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haven't posted in a while. my bad, dudes! hope you are all doing well. I recently got this guy from jason ochoa: and here's a healed photo of a higgs design I got from mark cross not too long ago:

I thought it was about time I posted my recently in progress backpiece, started end of Feb this year. This pic is about 36 hours in progress. I am quite tall and also have a bit of extra meat around the "love handle" area so is a big amount of skin to cover. I have been doing constant 3 hour sessions every 2-3 weeks with 2 x 6 hour sessions thrown in. Generally have been pretty good with each session but I have to say left thigh background shading for some reason sucked incredibly, probably one of the least favourite sessions of all my new work. Strange thing was the right thigh shading a week later (not shown in pic) was easy. I just noticed btw the snakes body going across my arse does line up, it looks like it doesn't but must have been the way I was standing in the pic. It was taken after the left thigh shading session and I was not a happy camper. :) Also just attached the outline after the 1st 6 hour session.

A rose and a horseshoe. From Sukre One, in Superfly tattoo, Leon Guanajuato Mexico.

TAM is now available to the general public directly through them, if you guys weren't aware. Tattoo news y'all. Tattoo Artist Magazine

So Monday was the second session on my dragon back piece. There were definitely some interesting moments in it that were less than fun, but I am very happy with the progress and can't wait for the next session at the start of September.

This thread needs more tattoo movement for it being a thread about lifting. I had to stick it in quotes so that the video didn't embed itself in the box and display my big ass. Now you have to click through to see it for those who are squeamish. If you happen to peruse my channel, you can see me from a couple years ago, tattoo free.

If it means anything... the guy who invented the wheel is still getting fucked today....

Thanks Iwar, Kian Forreal owner of Authentink in Surry Hills Sydney is doing the work. Love his work and a great guy to boot. Unfortunately on my back he has had to work around 3 previous tattoos which I have had laser removal on. Already without it being finished and colour added I struggle to see 2 of the pieces and the 3rd is being covered next session. :)

Co-sign both of the above sentiments.

I just recieved a big ol box full of prints from Ian Bederman, @wonkytiger on instagram, he has a lot of cool stuff, not sure how many of this anatomy series are left but I thought it was a really good deal. Here is a terrible photo I took trying to get everything in the frame:

Welcome to LST, and definitely listen to the tattooers who post here! I hope you can love your tattoo with a bit of spiffing up. The oft-repeated advice about getting more and better tattoos is also so true.

Vintage Bottle Poison on my bottom left leg..... Still to continue on this specifc area with famous and my favorite "THE PRODIGY" songs..

Reallllly bad picture, but I got this lady from Steve Turner while he was guesting at Live Free. I'm super pumped on it.

This is the worst. I hate it. So much negativity associated with the word addiction. Tattoos have been nothing but positive for me. A bit of traveling, cool and intelligent people, and I take better care of myself now because I want my tattoos to look good for as long as possible. Only negative is I spend too much time looking at instagram.

I don't know if this has been mentioned already and I missed it, but there's the first of a 3 part documentary up on the Scorpion Font website about the Stab City book by Ross Nagle. Worth a look... He's a real top bloke.

Looks great @Shaggy Thanks for the update.

That's fantastic news!

I like traditional because it looks fucking cool. Ask anyone on the street to close their eyes and name a tattoo, what will they come back with? Traditional! Japanese! Tiger/Skull/Panther/Rose. These decisions have been made over generations, there is a reason for this. There is an elegance and power in their simplicity, is it not harder to convey a message in a few lines and few colours? They hold up (BOLD WILL HOLD!) So when I'm old and saggy you'll still make out what tattoos I have. When someone comes up to me and asks why I got a tiger/skull/heart and dagger on my arm? I get to say cool shit like ' it's a tiger,/skull/heart and dagger what else do you need to know!' Someone once said to me your tattoos look like tattoos. I thought that was awesome. You can tell what my tattoos are from 5 feet away (back piece 20 feet, take that!) It's a tattoo, its on me, my bodies a temple etc etc but I ain't the sistine chapel. All that said, I appreciate the technicality and application of portraits etc, still not sure how they'll hold up, hopefully very well and it'll prove a few cynics wrong, but it ain't my bag. As for this forum, just a little more tact maybe...

