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Finished up my left side. Background is down to a big wave in the middle of My butt and a few windbars on my right armpit.

I just booked my first appointment of 2014 (which is hard to believe): I'm getting an uchide no kozuchi (as referenced here) from Horisuzu at Dark Horse in LA on August 2nd. I'm also going to the Perseverance exhibition that day. I can't wait!

I never got around to posting this Eddy Deutsche tattoo I got at Temple... What an amazing experience this was!!

Thanks for the welcome. I can't promise I wont hold it against you being a kiwi. Only time will tell. All my new work has been done by Kian Forreal at Authentink in Surry Hills (Sydney) I spent alot of time researching my new artist and his work was the one that really worked for me. Was on his wait list for just over 18 months but has been well worth it. He is a great artist and a great guy to boot. I am now in for about 33 hours on my backpiece, loving and despising the process at the same time. Not sure what is next after the back, but I doubt it will stop there. :) Jason.

Katie Ryan @ Anthem Tattoo, Gainesville FL

Can't remember if I posted this here Sundancer but Valerie Vargas, Frith Street Tattoo

Off to SF to see Grime on the 25th, a couple more sessions on my back and it should be a wrap! I also got an appt with Owen Williams from Australia (@otatts on IG) who will be guesting at Skull and Sword in Aug. 15, the plan is to get a namakubi and a peony... can't wait! :D

Every man (or woman) has got something to stay away from, or die from it. In spite of all the bad shit going on with me, I'm not drinking much, staying away from the white powders as well. Been a while since I visited the needle and the spoon (1987) and I have no desire ever to go back to it. It took me maybe 10 years to shake that compulsion. Good thing I have no idea where to find such drugs and anyone I know that is into them is now dead. I was always attracted to taboo things. I dated black women because I wasn't supposed to, started drinking at age 15, drugs followed soon after. Somehow I knew I'd eventually find my way to cocaine and heroin, it was like I was on a path set by fate. And you're right, heroin is like June Cleaver (blonde milf from TV show Leave it to Beaver) just performed an oral act on me, gave me a back massage and wrapped me up in a nice warm blanket. If anything good came out of it, I related some of my story to my kids and so far they've turned out well and haven't gotten into 1/4 of the shit I did at that age. Hang in there! Rob

Oi. Watch what you say about kiwis, or I may have to break out the 'fush 'n' chups'

I've travelled to Texas and London to get tattooed, and none of them are perfect. As blasphemous as it may sound to say this, my Steve Byrne hand tattoo has a few little flaws (specifically in the lines in some tougher areas). That being said, it's still perfect, and still my favorite and most meaningful tattoo (one of the few with a meaning). Perfection is boring, anyway.

Give it a little bit of time before doing anything. You posted recently that it hadn't peeled yet, and often when a tattoo hasn't totally healed the lines don't have the crispness that they will once the tattoo is properly settled in. This is maybe a tougher pill to swallow, but sometimes, even if there are bits that aren't perfect on the tattoo, that's okay because you're talking about something handmade on skin. It inevitably will have flaws and imperfections and that those are beautiful in their own way.

Yeah -- the 1890s! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPKe9OfWs-M&feature=kp"

Now you have to share some pictures. Please.

Yea but we are finishing this before extending it. So it's like a big part 1 then part 2 @suburbanxcore thanks. Some guy asked him for a skull peony and didn't get it so he added it to me. His loss because I really like it.

Got more of my chest worked a week ago -- it's healing nicely. Having two halves of that done on consecutive Mondays has made healing "fun' to say the least. Attached is what it looked like a week ago. Because of some upcoming travel I doubt we will get to the color until September (ugh).

So happy to be posting back in this thread! I felt lost with nothing in the works. Just had a consult and will be starting my right arm late October with Clare Hampshire. First two sessions for a forest lady, third session for a mallard duck.

Couldn't resist booking a little one with El Monga while I'm in Barcelona. I'm getting a frog because I really love frog tattoos, and I really love El Monga's tattoos so it's going to be super cool and fun.

Grez just made this one on me a few hours ago... I'm in love.

Less than a month until I start mine, but I'm going to stop reading this thread because y'all are making it sound like tattoos hurt.

