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This is not on me--it's on my wife--but it's too good not to post here: By Paul Dobleman, Spider Murphy's Tattoo. I booked with him for next month--can't wait for my turn!

tapped out. finishing in another week. getting my knee done by derek noble on tuesday!

I got married yesterday. Does that count?

by Fergus Simms @ No Regrets, Melbourne. 2 days old It's fresh, so the colors aren't really coming out yet, but there's some nice red and green in there!

Do you really want to know what is "wrong" with you? I know because the same thing is "wrong" with me (and most of the regular posters here). You are one of "THOSE" people that has found a "thing" that they are passionate about. Those people find a tremendous amount of joy in every aspect of their "thing". You can't stop thinking about it, you spend a lot of your time researching and planning, you make sacrifices, and set aside money specifically for your "thing". There is nothing wrong with being passionate about something in life.

Thanks @Duffa I love all your new additions! The subject of my Garver tattoo is called a Harpy Harpy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia It's from greek mythology, and I think it's a little weird that it isn't seen more often in tattooing. Who doesn't like an eagle with tits? :cool: @hogg Getting tattooed by tebori was a real treat and something I've been looking forward to for a long time. Since this was my first tebori experience I don't really have any pain reference, but it wasn't too bad. Less painful than by machine, but slower. Horimasa was super friendly, humble and just an all round great guy. Such a great experience. We actually got it done in Marco Serio's studio since Horimasa was waiting for his own place to get greenlit by the health department. Unfortunately Marco was abroad, but I got to stare at his awesome stencils which were hanging all over the wall while I was getting tattooed :)

@Delicious, who is Dave Gibson? My dear, you met a legend.

After being on vacation last week, I'm back to the daily grind at the office today.... but I'm going to spend most of my time this week day dreaming about my appointment with Chad Koeplinger this weekend. It is going to be a hand+ sized calf piece but I'm still not sure what I'm getting but leaning towards something with a skull and roses or maybe a fudo with flames or maybe a rose of no mans land or a wolf head or....... It is a tough decision because he does everything so well!

I just got this butterfly to hopefully take some attention off the mistake below and fill the empty space in the front. Bugged me that looking at myself head-on I only saw red balls. I did this as a walk-in on the spur of the moment.

Got this yesterday at FTW's Owen Jensen flash BBQ party. By Jason Phillips. Got a sweet painting of the design too!

Ha! Thanks, Hogg. It really was awesome. We are heading to Chicago this summer for a honeymoon just in time to stop by and see the new Great Lakes shop and hopefully get a new tattoo there to celebrate.

ExpendableHero - at least you supported someone who works an honest trade and who is an artist. Lots of people are struggling to survive, not just homeless people. You have kept one person afloat one more day. I went shopping on Saturday and decided I would see if I could get a walk-in tattoo. I did get one. I'm very pleased with it but while getting it the whole time I'm thinking how am I going to explain this impulse to my un-tattooed partner? And will he hurry up already? I'm late for dinner. When I got home I had to explain my delay, and obviously eventually I was going to have to show him the tattoo so I pulled up my pant leg. First thing he said was "Oh no, now you're one of THOSE people." What a jerk thing to say. Now I feel kinda bad, like what is wrong with me? Am I having a mid-life crisis? I used to be such an ordinary good girl. But then I see my butterfly and I really like it. I always wanted a butterfly tattoo and now I have one and the guy I went to, despite being a newly graduated apprentice, did a nice job, perfect lines, super traditional. Cleverly matched the pattern of the butterfly to the leaves of my roses and achieved what I wanted from a simple butterfly tattoo. I can't wait to take him everywhere with me. So my "blues", if you can call it that, are that with this butterfly I've sort of crossed a threshold into being quite tattooed plus I have a sort of secret pleasure only I understand.

That's Norwegian for LST! And yes, welcome. :)

Dave that is Matt Arriola's work.

So you have four tattoos, but how many cats do you have? You can't just come on here and claim crazy cat lady status without backing that up. Welcome all the same!

Just got back from Cali and these are my souvenirs. Candle and coffin by Scott Sylvia and a little California black and gray skull rose by Freddy Corbin. The tattoos speak for themselves and I don't have enough time to tell ya how awesome of human beings these guys are.