SWEET!!! You're a lucky guy.

Especially this one.

It really isn't that terrible. Having it reworked by a more qualified/experienced artist is probably a better option than complete coverup or removal. Also i just googled Marjoca, Spain.... that place looks beautiful.

[emoji106] I'd probably say the level of intoxication should be high with all parties involved whilst participating in any form of bizarre drunky blunders, although admission of such activities shall remain strictly confidential. My 9 year old daughter sets up tattoo booths, lines up all her colours and charges 50 cents for custom designs. All hearts and arrows [emoji4] I sometimes forget to wash them off and rock into work with a little texta tattoo slammed on the back of my neck.

@Jack Wright Where in Spain are you? I just got tattooed at Aloha in Barcelona and I would enthusiastically recommend it.

You should have added that being a viking has nothing to do with how well-groomed your beard is, it's about HOW WELL YOU FIGHT. I wouldn't want one of these vegan milquetoasts having my back.

Hereby banned for using one of the worst words of all time!

I got tattooed at Aloha Tattoos in Barcelona last week and one of the many cool things about that shop is that it's also a "tattoo art gallery" with lots of art and prints for sale. Currently they have an exhibition of Matt Bivetto's drawings, which are really fantastic and I wish I had the spare money to buy one of them (and/or get down to NYC and get tattooed by him). I did pick up this really cool print from El Carlo though: The website for La Cobra Negra is here: La Cobra Negra Tattoo Art Gallery — Home and they have a bunch of prints, originals, flash, sketchbooks, etc., for sale. There's a lot of really cool stuff there.

My cousin is a lovely, intelligent young man, but he just asked me for shop recommendations and then described a project that combines almost everything listed in the "most hated tattoo requests" thread. I'm trying to gently persuade him to describe what he wants to convey and leave as much of the actual design to the artist as possible. And to get tattooed with me in Portsmouth so I can buy him a drink afterward. (He just turned 21.)

got my second tattoo from claudia de sabe today needless to say i'm extremely happy with it (and sore) on the back of my upper arm

I did! Kind of. I made it to Three Tides in Tokyo where I had a wonder experience all around and ended up with a nice little dragon head by Ganji. [/img]

Two months ago, I deadlifted 315x1 (for the first time in over two years) and an all-time PR of 325x1. Today, I pulled 315x3. It feels great to be progressing and breaking through some physical and mental barriers.

There are too many great replies to quote, but @cltattooing, @mmikaoj, @suburbanxcore, @smiling.politely, and @DJDeepFried are killing it. @Steele, to quote one of cinema's greatest characters, "That's like, your opinion, man." And you sound like a missionary trying to convert us. So stop doing that, stop scratching, and go get on Carlos Torres' waiting list. PS You diss Ed Hardy, you diss yourself.

I have no respect for anyone that likes apples. Those are snacks that second graders eat. I mean, you don't even have to peel an apple. Where's the skill in that? Seriously, explain to me why I should like apples!

Yesterday, after two years in progress, Marius Meyer finally finished my back piece. It was 6 painful well worth hours. Going back for a touch-up in the belly plates and white in eyes/claws/teeth. @Iwar has some cool footage from the session that he maybe will post, I think?

Dude comes on here, introduces himself as a scratcher, and we argue art with him? We can do a lot better than this, folks.

You can like one thing without disrespecting everthing else.

Nope, you're ignorant because you're saying traditional takes no talent to create, and you're stupid because you're trashing a vast array of incredibly talented artists. Just because you don't like it, doesn't mean it's shit. Trashing an entire style, and talking shit on work that artists have put their heart and souls into developing, for generations, is downright insulting to the art and culture of tattooing.

