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I got this today from Chad Koeplinger at the Montreal convention. Ed Hardy-inspired hybrid rose right over the shin. I am super stoked on it and all of you should get tattooed by Chad not only because his tattoos are fucking amazing, but because he is a rad dude and getting tattooed by him is super fun.

Most of you have seen this already, but stolen from Mike Rubendall's instagram: Awesome dude, awesome tattoo, super stoked, I think 8-9 hours of tattooing in one week (finishing my back and then this) is enough!

It hasn't even been a year yet for me here on LST and low and behold I'm being nostalgic and waxing poetic already, hahaha. Needless to say it has been an amazing experience getting tattooed and sharing with kindred spirits here on LST and Instagram. All of this would not be possible if it not for some really awesome people here on LST. So without further delay, here's my way of giving back to LST and paying it forward. Some of you may know that a couple of months back I won a contest on Instagram via the killer staff at Tattoo Culture Magazine and Tattoo Artist Magazine. Received three fantastic prints from three stellar artists. I was super stoked when I got them but then realized with the limited space I have in my place (small NYC apartment and my lady just moved in with me too!) that I would not be able to enjoy these as much as someone else. I want these to go to someone who truly appreciates tattoos and are amazingly cool people. @hogg @slayer9019 @gougetheeyes @Iwar As mods, you have made everyone on LST feel so welcomed and it is a thankless job that all of you have for making LST such a cool spot to chill and share our experiences. I want to send each of you a print of my choice (yes I won three, but I have a fourth sitting around). A small token to say "thank you". Please PM me your shipping info (promise this isn't a scam, hahaha). @slayer9019 and @gougetheeyes since you two are local to NYC, happy to meet up and pass you the print. Cheers to the LST crew!

forgot to post this one.. my girlfriend got this little girl head from Amelia Martin yesterday @ the convention.. which made my mind up on getting that tattooed from hyde on the previous page.

Not the best picture but I got this from Justin Hyde today @ the Meeting Of The Marked convention today.

You need to mention that his ability to scrounge up a massage table was crucial because you BROKE the table you were on. When they say they want you to sit like a rock, they don't mean that literally, sweetheart.

@Graeme and @Pugilist win the award for LST Power Couple.

I somehow missed you guys saying that you were actually getting tattooed at the convention. Needless to say, you both nailed it.

getting those tattoos are cool enough in my book

That crazy rose and gorilla is on LST poster @mtlsam who's niceness and ability to scrounge up a massage table (seriously appreciated dude!) is only matched by his bravery.

Exact same for me. Skin and bone, and the needle on the shin bone is just fire. I wish I was more padded, more area to tattoo as well!

well since i'm a skinny dude the shin felt like drilling into bone for me. good times!

Josh's body was covered with dragon tattoos, all of which had their eyes unfinished. it was one of his wishes for them to be finished after he passed. A tattooer was allowed access to his body to finish them. I'm beyond touched.

Thank you for organizing all of this for us!!

Alrighty - I'm having a hell of a time reserving a table for 14 on the 19th. ..so I went ahead and reserved the same table we had last year at OTD (out the door): OTD Pacific Heights 2232 Bush Street, San Francisco, CA 94115 Tel: 415-923-9575 Our reservation is for 7:30pm They do good vietnamese food and parking wasn't bad last year. Any objections should come pre qualified with a confirmed availability at alternate suggestion. ;)

I just had some major dental work done a couple of weeks ago. As a result i had various instruments all up in my mouth. Because he's a professional i didn't ask or even think to ask my dentist to prove to me that he ran a clean operation, nor did i lose any sleep over it later. I worked in an ER for 6 years and in that time I never witnessed a single person ask to see proof that the syringe, tongue depressor, speculum, scalpel or sutures etc. etc. were new or ask to see it being removed from the package.likewise, I'd bet the farm you have never asked a dentist or doctor to prove they're using clean instruments either. to answer the OG question; Much like a doctor is only allowed to use a scalpel blade once we are only allowed to use a needle once and just as the doctor has no legal obligation to open the blade in front of you nor do tattooers have a legal obligation to do so. that being said, i will gladly and without hesitation open and assemble any and all tools in front of anyone who asks if it makes them feel better and more at ease. I'll do it with a smile on my face AND i wont even mention that when they said "i need to see you open the needle in front of me" what i really heard was " hey, you're a heavily tattooed person and therefore i assume that you're most likely a dirt bag that i cant possibly view as being a professional with ethics so i need for you to open that needle in front of me although i would never ask that of my dentist because i would feel like i was insulting him/her"

Dude, sentences and punctuation please.

Hahaha we were saying to each other last night that this message board thinks we are much cooler than we actually are.

I saw both of those @Graeme and @Pugilist tattoos on Instagram this morning. Nice work!

@Graeme I saw that a few minutes ago and thought "that better be on an LSTer!" Very cool!

Haha shin wasn't so bad! I was expecting absolutely horrible things and it was fine, it felt like a tattoo.

@Graeme Love that.

