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Jason Ochoa - GreenPoint Tattoo, Brooklyn. Straight off the wall, great guy!

I've seen them in person in Cincinnati and where I also met Mike. He's a great guy and the pictures on his site don't do the artwork justice after seeing them in person. I've been a huge fan ever since, and I'm constantly impressed with the speed at which he posts new work. I've recently scored a print of one of his pieces and thought I would start a thread to bring attention to his work for those who haven't seen it yet. Paintings

Booked an appt with Chad Koeplinger next month at Congress St in NH. Snake and roses on my leg. Thinking pretty decent size... ankle to knee. @eisen777 area you getting your back piece worked on this visit?

It's not unusual for a professional to charge for advice and opinions. Especially if that advice can save you money or make your life more pleasant in the long run. Quotes for various jobs are often free when they lead to more, higher paying work. Many professions are purely advice based too. Leave it alone. An extra-thick black arm to the star does not make it look better. If you're planning on getting more tattoos near it, if they are of a high quality, eventually you won't notice the wonky star.

That's like deciding "what should i have for breakfast today - bacon or more bacon"?

feels like i've got chicken pox...last session I had, OllieXXX stipled the rest of my torso gaps, added filler on the eel on the side of my knee, touched up a leg tattoo he did 3 years ago and added a smart ass hot stuff. healing four parts of the body at the moment and i've got another session coming up next week. jesus christ. then i think i will be good for this season, going to start my backpiece after getting my sunburn on this summer. so what to get next week? i had booked an appointment with one of my favourite local tattooers Shawn O'Connor (The Timber Tattoo Company Blog) since he is moving away from Edmonton to Nelson (which rules because I love road trips to Hippy Country, Canada). Thinking about getting a bad ass panther...is there really anything to think about there?!? My wife is away this week which means I don't have my rational partner to talk me out of doing something ridiculous, like adding blue balls onto a muscle sex panther tattoo. It's going on my inner thigh, seems only appropriate to add some innuendo.

Black in your arm. Nobody here really gives much of a shit about the tattoos you get.

I already knew about good tattooing by the time I had met and actually held conversations with Mike. Between him and Kore Flatmo, those two taught me that tattooing doesn't have to be so serious. Have fun with what you do, don't give a fuck, and make bitchin paintings and tattoos. Mike is honestly the most talented painter I know of. The way he captures the essence and emotion of the woodblock style is flawless. You would almost think he learn under one of the great ukiyo-e masters.

Speaking of, I will be up your way next weekend. Kings Ave all day on Saturday watching Chris tattoo, if anyone wants to say hey hey.

This might not be the place for you... Last Sparrow Tattoo: Get tattoos that make you feel warm in the pants

Yes! booked in and excited. He added a wolf head and a black bear head on my ass last time and background clouds as well. Im sure your going to get a great big tattoo. Im looking forward to this trip a lot. I got another saturday which means I dont need to take time from work and I can spend some time.

Way ahead of you guys!

It sounds like the young fellow just didn't like the answers he was hearing, which is a bit of a difference. I think we did good.

As for awesome things, @DJDeepFried and I saw the Dalai Lama speak yesterday at the Forum in LA. It was great. He's a pretty charming human. (Sorry, old news if you are on our Instagram.)

Man, this is one of the raddest threads I've stumbled across on here, so much inspiration! I'm re-enrolled in college and I'm totally nervous. I have been interviewing a few local tattoo artists for some research I am doing for a children's book, which has been really fun and interesting. I am also recently stepping back in to the dating world... totally like riding a bike, including the falling down and getting back up again. What else? I quit drinking 4 months ago to see how my life would change, so far it's been pretty good. Definitely more productive! It can also be a little challenging to find new ways to be social. I am excited to make new friendships and explore my beloved city outside of a bar... haha. Suggestions??

From Kim Saigh's instagram, progress from Saturday...maybe one more session to go:

This is my latest from Nick Colella at the motor city tattoo expo. Pretty fricking sweet.

Jen Lee, Tattoo City bad month to enter because of that ridiculous vargas back piece….fuck it

It's not the end of the world. There has been lots of solid advice offered to you here. The most practical solution is just leave it the fuck alone and let the experience breathe. You're trying to make something work that's been through two iterations already. Get some other tattoos in the meantime and have fun. Maybe one day this star will be left in the dust of an epic sleeve coverup? Just remember...at the end of the day, *it's just a tattoo* and a small one at that, not the end of the world man. Don't sweat it.

Im the proud owner of the lady head on valeries instagram!!

@Matthew Thomas, I think everyone here is giving fairly solid advice. I understand that some if it isn't what you want to hear, but sometimes there is only so many options. I tell people the news they don't want to hear all the time and it's not to crush their dreams but to be realistic about what can be done. My objective is to make it look like it's not a coverup at all. I didn't read the entire thread so I'm not sure if this has been mentioned already or how in depth your own knowledge of blasting over is; the new tattoo to cover the old one will almost definitely be substantially larger than the original one in order for it not look like a murky blob in the middle of an otherwise well done tattoo(most of the time that is, obviously everything is case by case). Only black ink can cover black ink. In order for there to still have contrast of light vs dark (we don't want just a solid black splat with a little color or light shading around it) the new one needs to have more room to hide the old one. Good example: we can't adequately hide a stamp with a matchbook. There simply isn't enough room. Hiding a stamp in a flash card, well that is certainly opening up the options of what can be done to make it look like it was never there. With how much black is in your star (and red in this case) it's gonna be a pretty big tattoo. Which is awesome. My only point here in my post is to bring this up and if it's been mentioned already then it's my fault for not reading every post and spending so much time typing in a damn screen. Lately Siri has been making me sound drunk or uneducated.