I thought it was about time I signed up to LST rather than just lurking in the shadows. I have visited LST on and off for a few years now and always found it to be most helpful and some of the members work is stunning. Enough of the small talk I am Jason, 39yr old from Australia. My 1st tattoo I had done over 20 years ago. In the next 10 years I had another 3 pieces done of various sizes and quality. I'd class 2 of them as decent pieces and 2 of them as pieces I had no time for. Fast forward to 3 years ago and I decided that it was time to ditch the bad quality work and get something decent. So in the last 2 years I have had all 4 old pieces laser lightened/removed which has allowed me to complete 2 x 3/4 sleeves with chest panels and in Feb 2014 started a full back piece, neck to knees. Needless to say the last 2 years I have seen my fair share of ruined bedsheets/clothing and a huge amount of time nursing healing tattoos and laser treatments. Just makes me wish that 20 years ago there was a better internet experience than the 1200bps text dial up I used and maybe a few forums around like LST. :) If there was maybe I wouldn't have started with the dodgy tattoos and started with something better. Anyway I look forward to further postings and hopefully providing some others with some helpful information. Cheers Jason.

You're gonna need to lose a lot of weight (and a little more hair).

@misterJ outstanding! thanks for sharing all the progress pics.

I'm a long time gamer. Got sick of my xbox 1 and traded it for a.... Wii u. I actually love it, go figure!

@Cork this series is definitely on my to read list. I have a friend who has read it, she loved it, although she did complain about the very long wait for the books too. Glad to know it is finished as that was one of the reasons I held off getting into it.

@peterpoose still looks new! Just curious, how much sun exposure do you let that arm get?

It may not seem so to people with lots of tattoos, but getting a tattoo is a big deal. The barrier to that first tattoo is enough to deter most people, although it is less frightening nowadays than in the past. We may make light of it but it still remains a permanent modification of one's body. And a very deliberate one, too. You gotta arrange a time to do it, have an image or word in mind, find an artist, have money, and so on. A catalyst of some kind is required to overcome that first tattoo "barrier". I went through the same thought process - first tattoo has to be super meaningful etc. and it took me almost 10 years before I finally took the plunge and got a little baseball sized tattoo. I heard someone say once that the first one takes a mile, the next one takes an inch. And it's true, once that bug bites it bites hard :cool:

Since my girlfriend moved to Canada I have been teaching her how to lift weights properly, she hit a 135 squat and a 200lb deadlift, I know it wasn't me that did it but it was great to see how excited she was after, she couldn't air squat 10 weeks ago

Wrong. Good manners are about not putting people in the position of having to say, "How rude!" I agree that good -- or not bad -- intentions count for something, but not everything. A wise person thinks about what he/she says before they say it. I'm sure you don't say every damn thing that pops into your head. IT'S NOT JUST TATTOOS!!! It's rude to ask someone how much they paid for their new car too -- but that's not a great example because everyone has a vague idea of how much cars cost. It's more like walking into a person's house, looking a painting on the wall, and saying, "Nice art. How much you pay for it?" Because it's rude. (Close friends and family might be the exception to the rule, but I try to be polite to them too.) Now can we please stop talking about this and get back to tattoos? I'll even let you have the last word.

You mean like one of @cltattooing eating pizza and giving me the finger. Haha. I'll have to let her share that one. - - - Updated - - - My friend, the door is always open to you (all of you for that matter). Good times will continue to be had.

Torture aside got the call about a cancelation today. Picked up another 2 and a half hours tomorrow night. Really hoping this finishes background off. Would make me so damn happy to know color is incoming

I hate to state the obvious here, but...we need a picture!

@9Years I've seen a bunch of his frogs on his Instagram and I love them. They have a really great feel to them. The shop guy at Aloha was excited to see what Monga is going to come up with because he hasn't seen him do a frog before, and then he showed us this tattoo he got from Monga when he asked for a squirrel and it's this squirrel being constricted by this snake/dragon kind of thing and it's amazing and probably not the first thing that comes to mind when you think of squirrel tattoo. So who knows what this frog is going to look like but it's going to be great.

Well, I just landed back in Virginia. Today was a long day. I can honestly say that I had an amazing time visiting San Francisco and Oakland, but the two most rewarding aspect of the entire trip was grabbing food at Taqueria Vallarta on Thursday night and having incredible conversation and laughs with you guys. And secondly, spending an entire day at FTW watching the homey Carolyn work (on top of getting tattooed myself). I am so glad to consider you guys friends. I'm honestly returning today with a drive to work so much harder because of this experience. From the bottom of my heart, thank you so much LST.

