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So the knee torture is finally complete. My knee/thigh demon by Matt Van Cura done at Invisible NYC.

Kyle Sajban from Red Rocket Tattoo NYC. Back hurt A LOT more than I thought it would.

lady head by Valerie Vargas skull drawn on by Stuart Robson

My two latest lowdowns! Cat-lady by Valerie Vargas at Frith Street Tattoo, and start of tiger and dragon thigh piece by Marius Meyer ( will post a better picture of this later!)

I do love a good butterfly tattoo. I was talking to a guy who is planning to write a book on the history of tattooing and we got into a discussion on butterflies and masculinity. He laughed and told me that he thought a guy getting a butterfly tattoo in this day and age was almost asking to get beaten up. He is not particularly dialed into the scene. I rolled up my sleeve for him to reveal my SJ butterfly that I picked from a book of Jerry flash at my local shop. I love it and it has never for a moment posed a threat to my masculinity (however it is that I may wish to define it.) Edit: This was done by Glennie at The Pearl in Toronto. She has a much nicer pic on her instagram feed, if you were to scroll back the better part of a year.

Had heaps of fun with latest effort, definitely was not easy to do

second tattoo i ever got. from a book of old japanese butterfly designs. tattoos all around it now. sort of a crappy pic sorry.

This is some flash from @Perez, I thought it was super cool.

I am super into this. It's one of the boldest tattoos I've ever seen.

Nope! Can't even let it heal! Hahah

Going to buy this now, hurts a bit as I have just purchased 11/14 and The Great Unknown books a couple of weeks ago. Hope to get some of those limited prints if they have not all gone.

@Dennis lmaoooo! i just got this piece a few weeks ago, wtf. cant i just enjoy it without it being copied already.. lol

from tonight

Pictures didn't take, here again Sent from my LG-E980 using Tapatalk 2

Another session down with Dana, picture stolen from his IG of course.. Next session is color! The fundoshi massacre.

As of today about half of them are spoken for. They are going pretty quickly.

Amazing!!

is this what you have in mind: stole that from a fellow LSTer's blog Our Endless Days | A blog for traditional tattoo enthusiasts

Thanks ross! Yea after it was done I was like holy shit...that's loud.

Thank you for the kind words @Lance , Yes the wife and I are in London. Last getaway of the year. Start the front in March in LA.

@Reyeslv, I just noticed IG postings from @Stewart Robson and your photo tagged on LST. Congratulations to you both on completing this awesome back piece and finishing the thighs. Great work! Where did you finish it? Are you in London visiting again? Commitment! Again, it's a thing of beauty and can't wait to see you two progress on the front.

for small sessions and bangers i would agree with you, but for large scale pieces the pooling can be quite severe and can cause HUGE water blisters. i have seen nothing but good results when applying the derm the day after. - - - Updated - - - i agree totally.

I know this is not what Shawn had in mind when he started this thread, but I had to put it up here. I read an article years ago that Syd Barrett, before he died, would go out and take a photo of something then make a painting of the photo then take a photo of the painting. It really moved me, and so does the idea of these twins getting the same tattoos. I doubt that the two things are at all related, outside of my mind, but for some reason they are exactly the same to me. http://www.th-ink.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Jordan-and-Caleb.jpeg

I like seeing what everyone else has. I feel like there is an assumption of using really obvious symbolism, but that really doesn't seem to be the case. Anyways, here are my sister tats. A little anvil guy with a long time friend. I know I've posted this before. Matching anvils with my lady metalsmiths.

I don't think that's a thing.

real quick one from today. i stupidly drew the chains straight on in pen so theyre real sloppy, but its all practice i guess

he could always make his own

You just made an amazing point. It's true, I personally do not celebrate watercolor tattoos because it is a bit of a lie to the client. Because she posts it publicly on her website, I don't think it is a problem saying this, but she charges $300/hour for something that isn't going to be there in 5 years. That, to me, is a travesty. Same with Bose! You can spend the same amount of scratch on an audio receiver that is superior quality and with more longevity.

@InkedMumma Outlines and some shading done, but I can't seem to get a good picture of the whole thing so I will save it for later! Here's a teaser from Marius Meyer's IG account though: :cool:

Tomorrow! I'm getting my back (back of the neck to back of the knees) tattooed by Chad Koeplinger...SOOOOOOO FUCKEN STOKED!!!!!!!!!!!!

Awesome stuff, everyone (as usual). El Monga added this to my leg today! Picture stolen from his Instagram. I'm now realizing that I never posted a picture of the last one he did on me, because it wraps and I can't seem to get a good picture of it. I'll try to do that soon.