@Graeme, that's how to get it done! gotta love the shin!

Temple is about a 45 second walk eastward from the 19th Street BART station in downtown Oakland, and you can take a bus that goes along Van Ness in SF that will drop you off roughly 5 or 6 blocks from Spider Murphy's. Incidentally, Diamond Club is on the aforementioned Van Ness and you will absolutely get quality work there. Blackheart is roughly four blocks from the 16th & Mission BART station in SF and everything else is easily accessible by almost any MUNI line. I miss the City, sometimes. :(

Thanks all! Glad to be here.

I have decided that the reason there are such garbage artists on the show is because no self-respecting, talented, or halfway humble tattooer would touch that affair with a 10 foot pole.

Or, whichever numb nutted producer chooses the "artist" gets tattooed by them.

I'm on the third book in Joe Abercrombie's 'The First Law' trilogy - 'Last argument of kings'. I feel like this series has started slowing up a bit for me, after a cracking first two books. After this it's back to my re-read of Stephen King's 'The Dark Tower'... 'Wolves of the Calla' is up next. I read 'The Wind Through the Keyhole' last week, which slots in between 'Wizard and Glass' and 'Wolves of the Calla'. Bloody great little novel. It's cleverly done, like a russian doll: It's a story within a story within a story. Roland is recounting a story of his youth to his companions, and in that story from his youth the young Roland tells a fairytale story about old-time Gilead. Sounds weird, but the fairytale really drew me in - sort of Grimm Brothers territory, with woodsmen, domestic violence, murder and a magical quest.

For sure! Congress Street is one of my 2 go to shops when I'm at home. I've been tattooed by pretty much everyone that works there. As for stories, I'd say that I first started to get really into tattooing and knowing what I like about a year ago, after I got married. My wife and I decided that for our honeymoon, we would go to 4 different cities and get tattooed in 4 different shops. We chose the beautiful Pacific Northwest as our destination and flew out to Seattle with no appointments booked and all of our friends' money from the wedding gift basket. In Seattle we got a hotel and went right out the first day to find a shop. Luckily, we stumbled on Under the Needle on 2nd Avenue where we met the wonderful Matt Lentz. Matt put a solid, beautiful panther head on my arm and it was a great start to the trip. I've been back since and gotten a bigger piece from Matt, and I've got to say I've never seen anyone so meticulous with a machine. Love it. From Seattle we headed up to Vancouver, where we tried to get in at Gastown, but to no avail. That happens when you depend on walk ins. We ended up over at Adrenaline with Justin Cox, getting a couple traditional feathers to commemorate the loss of a pet duck. We had an absolute blast with Justin, Bailey and all the other fine folks over at Adrenaline and I certainly hope to head back over there someday. After Vancouver was Portland, where I realized after not much Googling that we had a lot of choices. After scouring portfolios for a while, I landed on Sean Lanusse at Infinity, who capped off my left shoulder with a big, beautiful gas lantern. This was my first experience being tattooed in a shop that had closed for the day, and we spent our time wisely, picking Sean's brain about art and tattoos and life and everything in between. Sean is a really funny, intelligent guy and my conversation with him was pretty much the turning point where I knew what I wanted to do with my body in terms of tattoos. He gave me his philosophies on traditional tattooing (bold lines and bright colors, "tattoos that look like tattoos," etc.). From that day on, I decided I wanted to be tattooed by as many different people in as many different places as possible. Thanks Sean! Our next stop was San Francisco, and Sean told us we had to hit up Black Heart. When we arrived at Black Heart, we had no idea what in institution of tattooing it was. We got right in with Katie Sellergren, and my wife got a huge jellyfish on her thigh and I got a big ole great white shark on my forearm. Needless to say, it was an awesome experience, and Katie was an absolute treat. What an unbelievably talented, awesome human being she is. From that trip on I've been on a quest to seek out the best traditional artists in the states, and I've been tattooed everywhere from Anchorage to Baltimore. When I'm home I like to hang out at Bona Fide Tattoo in Concord, New Hampshire with my good friend James Faggiano. There are plenty of folks I'd love to get tattooed by, and I can't wait to get out there and start checking more names off my list.

been watching this show and...i'm speechless...some of those "tattooers" should be taken out into the woods and be shot..

Shops also worth noting: Everlasting Idle Hand Picture Machine Mom's Body Shop (ask for @Jacek Minkowski or Olivia) Seventh Son Warhorse Tattoo (Berkeley) FTW Tattoo (Oakland) Tattoo 13 (Oakland) Analog Tattoo Arts Kolectiv (San Jose) also, I can basically guarantee that there will be someone at any of the shops previously mentioned who can kick the shit out of any style you're looking for.

Im not sure I can take any more death this year. Everyone please stay alive. Thanks.