I had a little stumble for a couple of days and slipped into an old, bad habit. It was just a little stumble....a very tiny one. But it was a reminder that no matter how solid you think you become, little cracks can appear from no where. Oh, and I maxed out my phone credit with 10 days still remaining. That's fucked.

And at least when he wakes up from being a fuck head, laser removal will blast those weak arse tattoos away piss easy.

All the $$ in the world can't buy good taste.

Picked up this lil' thigh giblet while on vacation in Japan in 2013 from the (then) Hiroshi Hirakawa at Three Tides Tattoo, Osaka

Had my consult with Hooper Thursday. 1st session is Oct 20th.

I'll enter this one because I love my eagle. Happy to see her every day, and she has a name :o By Chad Koeplinger at Congress St. Photo from his Instagram.

Ha! Because it's so much better to get started knowing you are going to get TORCHERED and then being relieved that it's really only just terrible, then to go in thinking it might be pretty bad and finding out it's REALLY TERRIBLE.

This thread is getting out of hand. First a rumor that tattoos hurt, and now one that says dragons kick ass? You guys are just getting silly.

got tattooed by boxcar the other day. inside of my thigh area

Finishing mah buttcheeks with Scott Sylvia next weekend, its like an Ukiyo-e Geisha and some swans. Worth mentioning that IMHO Scott Sylvia's Japanese tattooing has got to be some of the most underrated and unassuming out there...not sure if we'll finish but I can't think of anyone who tattoos faster, guy is blazingly quick. Looking forward to posting the finished product.

put together a new zine last night with those images above and a bunch more. printed full color, handstamped & numbered. only 10 made. email [email protected] if you'd like one.

My father described my tattoo as "kickass" which surprised me because he was against it before. He's not the type to lie to make me feel better so he must have genuinely changed his mind. :D

Painting I'm doing for a charity auction next month, and a close up on a 22" mandala painting I'm working on.

Matt started this tattoo last weekend. Pretty much every other tattoo that you can half see in the photo is by Matt as well. Sorry it is showing up sideways, but I am absolute shit with a computer.

"If you don't want me tattooing in my home then teach me." That sounds like blackmail. I try not to hurl insults on the internet, but after reading your posts on this subject I am a little annoyed. I don't have an opinion one way or the other about people getting apprenticeships. Every individual circumstance is different. I do however have a problem with people thinking they deserve something just because they want it. I am not sure why you think you are owed an apprenticeship, but until you get over that entitled attitude then I am certain you do not deserve one.

