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Everlasting jobstopper/liferuiner/diploma burner from Steve Byrne today. Photo taken from his Instagram. Can't express how much I like it in words.

Me and a buddy of mine managed to catch chad koeplinger while he was doing a guest spot at Pearl Harbor last week and we got these wicked rose morphs done. Mines the shark his is the panther. Chad killed it!! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Why is it helpful? Because if you're looking to estimate the cost of a tattoo you want to get it isn't in any way helpful because how long it took Luca Ortis to do that tattoo has absolutely no bearing on how long it would take Regino Gonzales to do a similar tattoo. There's only so much useful information you can get from the internet, at some point you need to physically walk into a shop and talk to actual people.

The final result of my chest piece. Done by Robert Aalbers of Clean Solid Tattoos in Waalwijk, The Netherlands.

Aw man, everyone is getting such great stuff lately. I haven't been tattooed this year yet. I think tomorrow I will be making an appointment with some friends to get one existing piece touched up and another finished. Way overdue for that, so there's something to look forward to. Anyway I think most of you have seen this on the 'gram, but here it is again

@finegentleman You should email Luca Ortis, who did the first tattoo you linked to. He's a nice guy and a very professional and businesslike tattooer. If you're serious about getting a tattoo like this, most tattooers wouldn't mind a few newbie questions. We all have to start somewhere. If you're asking so you can have fuel for a chat session with your buddies, keep asking strangers on the internet. Maybe they'll start arguing amongst themselves - that'll be fun for about zero seconds.

Name calling and insults are not tolerated on LST, let's keep it classy guys.

It doesn't make anybody any money.

Damn, that's nice. Rock of Edges? ;)

I thought it was because we both like cats.

This is why I dig you @Graeme

Whatever happened to washing the thing a couple times a day and moisturizing with a thin layer of scent free lotion?

My bad. I should have said, "Read the forum." But, yes, you are right. No need to follow tradition in tattoo culture. It's good that you're doing your own research. I was simply making a suggestion which I have made plenty of times before. Also, this advice isn't coming directly from me. It comes from tattooers.

Check out Bill Canales at Full Circle Tattoo in San Diego. Also that website looks worthless so I would ignore it.

Battle Royale Royalty right there. How fucking cool is that? Chris Brand just posted his own take on it. Like all of his work, it's in a league of its own:

A little more mit work today. Post pictures of your hand/ finger tattoos.

Somebody please fix the damn title of the thread; we're supposed to be promoting good tattooing here so if nothing else please at least spell tattoo correctly.

I think it's a given that regulars here are aficionados of good tattooing. So you're preaching to the choir, here on LST at least. If you've read around you probably noticed the calibre of work people are getting. I don't really have a view on whether tattooing is a profession or a craft, I'll leave that one to the tattooers.

Grez Eagle, Chris O'Donnell Snake, Mike Rubendall Dragon Instagram view of this battle royale insanity

That ship is awesome; @Graeme! I managed to snag a cancellation with Grez yesterday to do a Panther Rose Morph. I'm pretty friggin stoked!

Thank you so much Tron!!!

I really want one from Jeff Rassier. Photos stolen from his IG.

BTW @finegentleman if you feel your question hasn't been sufficiently answered check out the Clark North site's FAQ. Tons of other useful info on there since you seem to be interested in Japanese style tattoos. I'll let you Google it yourself.

I've been thinking about this question/thread - if you are serious about learning how long the two pieces took, how about you try to track down who did the tattoos, and get in touch either with the artist or the owner? There are also some blogs out there for full bodysuits, backpieces, etc that give information about how many hours and sittings the work took, the progression, etc.

There's an incredible amount of high quality discussion and information on this forum. The search function is a help, but really even if someone just read through some of the longer threads they'd learn a tremendous amount. I reject the idea that on top of that this forum should be a place for people to ask the kind of questions that have probably been dealt with before in one thread or another, and which they don't really seem to be serious enough about answering that they go into their local street shop or shoot an artist an e-mail. If you feel differently, and feel that no question is too dumb for us to have some responsibility to answer that's your perogative. But don't call people a 'cock sucker' (nice casual homophobia by the way) just because not everyone agree with you.

Somehow we manage to have dozens of threads per month where we discuss a lot of positive topics, share images of new tattoos and general shoot the shit. If the 'party line' on LST were that the only acceptable answer to any tattoo-related question is to 'ask your tattooer' then we wouldn't have the thriving discussion forum that we do. We'd have a bunch of really short threads which all culminated in people saying 'ask your tattooer'. Err.. Except we don't. A guideline here on LST is that we don't talk about money. I'm guessing this guy is looking for a ballpark figure of hours for his half-sleeve so that he can figure out how much he needs to save or whatever. Fine. No one is talking about hanging, drawing and quartering him, but let's be clear: He'd be better off going to his tattooer and being up front rather than asking a 'how long is a piece of string' question. Because Graeme was actually giving him very good advice when he said he is not going to learn anything useful here. All he'll learn is how quickly a specific tattooer worked on that tattoo. It won't even tell him whether that tattooer would be slower on a different client, doing a different tattoo, in a different frame of mind. Now, I do also detect a slightly testy tone to Graeme's post. But frankly he probably said what a lot of us were thinking. We've had a rash of posts on LST lately which are, frankly, lowest common denominator posts. It's stuff that people should be walking into their tattoo shop and asking about. I don't see a particular reason why any regulars on LST are obligated to worry if people get 'bad advice' when they are fobbed off and end up asking elsewhere. I don't feel any particular pressure to provide 'guesstimates' to anyone, for example... I mean... really? Finally, there's something more than a little ironic about the fact that you're pleading for Graeme to 'help out' and not be a 'fucking asshole' while at the same time you manage to squeeze into your post that he is a cock sucker, a dick and a fucking asshole, and to 'stfu'. For what it's worth, Graeme adds a hell of a lot more value to this forum with his posts that yours, so perhaps you're the one who should consider putting a sock in it.