I have a few opinions about this topic. Now, mostly for lack of funds, I'm currently what would be so cleverly referred to as a plainskin, so perhaps my opinion does not matter. However, as a visual artist and someone who not only has a keen interest in body art but also has born witness to a number of both excellent and terrible tattoos, I'm going to voice my opinion anyway. I honestly feel that the increasing popularity of bad art has more to do with the notion that having a tattoo somehow makes you a more interesting person. I find that there is a correlation between underdeveloped personalities and uncreative, overdone tattoos. I know too many girls who've overheard their crush saying that he thinks tattoos are hot and soon after show up with some flowers on their ribcage, or birds on their feet, or a cliche word or phrase across their wrist. Their interest is not in the tattoo itself, but in the response that having the tattoo will elicit. Of course, that mentality is not exclusive to the ladies, but you get what I mean. I don't believe that there is anything outright wrong with script, but I do think that it is very easy for those tattoos to go awry. I have seen far more, in my opinion, bad text tattoos than good ones. That being said, I plan to work a quote from my favorite story into my first tattoo. I also plan for the script to stand beautifully as a whole, without having to know what it says. Is that uncreative? Maybe it is, but I'm also getting it to please myself, not to be creative. It is my personal belief that a bad tattoo can often be traced back to the person getting it doing so to please other people. Still, I don't think that genuinely loving your tattoo makes it good either. Nothing makes me more angry than when people say that you can't judge a painting because anything is art. There are measurable elements and principles that must be in play in order to define something as being a work of art. Generally speaking, whether the artist is conscious of them or not, the more these elements and principles are being used, the more pleasing the work is to the eye, and if they aren't present at all, then it is not a work of art. The same goes for tattoos.

This is from Henning Jorgensen. done at Royal Tattoo. enjoy!

How much does a small car cost?

Guess I'll throw in with my dragon head by Will Lollie at Empire Tattoo. One is my pic, the other was taken from his IG.

None so blind as he who won't see. I was all fixated on the extra "i". Nevermind. Move along now, nothing to see here!

Chad Woodley and Dax Brunet at Sanitary Electric. Jeremy Riley at Tattoo Union, Nick Wasko has his own private studio right now, Ryan Halter who is just outside the city in Richmond, and Government Street Tattoo has Chris David and D-Boy Sanchez.

id say to get tattooed by Kahlil Rintye at tattoo city hes an amazing tattooer! last time i visited i got tattooed by Juan Puente at Black Heart and it is one of my favorite tattoos to this day!

Have you gone to SF yet? Heard back from anyone? I called Diamond club just under 4 weeks before I traveled to SF and was able to get in to see Junii for a LARGE peony on my left flank. I just had the tattoo done this past Friday and I really can't say enough good things about my experience! The tattoo is bonkers, it is so well done, so beautiful, so EXACTLY what I had in mind, and I really liked the vibe at the studio. Everyone was very nice, professional, welcoming and just plain awesome in general. Definitely the best tattoo experience I have ever had! Soooo don't be afraid to call Diamond Club if Grime or Horitomo don't work out for you!! I suggest Diamond club regardless, actually! I had such an amazing experience and they work to accommodate travelers. :) Good luck!

Hector Fong does some interesting Japanese work. Also, Freddy Corbin's no one-trick pony; he can definitely do some mean traditional or non-religious black and grey (or even script if you're into that). Also, another guy who does great Japanese work: Kahlil Rintye at Tattoo City. Also, also.

One more thing: don't call it "San Fran." Say "SF" or just "The City." ;)

If I were going to San Francisco I would get tattooed at Blackheart, but if you are looking for a small Japanese tattoo I would go to Diamond Club or over to State of Grace and see Horitomo.

BlackHeart Tattoo San Francisco: Our Shop - Jeff Rassier, Tim Lehi, Scott Silva, Nick Rodin, Cody Miller, Juan Puente Spider Murphys Tattoo :: Welcome http://templeoakland.com/ http://www.stateofgracetattoo.com/

The Oi! Lympics!

i think it all comes down to this no matter how much money anyone has, celebrities are just regular morons like everyone else, and in general the public can not determine between a good and a bad tattoo... people don't give a fuck about who they are getting tattooed by because they think all tattooers are created equal. also i can't believe no one's posted this piece of amazingness i give to you, Gucci Mane in all his icy glory

what the hell is clunge? sounds even worse than "gash"

I have often wondered why celebrities get such bad tattoos with seemingly unlimited resources. I think it goes back to educating yourself about what's out there, like anyone else. There's probably a lot of really good tattoos out there that never get seen, too. I was in "Machete" and Danny Trejo has a really nice black and gray Virgin Mary over his kids(?) playing the beach on his back. The general public probably won't see it because it's not a 'character' tattoo though.

At the shop I work out in Hollywood, Chris Brown and Rihanna came in (before he kicked her ass) and they both had some pretty ridiculous tattoos on them (some of which were done at our shop). On his upper arm, there was a Jesus in the clouds with ninjas popping out of all the clouds around it. I asked what was up with the ninjas, and he said they were to protect Jesus. I'm Jewish, so I don't know all that much about Jesus I guess, but I'm pretty sure homeboy doesn't ninjas to protect him when the shit hits the fan.