Tattoo Zeke Owen’s Column ASK ZEKE WITH ZEKE OWEN This one’s from the legendary tattoo artist dates back to May 1998. Dear Zeke: I want to pursue a career as a tattoo artist very seriously. I am currently an aspiring artist with no tattoo training. How do I go about it? —Chris Sisler, Vacaville, CA Dear Chris: I’d like you to know, Chris, that my editor goes through all this mail out in California, picks out the things he wants and sends them to me. So I don’t have a lot of choice with really picking out my mail and the questions that I’d like to talk about. In other words, it’s just random and I don’t say, “I don’t want to answer this, I don’t want to answer that.” I say, “Oh there’s a juicy one,” and go on. I just have to take the ones that he sends. First of all, I’d like to tell you a little story about something that happened to me up in Seattle, Washington, one time. And I might start this little story out with a caption that went, “So you want to be a tattoo artist?” By the way, did you see in local business magazine that tattooing is now the sixth largest growing business in the United States?! Well anyway, next to my shop—my shop was on Skid Road. Skid Road was named originally as the logging road way back in the 1800s when they used to skid the logs down the road to Peugeot Sound to put on the ships. Well, anyway, I was out on First Avenue in Seattle for a little while and it was really neat. One of the coolest things that I used to see up there was that the people from Alaska and all over up north used to come down and put their money in the bank and go to the poker rooms and live in the old, beat up, stinky, I mean really stinky hotels right down there on First near the Pike Place Market and Skid Road. And this one guy used to bring down, every year, a couple of typical sled dog looking dogs and they were probably three years old or right around there. And he’d stay in one of those Skid Road hotel rooms where they let you have anything—I mean anything. And in the morning, you’d see the dogs and this guy from the Arctic Circle or someplace, down on the sidewalk and the dogs would both have collars on and each collar would be attached to the other one, kind of like Siamese-twin collars. So, consequently, he’d have one dog on the port side and one dog on the starboard side and they’d both be leaning in about ten degrees against each other and that’s they way he’d walk. Man, it’d be funny right there at the beginning of winter. They’d be falling, a struggling and a pulling. But, after a while, after a few months, winter would start winding down and they’d go down the steps and outside on the sidewalk just in unison—just as happy as they could be, with their tongues hanging out. And they’d run down the street when he’d call them. It looked like he was training them for sled dog work, but I’d never seen that before. It was really strange to watch them. Next door to my tattoo shop in Seattle was this old bar called the Forty Niner Tavern. And that’s exactly what it was. It was full of all them off the ships and miners. Honest to God they still have mines up there, of course they’d be there for the winter. And Seattle was kind of growing in those days, they were building all over the place, so we had a lot of steelworkers. And the tavern used to open up at six in the morning, and I know that because one of the opening bartenders used to be my girlfriend, Carol. And I’d be over at the arcade—it was open 24 hours a day with a pool hall, and the little guy who ran the grill—and I’d get her home fries and scrambled eggs and coffee and go over to the bar at six in the morning. And the place would be so smoky from cigarettes, it’d be the middle of winter and there was no movement of air in there, and the fire would be going and it was just thick with smoke. And the sun would make rays through the front door and the first few tables had a spotlight like one of the helicopters that flies over the lakefront when you’re out there barbecuing and partying. Anyway, I was in there and it was packed with all the steelworkers in there partying and doing shooters before they went to work up 20, 30 stories. They’re as drunk as hell going off to hang steel up there. Somebody ought to write a book, if they haven’t already, about how these guys used to save each other’s lives from falling to their deaths by catching them on the floor underneath. Anyway, I was sitting there drinking my coffee and I’d just finished my scrambled eggs and home fries when all of the sudden the most horrible, putrefying smell came into the place. God it was horrible, you know? And I looked around. I once had tattooed a South Korean Sailor for two gallons of kimchee because he didn’t have any money—this was back in the 60s—and he brought me this two gallon can of kimchee and I tattooed him and he went back to the ship. I had zero communication with the guy. So I put the bucket of kimchee—after taking out about a quart size jar of it—and put it in the reefer box in the Forty Niner Tavern and we were looking in there. We thought that was it, because it can get pretty foul sometimes. But that wasn’t it. And I looked up toward the front of the bar, and in the middle of this blazing sunlight cutting through the cigarette smoke here sits this old wino. He has a Korean War era watchcap in a shade of green that was particular to that era with flaps hanging down over his ears. And he had two or three suits on underneath his big overcoat, because it was below zero degrees outside. And his hands were just—you couldn’t tell what they were because the guy was so grimy. He had on big, heavy army wool pants and I looked down and I could see steam coming off his right boot, this old army boot. And the guy’s face was leathered and beat up. And he had his hand wrapped around a double shot glass of some kind of wine or something. With the sunlight on him, he’s just sitting there with head down—he’s drunk about half of it. And the steam coming off his shoe was coming off a freshly laid turd. Somehow, before he had sat down, he had crapped in his pants and his turd about the size of a scoop of vanilla ice cream had slid down his pants and landed on the toe of his shoe. Just balanced there. And the stink was just ripe. It was horrible. And the funny part was I was only one who got nauseous—ready to get sick over it. The rest of the seamen that were in there—a couple of guys from