers disgusted and throwing up from my nekkidness, hahaha. I usually keep a long sleeve t-shirt handy during breaks. I end up tying the sleeves around my waste so that the body of the shirt blocks the privates and nothing touches the back/rear that's being worked on. Then I can traipse around the shop or head to the bathroom. It works for me, still scares or surprises the other clients, hahaha. Here's a pic of one side of the Kings Ave Manhattan shop from opening week back in 2011. Yours truly on the left getting worked on by Henning, Rubendall on the right working on another client (Grez and Sara Carter (Schor) in the background). As you can see, sometimes the crew likes to be close by to keep good conversation going and things can get pretty intimate between clients proximity to one another and their state of dress (or undress) haha.

I've gotta admit, I never noticed the lack of black women in flash/tattoos before. I feel kinda stupid now. Done by Dusty Neal (more info at THE STATIC AGE, I started thinking one day how I )

Mines is basement_graveyard I post nothing but douchie, shirtless, duck-faced selfies ;-p

I already follow a bunch of ya'll! My username's ivarro

Crispy Lennox :