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Here is my back-piece from @Stewart Robson Started - 11/25/2011 Completed - 11/24/2013 The tattoo has 78 hours in total.

Alright... here goes nothin. Pharoah's Horses tattooed by me, finished in October.

@hogg If you're a fan of Chad Koeplinger, i got this done by him today! Took about/Just under 2 hours!

I have the great pleasure to announce that my buddy @Wilhell has won the November contest with his jawdroppingly awesome Mike Rubendall snake'n'hannya thigh piece!! Congrats my friend!! Here are some reaction photos from when he received the good news Please PM @steve1461686340 with your shirt info (size and male or female) along with your address. Thanks to everyone for your submissions! December contest will be up soon.

That's Fred. And Higgs, also by Hardy.

Actually, I also just booked with Ron Henry Wells for February at the Philly convention. He's going to be filling in the gap between my Grez and Scott Sylvia pieces. I can't wait.

Hi, welcome! Do you have plans for future tattoos? I think the best way to know if you want to tattoo or not is to get a whole metric fuckton of tattoos. And honestly, there are too many tattooers right now and not enough money flowing around to make it worth it unless you are just a jaw droppingly badass artist. Which is fine! Glad you at least have good taste in tattooers. Hope you find the forum welcoming and helpful :) (also, sign painting is not particularly cool or glamorous right now, but it is a great trade and a lucrative way to make art for a living)

Going to be getting a tattoo from Ron Henry Wells in the spring. (Hopefully I won't drive him crazy. I think I got my predilection for nervous talking out of my system with the first tattoo, though.) So excited for this one and amazed that someone whose work I love this much isn't even far away.

You don't get it. And with as many pages and posts right here that make it pretty clear, I don't feel like I need to explain why.

Here's something to think about, you just made a broad generalized statement about folks who do tattoos. And then wonder how it is that someone can make a broad generalization about police officers.

Good evening, I'm a Brit who's been living in Japan for 10+ years. At the moment, I'm in Yokohama - home of Horiyoshi III's tattoo museum, Yellow Blaze and the Victorian-era district where a lot of the J-tattooers relocated after the government banned ink (again) during the 19th century. It's great to be surrounded by all of this J-tattoo history - and it's hard not to love tattoos after living here for a while. I've been reading LST for the past few weeks. It's a great place you've got going here and I finally registered today. Yoroshiku! TJ

Damn... That thing blows me away. I mean everyone knows that Filip Leu is a genius, but I am just astonished at how readable that is with the amount of color and the subtlety of the black. I mean that thing is busy as fuck and you can still tell exactly what is going on in any given point of the suit. Like... damn!!!!

Opie G. Ortiz posted this 20 year old Hardy backpiece on instagram a few days ago

Is it a LST record that a tattoo of the month contest only lasted 9 minutes?

Not sure why I thought to do this tonight, but I decided to see how long of a drive it is to New York City and also to Montreal. Found out that from my house it's almost exactly the same length of trip (6h35mins vs 6h38mins). Driving to NYC to get a tattoo is something I definitely want to do someday, but it has always seemed so far away - I really thought it was more like an 8.5hr drive. Montreal, on the other hand, I've driven to several times (mostly for hockey games) and would definitely do again. I have the feeling that this knowledge is going to cost me money in the coming months/years.

I will also say that one of the things that really floors me about his tattoos, especially when you see them in person, is how well they sit on the body. His tattoos look like they belong there, and have always been there, if that makes any sense.

If you had something from a great tattooer it should be immediately obvious who did it, at least to people who know what they're looking at. No signature should be necessary.

Because I dont want a signature on my skin !

who did the copy?

hard to get a decent picture but this is my biggest painting so far.. 16x20"

My experience f cops has been mixed. I grew up in one o the roughest areas in my city , the cops there have a tough job and a lot of them are good. some of them are pricks too. cops are only human. some humans are good and some are pricks , if you cant see that then you are being naive .its human nature. Im really drunk right now and I apoligise if im not making any sense.

Oakland police department is corrupt as fuck and has zero interest in serving the people of this city. Can't say that's true for all police departments, but with the growing militarization of the police force, my respect for the people serving this system is rapidly dwindling. I do think there is honesty and integrity in the ideal of law enforcement, but I have yet to see much of that in action. But yeah, I have no idea who you are, where you live, or what your job is like, so I can't say much on your situation.

This is an interesting topic with a lot of grey area. As a tattooer, it's pretty disheartening and insulting when someone blatantly rips off your work. As a client, well.. I was talking to Mr. Campise about not putting my piece online as to skate around the biters and he laid it out pretty simply. Nobody is ever going to do the original justice, and it's pretty much just free(albeit really obnoxious) advertising. Nothing can ever outshine true authenticity, and whoever ends up with the copy ends up walking around with a permanent bummer. So that's kind of where I sit on that matter... It sucks, it's inevitably going to happen, don't do it if you tattoo, and don't get down on it as a client.

This backpiece by Shige, Yellowblaze, is one of my favourite tattoos. I loved it the second I saw it, the scale of the design, the placement, the execution, its all fantastic. However it seems like many other people also loved this design and wished they had it, but instead of taking reference from it, creating something new, adapting the design, they just copied it, line for line. This isn't the only tattoo I have seen copied line for line - I am sure it happens all the time. I KNOW it happens all the time. I also saw it happen to a member here who had a beautiful dragon done by Shige, his tattoo was copied by a Korean artist called Gen. Every time I see it happen it makes me disillusioned - I have met artists who are genuinely proud to reproduce other peoples work, and see no problem with it. They say "If its on the internet, its fair game". I HATE that kind of attitude. It hasn't happened to any of my tattoos, but I know it would make me angry. Is imitation the sincerest form of flattery, or is this unforgivable plagiarism?