Classic Ron Ackers .

Oh good, you've got your hands tattooed before most of your body it seems like.

Preaching to the choir means I am in good company. Sometimes stating the obvious is good to generate a dialogue on the subject, which may not be obvious to some. I though I would post my thoughts and get feed back, which I am, thank you everyone.

Don't get us wrong. Intelligent people are always welcome here. Perhaps just poorly placed location in the forum though; a post like this probably fits best in the blogs section.

Agreed with @BrianH. There are many factors which can determine the amount of time a tattoo was done in. How well can a Client sit. How big a Client is. How fast the Artist is. What environment were they tattooed in. I don't know how many times I've heard a potential client walk into the shop I go to and ask this. The Artists and Shop Guys I know always tell them it's hard to say because a lot of it is not determined by the Artist but the Client. When getting my first tattoo, I asked the same thing. It's a popular question for people with little or no tattoos. If it's a money thing, all people need to know is have enough cash for each session and they're good. If it's because they have a low pain tolerance, setup shorter sessions and it'll work out.

Yesterday afternoon/evening we did another session, this time just 3 hours. We did the outline of botan, so the outlining is now finished (thank god!), and we started on some shading. Next session is in 2 weeks, we hope to do a five hour shading session then ;-)

Ron Wells finished this one on me yesterday. It's so beautiful and I couldn't be happier with it:

As I am want to do on my days off, I found myself outside The Pearl. Today Tim Pausinger did a couple pieces of Higgs flash for me. He did a druid and this creepy clown.

Little Oni I picked up from Chad Koeplinger today. Super stoked on it. Done in one hour flat. Such a beassssst.

Dan santoro did this for me as a walk in a couple of days ago! Waited 7 years so feels good to have waited and finally got it done. - - - Updated - - - Also I finished my torso very recently so here's a photo of it

Never too early!! Yes, I am looking forward to it already - I have just secured an appointment with Horitomo, which is just, ridiculously exciting, I can't believe how lucky I am! I also talked to Filip Leu a couple of months ago about an appointment...but I will have to wait a couple months on that one, he didn't know if he has space and the person who deals with his convention appointments is off travelling, if he is full I totally understand - he must have people waiting a long time for a space with him! Last years convention was amazing, this looks like it might be even better!

@Jnvlv there are worse things you could be into. If tattoos are your only "sin" they will get over it. A point concerning your parent's side, if you are in school or some how they are helping out. The "their money" issue is actually real. While on another person's payroll there are certain rules to abide by. If they are footing the bill and you know they wouldn't appreciate tattoos then you should have waited until you're off the payroll. Not judging but as a parent and a guy with tattoos I see both sides. Also, I will NOT be happy if one of my kids turns 18 and thinks I'm OK with them getting tattoos. Establish your life and then do what you want and ensure it fits your lifestyle/profession.

Here is my newest piece by Eddy Deutsche. Created last Saturday at Smith Street Tattoo. This Photo was taken the morning after.

I kind of feel like I ruined this month by posting my back piece, no one else wants to enter so I'll post some more :) - - - Updated - - - Done By Tim Hendricks at Frith Street Tattoo

I posted an earlier pic of this chest piece, but today Tim Pausinger at The Pearl in Toronto finished things up. I'm super pleased with the results. Tattooing on and around nipples sucks. Worth it in the end though. Now, planning for an epic back piece begins. Oh FFS. Why is this image sideways. F' it. I'm going for a nap.

First post from a long time lurker, but I wanted to share this one I got from Chad Koeplinger yesterday. Came across this thread while searching for other examples of this style and though I would contribute. Cheers!

Here's mine, done by Chad Koeplinger at the 2013 Montreal tattoo convention.

Fuck pain. I don't need to be reminded that I'm being punctured-I've got probably over 30 hours of tattooing on me, I've been shot 3 times, stabbed, cut, beat, stomped, whomped, eye took out, and just generally abused. I can tell you about pain. And I can tell you that if you feel you need pain to make your tattoo a "real" experience, god bless you, you've probably never had any real-live pain, and I hope you never do.

I've tried a bunch of different painkiller methods: Advil - helps you relax but not much help. Didn't affect tattoo pain, just the muscle pain from holding an awkward position. Tylenol 3 - did not work, made things worse on a ditch session Smoking pot - kinda helped me relax but could put you in the 'ugh don't touch me' mood, cue husband/wife jokes Pot cookies - now this worked great, it kicked in halfway through a chest session and made it hilarious and enjoyable Percocet - I tried this 30 minutes into a knee shading session where I was getting grossed out. Didn't feel a thing, didn't flinch at all and buddy finished the tattoo in record time! Nyquil - i drank half a bottle of nyquil. it doesn't erase the pain but certainly helps your mind fade away from what is actually going on. the side affect is a stomach ache post-tattoo. gross. Alcohol - i drank a mickey of rum, that worked great for a long sesh behind the knee. Except post-tattoo in the evening felt pretty sick. I also have Crohns so drinking hard alcohol was a pretty retarded idea in the first place and fucked me up for like 4 days. Beer - having a beer did the trick. But that could also have been the general good vibes at the end of the day at the shop's new shop. Bactine and magic bandaid soap do help but only to get you through that last push of a good sitting. And after all this...the conclusion of my science experiment is good rest and a strong clear mind is the best painkiller. Don't take anything. You'll sit fine if you are mentally prepared. Add some hot water into the mix to keep you warm and you are golden for a session.

This is sweet too! Same Artist different dragon!

Squirrel Nut Zippers all day long.