ET looks like he has a certain *ahem* apendage

Haha you went there So aside from the fact that you just insulted about 80% of LST's membership with that post, you should probably learn a little about the style you're bashing before you make such sweeping generalizations. It's fine if you don't like traditional tattooing and it's fine to feel like every tattoo needs to be a custom masterpiece, but I cannot emphasize how dumb it makes you look when you come to a forum with no sense of who it is you're interacting with and why people here like what they like. There are hundreds of pages describing the history and innovation behind traditional tattooing, it might have been a good idea to read through the forum a bit before posting. Also, just fyi, there are handfuls of traditional tattooers who can draw circles around portrait artists and vice versa. Style and skill have little to do with each other.

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

Actually I was just out, talking to the super in the building. He can get me rats, but according to Health Dept. regs here they're fine to use in a wheel power supply, but I have to run chords from the dirty room.

You must not have read a single post in this thread

I decided to test this theory, being unfamiliar with Dio and today's work requiring a little 'awesoming' up. This just resulted in my secretary, a quite stuffy retirement-aged man who had come into my office to do some filing, throwing me the devil horns and having a little mosh. It's made my day. Dio for the win.

This is where I'm up to with my back piece so far. Got a few more months to wait before I can get some more done.

There's something magical about the full back tattoo. As young as 12, I was always awe inspired by seeing pictures, especially group photos of people posing for the photographs. I just knew that some day, I too needed to have that full back tattoo. Today, that's the tattoo out of all my collection that has the most significance. As people have already mentioned, it's no easy task. I think those big long sweeping lines that pick up all those different nerve endings was the most memorable experience for me. Don't concern yourself too much with the time you spend under the machine. I too use to look at long sittings as a significant feat, but these days I come to realise that time spent, is still time spent under the machine, whether you sit for 10,5,2 or 1 hours...every hour is still earned. There's no shortcuts. That tattoo has been earned through determination, a particular mind set and pain.

I just got around to watching the Kore Flatmo interview. He had some comments on "pain management" that reminded me of recent comments on this thread. He was talking about the benefits of pain killers and how they are going to become more available in the future: "...When I’m doing a pinup on a guy’s ribs, I don’t want him to move, and if he’s moving that’s going to be a problem. So for this guy, he manages the pain and it allows him to get bigger and better tattoos. And of course the first argument made is, 'well that’s not pure, tattoos need to hurt.' Anyone who makes that argument--they don’t have to use the pain killer. I’ll tattoo ‘em straight up. Right? They don’t have to worry about the other guy’s tattoo. They can worry about their own."

Wait are you saying you take your pants off before posting on LST?!

Thanks for your comments! I'm very excited with the piece. I forgot to include another part of my experience that I think you all would appreciate... So when I was going crazy with anticipation waiting to see a drawing for the piece and checking my email a billion times a day, Eddy sends an email saying that his "old friend Dan Higgs" said "whoa" three times in a row when he saw the drawing and that that was a very good omen. And then my head almost exploded ;)

oh ya, you are totally right. hell of a leg tho!

Not mine, but here's an incredible pair of legs that Myke Chambers did.

That's because your back is weirdly sensitive. Ever asked someone to rub your shin? Nope. But back rubs are awesome because your back has a million sensitive spots, all of which feel super fucking awesome when getting tattooed, especially the lower back. You already know that tattoos hurt, and you seem to be acutely aware that the back will hurt, too. You also know that you're already on this path (didn't you just get your hand tattooed?) and that the back is the ultimate canvas. you just need to figure out what you're getting and who's gonna do it, although something tells me that you have more than a few ideas in mind. While I did find the process to be painful (and expensive), I have no regrets at all about doing it. It was so exciting to see it come together, session by session. There's something about having a full back piece. It's something that I've always admired, but for years, I didn't think I'd be able to make the physical/financial/mental commitment to go through with it myself. Completing it was a big milestone for me, and I have a beautiful souvenir of the experience that I get to wear for life.