@Reyeslv Aahhh you just had to enter your mind-bogglingly awesome gigantic backpiece, didn't you? Curses!!! Hahaha, just kidding. Good luck, you're probably gonna sweep this month.

Congratulations, @Wilhell!!!! So rad!

Nice! I live near NYC and drive to Vermont all the time to visit family. It takes about 5 1/2 hours and a 3/4 tank of gas. It's definitely not that bad to drive. Like @Graeme said, I-87 is beautiful and an easy straight shot to this area.

Oh, totally. Sometimes with larger work I like to do that little view finder thing with your hands, and just look at part of the suit or sleeve or pants as its' own tattoo. How the placement and movement interact with that specific area. And yep, Filip's are on point throughout. Oh and I guess the limited palette really helps too. There are really only 3 colors in that whole suit.

Tattoos fade because your cells divide and regenerate as you age. Pigment is encapsulated in scar tissue, which also divides and regenerates with age. Thus spreading out the pigment over time.

off topic... ha! most of my sentences either begin or end like this :Dwas going to do a huge reply but instead will just nod and agree with whats already been said...

I've always enjoyed the signatures in Japanese tattoos. It is a neat tradition. You can see the tag where the signature will go on the lower left leg in this Filip Leu piece.

I have seen some large Japanese bodysuits that incorporate the mark of the artist who made them - Usually a Hori, I have seen work by Horiyoshi III, Horikitsune, Horimatsu all with their "printed" artist name, usually on the upper shoulder on the back. I believe I even saw Stewart Robson do it once at a clients request. I havent ever seen an artist "sign" a small piece, although I don't doubt it has happened before!

Hi there. So i've been lurking the threads on here for about half a year, have seen all the artist videos on Youtube and only just joined as a member. I'm 21 years old, and work as a studio assistant/counter hand in a tattoo shop in Sydney. I'm into western traditional, anything ranging from the old Bert Grimm, Ben Corday, George Burchett stuff, to the Spider Murphys asthetic, to the Dan Higgs Jeff Zuck sort of stuff and of course the Smith Street sort of stuff. Decided to join so i can communicate with other Tattoo enthusiasts from around the world and to be able to see work coming from all over the world.

Go to the doctor.

.

gfyyfj (Go Fuck Yourself You Fucking Jerkoff) can i make that into a thing?

It means you're magic

I am lucky enough to have a tattoo done by Scott Harrison that is two pieces of Devita flash mashed together. One of them Thom tattooed on Scott. I don't know if it carries any thing spiritual or transcendental, but i love the tattoo, and I am extremely proud to have it.

You know where there are better references than the internet? Tattoo shops. You know who has a shit ton of flash/books? Tattoo shops. You know who is well acquainted with these collections? Tattooers. Do some initial poking around, then find a tattooer or shop, then go say, "Hey, I saw this Jerry wolf, the full body one with his tongue hanging out," or whatever you want, and they'll say, "Oh yeah, lemme see, was it this one?" And more than likely, they'll pick out one of the SJ books they've undoubtedly got and flip to the page and you'll say, "Oh yeah, that's it, that line drawing is way better than the one I found online."

I think...and I hesitate as I form my thoughts, that internet images are fine for "jumping off " points, and sure people tattoo that shit everyday, but if we are promoting quality tattooing, then we need to discuss what should be ideal. Bring in something off the internet, fine, but also let your tattoo artist guide you in the right direction, to where the image is sourced from, to other ideas that aren't so simply printed from a 20 second Google search. If your tattooer doesn't know his/her history or has no interest in it, and is simply ok with just replicating what you bring in on a piece of 30# ink jet paper, then maybe that is a bigger issue. Quality begets quality. The opposite also applies.

If your artist doesn't know who Higgs is or doesn't have any of his/her own reference for it, and it's probably not the right artist to get the piece of Higgs flash from. The right vibe just won't be there.

Can't remember who initially posted these, but I've had them on my phone at least a couple-three years. Not sure when they were done, but they're old, and by the man himself.

This picture posted Jill Bonny on her Instagram-profile 36 weeks ago. The man on the left is the same person you can spot in Ed Hardy's Tattoo Time - Music & Sea Tattoos. The back is from 1980 and still looks absolutely amazing.

latest from Eli Quinters

We already have several threads about bad tattoos, could we keep these kinds of posts to those threads? There are a lot of places on the internet for laughing at bad tattoos, and very few places where people with real knowledge and experience can talk about, post pictures of, and give people advice about good tattooing, so let's keep the board mostly focused on that.

No I think you are absolutely right! Its also hilarious when artists copy photos of tattoos that are distorted due to the curve of the body, but they copy it straight, distortion and all. It looks absolutely ridiculous.

what confuses the beans out of me is why your friend keeps going to the same person knowing that he's getting copies every time???

It is funny that the 3rd picture even copied those two dark spirals on the shoulders that look like the might have been existing work that Shige had to work around. (please correct me if I'm wrong)

I think it's straight up plagiarism for sure. The only time I guuuueeess it's "ok" is if the client is dead set on wanting it... Even then if I were a tattoo artist I would try everything to convince them to go a more original route.. What kind of respect do they even have for themselves as artists if they do things this way...

"If it's on the internet, it's fair game," is such a bullshit cop out imho. You do pose a tough question though. The art of tattoo has always had copying and repetition. All the classic designs have been done to death and occaissionally been reinvented by the more brilliant and forward thinking artists. But, we're talking standard flash here and not original works of art based on japanese tradition. To me, the examples sited above equal "unforgivable plagerism". No matter how taken I was with a design of this nature, I could not in good conscience wear it as my own without making significant changes and an artist that would take credit for it is....well.....I'll leave it at that.