the hotel, a couple of Indians, all these steelworkers, my girlfriend Carol behind the bar—when I pointed it out they said, “My God, there it is, it’s on his shoe!” They all turned and broke into a rolling laugh, but they weren’t sick. It didn’t bother them a bit. They thought it was funny as hell. Well, I didn’t think it was very damn funny. So I went over to the guy and I told him, I said, “You’re gonna have to get up and leave this place and take that fucking thing on your shoe with you! Get outa here!” Anyway, he drank his wine, got up and walked out the door real slow, with his head bent down. Poor guy, he looked like a refugee from WWII, with that shuffle, like those guys with the tattoos on their arms, given that number from Hitler. Out the door he went, and that stinking thing on the toe of his right boot. But you know, that’s all part of life of being in a tattoo business. So I thought about that for many, many years. And there’s not a real point to all this that I’m telling you. But before you do anything—before you go about planning a big career move into the tattoo business—you really ought to find out more about what it’s all about. Where you want to go, what you really want to do with it. I mean, do you have any tattoos? In other words, before I give you directions to build a bomb you better know what the hell you want to do with the damn thing after you get it finished. Because most of the people who got into this business have a real kinship with their customers in that it really gets into their blood, so to speak, and you keep coming back for more. They stay in it. And I’ve seen real good tattooers just go nuts. Actually, one of Mike Malone’s that came in my shop, what was his name—from Germany—Freddy or something. Anyway, he went back to Germany and he was one of the very first ones on the crack of the wave of the tattoo scene and he took Germany by storm. It was 24 hours a day and it got to him so bad that he had a breakdown and went off to the hospital. And I haven’t heard anything from him since. Mike will know what I’m talking about. But the point of it is I can tell you right now, don’t take it on your own to try and do this or experiment with anybody. And here I am telling you exactly what I did, and a lot of others did, experimenting on their own. I can’t say it’s a mistake but it’s just a better approach to go into a shop of maybe the guys who’ve been doing your tattoos. I’m sure you have a bunch, right? And talk to them. Bring your artwork in to show. I’ll tell you what, there’s been a phenomenon in this business that went right past me. I missed it. Only just now am I getting to find out about what’s going on. I call them entrepreneurs. They have a job with the transit system or maybe they’re in the bricklaying business in the daytime and they have ten or fifteen tattoos, so now they decide they’re going to have a tattoo shop. They go down to Ocean Boulevard in Jacksonville, Florida, and they rent a little store. They put an ad in the paper and they hire six or seven guys and they give them 35% of the gross to sit in there and tattoo. But if they don’t have the equipment, by God, they send off to somebody up north and buy all the machines and the designs and the tools to do the work with. And that’s one way to do it. And they just get together like a big Chinese cluster-fuck and sit there and mark each other up and everybody else that comes in the place. But that’s one approach, I suppose. I think it’d be better off though if you did find somebody who had a reputation and they would sit you down and let you watch and talk. That’s really the way to get started. Hand to hand—kind of like the old-fashioned apprenticeships used to be at the shoe repair shop. After about a year, they eventually let you put a heel on somebody’s boot, you know? And also, this is another kind of business where you want to get next to the best person you can. If you have some serious art abilities or training and everybody goes “oooh” and “aaah” when they see your painting, then evidently you’ve got the kind of ability that you need today to succeed in the business. Most of the old time guys are what we call mechanics—take a pattern, slap it on your arm and follow it along. There were some guys that could make it look like Rembrandt. You could tell, it was sort of a mechanical follow-the-dots sort of a deal. But today, when you’ve got so many great people, it just blows me away. I never knew Brian Everett was an oil painter or a portrait artist before he got into this. I just didn’t stop to think like that. The scope of the way I thought was pretty much limited to the tattoo community that I developed myself in. And it didn’t include people like that. And today Mike Malone says I’m the last guy to find out anything. I don’t know—he’s probably right. But today I’m beginning to find out these people in fine arts are getting into tattooing. I’m beginning to think, is there more money working in tattooing than there is working in the art department at some big magazine? And evidently some of them actually like tattooing. So then again, you have to think very carefully about what you say or what you do around this or any other business. But especially in tattooing, because most of the people who are in tattooing are pretty down to earth. There’s not a lot of fiction in tattooing like a lot of people would think. When a guy comes in and you work on him two or three hours and he gets up and runs out the door with your money, that’s pretty real. It’s not a real good example either but—also I don’t just sit there when I’m tattooing somebody. I’ve got something to say. I ask them what’s going on and you get to hear a lot of what’s really happening in the rest of the world. The kind of people I work on are everything from deep sea divers to CEOs of major corporations. But again, you need to learn or find out more about what tattooing’s all about before you decide I’m an artist and I want to be a tattoo artist. Find out something about it first. Go to a tattoo convention. There you go. Hang out with all those drunks after the tattoo room is closed and they’re all in the bar slinging shit at each other, wrestling around in the parking lot like Bob Shaw and I used to do, drunk as hell in the grease. Things like that. Then that’ll give you more of an insight and whether you really want to be a tattoo artist or not. See ya. —Zeke.