I was imagining something a little more subtle. Classy even. The type of dick you wouldn't mind showing your mother.

I just wanted to call attention to the funny part.

I want to be told that I am pretty and smart and that people like me... Oh... tattoo stuff! Well you covered most of what I wanted to be told, I was just wondering what people would fix first, and how they would fix it.

Mike Dorsey has been consistently incredible for the last 20 years, and people always seem to forget about him. Discovering him was one of the things that led me down the path to discovering good tattooing.

I always have those, my doctor says it's almost like a permanent allergic reaction to existing.

Most obvious thread ever. Mike Dorsey is god. Boom.

You just had David Flores and Stewart Robson (tattooers) and several folks who have varying amounts of coverage and tattoo-getting (that's a word, right?) experience give you great advice. I get your frustration, I'm a perfectionist too, but such is life - nothing is perfect, we can take the experience we've had, learn from it and move on with the lessons learned such that the same mistakes do not happen again. Go get another tattoo, take your mind/focus off of this one for a bit.

@TrixieFaux beautiful work :)

I would ignore this tattoo it for now. Maybe see if you can get any of your unused "deposit" back then save up some money and seek out some higher quality artists. It may take a couple months before your have the time and money but you will be much happier with the results. It would be insane to keep returning to an artist after you lost confidence in their ability to design and apply a quality tattoo.

Put a big black panther over it. Panthers cover everything, and everybody needs a panther. Your artist is really the only one who can decide if it can be fixed or covered... another tattooer could weigh in on here, but it's really up to your artist's vision and abilities. Someone already touched on this I think, but often when people get hung up on mistakes in tattoos they have... we suggest to just get more, and better, tattoos. You know, go out and get a kick-ass new tattoo and the other one won't bother you as much (and yes, that star is a little wonky, but it's not hugely obvious or some scratcher garbage either). Have you thought about branching out and checking out other tattooers? You're not too far from Philly, which has plenty of good shops, and in the opposite direction there's Tattoo Mark's in State College, which has some great tattooers.

I believe that the correct nomenclature here is "nip zips". I didn't think my collarbones were too bad. There were unpleasant moments for sure (hello vibrations through my entire skeleton!) but it wasn't awful.

you made me spend 5 minutes looking for my phone so i could check that picture out in my feed. Really nice piece man, congrats

You in the neighborhood dude?

Check out Name Brand Tattoo in A2 and Depot Town Tattoo in Ypsi

Don't know who the Cheyenne Randall guy is who runs it, but nice stuff. ☜Shopped Tattoos☞

I've been collecting from artists that I admire. My first few tattoos were less informed choices, but I'm up to 18 artists and I'm pleased with what I've got. So far my plan has been to get one or two pieces from a given tattooer. I'm a little torn when I see the cohesive look of a limb covered by one artist, but I think variety will win out for me. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

^Like the above said, ask your tattooer about fixing it, for sure. Also, as far as other people's suggestions to "get more tattoos". That's pretty solid advice. In the event that your tattooer can't fix it, and you don't want to go through laser treatments and cover-ups, adding more tattoos around it can help a lot. A regular poster on here @TrixieFaux I believe has a similar tattoo and added around it rather than covered it up and it's a good example of how well crowding out a less-desirable tattoo works.

I think it goes beyond the price haggling and complaining, you have to size someone up as they walk in the door, how they are dressed, what they drive up in, what kind and how much source material they have with them, what their other tattoos look like and how they conduct themselves as a person. If they act like a cartoon character or try to come off as super cool or do they interact with you like a normal person. My main red flag even if they pass the other tests is when someone says they would never get something off the wall, that means they might be more likely to be difficult when it comes to the drawing. But we try not to turn away business and deal with most people, i would say price haggling is the only real deal breaker and once a number is thrown out there it never goes down. If someone is going to be a pain in the ass, you should at least get paid what you are worth for it and price will weed out a lot of crazy and hopefully avoids the scenario of losing your cool on a customer. But don't be mistaken, some people need to be kicked out of a tattoo shop, but most people don't they are just sensitive yuppies who need a little extra attention.

If you're willing to go to LA to get tattooed, I'd suggest checking out Tattooland. Chris Brand, Stan Corona, and Mike Suarez could all give you a great tattoo. I'm not sure all these images will work, but let's try this: Chris Brand: Stan Corona (kind of wanted to find a picture of a dragon he's done, but this backpiece is just too good to not share): Mike Suarez: Personally, I wouldn't worry about things like waiting lists. You might have to wait, you might not, but it's far more important to get the tattoo you really want.

New one from my buddy - Christian Peters - Lotus tattoo. Super happy with it one of the nicest guys too.

Check out Chad Chesko at Fat Ram's Pumpkin Tattoo in Boston!

It doesn't make anybody any money.

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.

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

Finished these ones yesterday. @Scott Sylvia did the skull on the right, Freddy Corbin on the left. These were done over a week and a half. It was a fuckin honor to be tattooed by both. Fuck sorry about the size.

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

This is a completely personal preference, but christ I hate those "watercolor" tattoos. Also, Chris Smith just posted that he is now working at Master Tattoo in SD.