Hannya by Horimasa Tosui / Harpy by Chris Garver Pretty much healed up...

I met him today, he was tattooing a sick ass parrot on another guy in the shop where my sister got her chest tattoo. I've seen his flash before on the internet, and I gather he must be at least somewhat known... Very cool guy and very talented.

It depends, but I'll go with "probably." Congrats!

At that point I'll have to take up competitive crocheting and vintage taxidermy collecting just to stay busy.

I'd take that in a heartbeat.

Pharaoh's Horses!

I know I posted this in my intro thread, but here it is again. I got this at Papa Joe's Tattoo one month ago. This is the pic taken right after it was done.

Thanks everyone im glad you all like it. @Hospitelli The idea of the veiled hannya, snake and Ginkgo leaves were mine but dean put it all together and made it killer. I already have an awesome hannya from Grime but it is the only image I wanted for my back piece, they work great on backs and its a classic image. @Duffa Thats an Idea bro!! Glad you dig it I look forward to the progress of yours now.

@Iwar and @hogg Wow to see enthusiastic comments from you guys I know I'm doing it right .

I recently found a place on the south side of San Antonio called rolando's super tacos... I am now eating there weekly even though it's on the complete opposite side of town. Here are some photos from this taco joint... Not only are these things huge but they also taste incredible! We were also so pumped we got super taco tattoos. My friend Greg was visiting from Lancaster so he and I traded and then my ollady and buddy got one too. Cheers!

Damn, @KYboy. You just come to the Bay and steal all our killer tattoos in the night?

Here it is, my naked self on a cold winters night...finished and healed pics of my back by Dean Sacred.

I had my consult with Rose Hardy. We are going to go bigger and make it a nice sized leg piece. She's going to be back in the winter and eventually moving to NYC. I'm kind of excited to do a big piece and have a nice work in progress. It'll suck having to wait but make for a killer tattoo. And it works out great because I was planning on holding off after this summer and maybe getting some small one shot tattoos, but working on a big piece over time is going to be a cool new experience. And Grez is awesome like every one said. Every time I go to Kings Ave he always remembers me and wants to see how my tattoos have settled in and ask how my wedding planning is going haha. He is so committed to his clients, great dude.

Portrait of Edgar Allen Poe by Vinny Romanelli at Red Rocket NYC (a Poe-rtrait?), done this afternoon.

Good morning LST!!! Got back from my Japan trip a week ago but have worked at least 12hrs every day since and have had some family dramas. Did get a promotion though which has been more of a curse than anything lol. But here are 2 little mementos I got while over there and I will post my back in the backpiece thread. I am spewing I didn't make it to Tokyo so hopefully @CaptCanada will still be keen to catch up next time round. I'll do a travel thread when I finally get a day off which will hopefully be Friday! Anyways, lets look at some tattoos ;) First one is what I got from Hiro (Formerly at The CatClaw Tattoo-Z) at his new shop "Swallows Nest Design Work". I was his first international customer lol. Special little Daruma with an inside joke in Japanese :cool: (who'll be the first to figure it out?) Got this on my last night from Horinao at The Catclaw. He had no other customers and I thought why not... well, that and they accepted credit cards which I'd never noticed until then. Quick little Hyottoko - - - Updated - - - Holy large photos Batman! Sorry guys!!

I'm just coming off an awesome weekend in Quebec. I'm a working musician and play in a band called Jon Knight and Soulstack. If you are into a roots/rock/soul/blues/ kinda thang, check us out on the interwebs. We just played at the Montreal Jazz Festival and Mont Tremblant International Blues Festival on Saturday and Sunday respectively to fabulous crowds that energized us and inspired us to play the majority of our asses off ;) It was a blast ! Actually just found this vid of our Montreal show on Youtube. Check it out if ya have any interest. I might be the guy playing the gold guitar ;P

Since I am standing in a bus right now with a NASCAR wannabe driver I'll keep this short. I repeat the previous statements of the above posters. @else does have a good point about the close readers. Two of my friends have a short paragraph and they don't like it because it is very awkward to read something on someone's body even if you wanted them to read it. There are also the people who will try to read it without permission. I stick by the 10-10-10 rule for tattoos. From ten feet away in 10 seconds you will know what the tattoo is and it will hold solid for 10 years.

For the average folk who don't have any I guess even one can toss you into that category. I know my last tattoo seems to have crossed some imaginary borders in the minds of people I know. As far as most of the people I know I am now considered 'heavily tattooed' which makes me laugh since I look at a ton of open room. Take it in stride.

Well, I've been running, and shedding a little bit of the layers that I let pile up during my second time through university and desk-monkeying. I'm running my first marathon in Richmond in November, I'm gonna find a way to weasel a little banger from Mike Adams the same day.

It's always good to bring reference material, but once you've grazed a bit on this site you'll notice pretty much all agree that you should 1st find an artist whose style and work you love, and then let them do the layout and design utilizing the elements you've brought to the table. You'll end up with a much more professional and visually appealing result in the end. The tricky part is making sure you've got the right artist . . .

@Duffa goddamn are they! San Antonio is fullll of great Mexican cuisine, as we're only 2-3 hours from mexico... But these things are just great. A real treat for sure.

If it were me, I might leave the words off entirely and just go with the image. *You* know what the image represents to you. It will hold the same meaning whether the words are written on you or not. And that way you won't have to deal with strangers inches away from your skin reading it all the time... that would freak me out.

Here is the start of my dragon sleeve. I am very excited for my next session. Will be black and grey with some red accents and continue up to my shoulder. Work being done by Carter Gillis @ Designs by Dana in Cincinnati.

Final session sorry its not a healed pic! Done by Josh Damnit, Classic Tattoo, upland ca. It filled an awkward spot on my leg nicely.

im getting hannya mask with a dragon, matt is doing the hannya and william the dragon

My Sweet Pea decided to be responsible, so instead of buying her a tattoo I paid her rent for July and bought her a bunch of groceries (and a couple things to unwrap of course!!) BUT!! Total win!! She decided that she wants to wait until she gets back to Denver to get her first tattoo so that she can have Marie Sena do it :D Hooray!!

I have an appointment with Mina Aoki at Fun City, NYC on the 10th for a lady head. This will actually be my first full-color piece and first American traditional tattoo. I've been admiring her work on a colleague and decided I want her art as part of my collection. Then, on August 1 Chris Garver is doing a pin-up for me, posed and colored like one of Gil Elvgren's girls, but dressed as a punk rock goddess with flaming red Mohawk, rock t, trad tattoos, combat boots & torn fishnets. I'm seriously amped for this one.

Starting a collaboration backpiece with William Yoneyama and Matt Mooney in a couple of weeks, very excited Matty D Mooney - Dagger & Lark Tattoo est. 1985 - Melbourne William Yoneyama - Dagger & Lark Tattoo est. 1985 - Melbourne

Many of you know this already from Instagram, but on Saturday, @DJDeepFried and I (and our little one) drove 7 hours up to San Rafael so I could get my Psychedelic Stories tattoo from Paul Dobleman (Paul Dobleman: Psychedelic Stories Contest 2013 | TAM Blog). You guys did not lie, Spider Murphy's is one of the greatest places on earth. I got to meet a few of the other guys and they were all really cool. Paul was fun to talk to...just a great experience overall. I love the way the tattoo came out. I have now traveled for a tattoo! These were the choices: And this is what I got:

You should! :) I'm excited to get some work from her. "a darker Alice" as in Alice in Wonderland? I would love to see that - sounds awesome!

When I was in Vegas for the APP Conference, my old friend Ron Garza and I decided to get matching 'bro-tats' courtesy of his wife Nakota who tattoos out of Outer Limits. We've known each other since 1995 and have an amazing surreal friendship. Earlier this year one of our good friends (who goes back to 95 with us as well) killed himself, so we decided on Skulls in Party Hats. Little two minute dealies to commemorate our friendship. The "party tats" label was tongue in cheek.

I finished this a couple of months ago and someone mentioned adding it to a contest. I forgot then, so throwing my hat(or leg) in the ring here. Dana Helmuth at Read Street Tattoo in Baltimore.

I suppose this thread is according to taste, but I would say Guy Le Tattooer (working out of a studio in Toulouse, France) should be regarded as a modern great. I love his mixture of pointilism plus a quite surreal etching/woodcut/anatomical style that evokes Duncan X, but perhaps less dark in subject matter, and more focussed on animals. GUY LE TATOOER