Here's an older awkward of matching swallow tattoos me and @Pugilist got almost three years ago: I got mine from Bert who then tattooed at Tattoomania, she got hers from Rebecca Guinard at Pol Tattoo. Next year is our fifth wedding anniversary and we have tattoo plans for that, but you all will have to wait and see about those.

I promise I combed through the forum to make sure I'm not repeating anyone. I know we have the gallery album for Butterfly tattoos, but those galleries are lacking *sorry*. I have a hankering to get a traditional-esque butterfly on a whim from some good flash. It would be nice if it was "historical" (SJ, Zeis, Wicks, etc.), if that makes sense. Otherwise, feel free to share your favorite butterfly tattoos. Shoddy swirls and stars need not apply.

You really should stick with what your artist has been having you do if it hasn't been causing issues. Aquaphor is exactly the same as Vaseline. 100% petroleum jelly (white peteolatum). They do something to make it a little less thick, but otherwise it's identical. The way the Tegaderm stuff is supposed to be used is to put it on immediately after the tattoo has been done, left on for 24hours, wash the attoo thoroughly to remove ALL the plasma, then reapply for 48 hours. It is sold specifically for tattoos in roll form as "Tatooderm" The owner of the shop where I work uses it all the time. Also, discuss it with your artist before using it to make sure he's okay with you using it. Otherwise he may not garantee the work.

Heh, my Great Lakes sweatshirt arrived today. I was hoping to get to the Deitzel show, but we had to move quickly and all of my tattoo funds are now going to the inevitable expenses one incurs in this sort of thing. Next summer hopefully. Though with any luck some of the Great Lakes folks might head up to Toronto sometime soon. Nudge, nudge.

Go see Tim Martin at Brainstorm Tattoo in Fayetteville, Arkansas.... super nice shop, he worked for Jack Rudy at GTC in Orange County before he worked for Richard for 6 years in Dallas prior to moving back to his home state to set up shop, he's had that place for over a decade and continues to make good tattoos by or appt or walk in, and has a couple world class tattooers tucked in his place, Jennifer Billings is there, and it's a good place to start...

@Lance yep. I'll be there. Maybe for a little bit before and after too.

AWESOME bro!!!

If you have any questions you can ask them here in your intro thread.

ah ! I did'nt see that part. I see now.thanks for pointing that out to me. :) I need to read shit better ! :rolleyes:

It's always beneficial to research an "artist" in the industry, as there is no quality control. Some people like to get tattooed by their friends regardless of the outcome and that's respectable in the sense that it is a personal decision and art is subjective. After getting my first tattoo I compared it to others on my friends and realized it could look better. Still being under the assumption that going to a tattoo shop meant a "professional" piece would be done I had it worked over. Disappointed again, understanding I hadn't figured it out the first time, I researched artists before having any thing else done. This was in '93, before the power of google. It's nice to not have to pay for the same tattoo 3 times. On a humorous note, when looking for Sean Degan in San Antonio at Perfection Tattoo in '94 to get something done well, I didn't know who Chris Trevino was. Because I didn't know who he was, and my previous disappoints, when he told me he had time to do my tattoo I told him, "that's okay, I'll wait for Sean, but thanks." haha!

Have you seen the one Mr. Tim Hendricks did on the back of a hand ? It's on his IG, it's amazing !!!

I can't tell is she, or the 4764846578 others trying the same thing, is genuinely convinced she will somehow do it different than anyone before her (because surely nobody else before her has ever done it 'right') and it will last forever, or if she doesn't care and just wants to get paid. Gogue said something that I can't recall to quote word for word but it was something to the effect of knowing that his tattoos fall apart in just a few years, and I still give him 10000% more credit than this other tattooer.

recent ones! forest gump flash cast away flash and some other sheets i did for fun

I spoke to another Veteran at my work yesterday. He was pretty covered, and out of curiosity I asked him politely where he got his tattoos (or pieces of crap, as he called them) done at. He couldn't remember the artists who did most of them, but he pointed out two specific ones. He told me that he got two (on his outer biceps) done by Charlie Wagner in Portsmouth, Virginia. He told me Charlie mixed the ink with his spit then said "tattooing has changed a lot from those days". I wish I could have spoke with him a little more, but I didn't want to keep him from going about his day.

If you actually read what they're going on about (here) there's nothing banning tattooing, but they are outlawing carcinogenic, mutagenic, and reprotoxic ingredients (list here) being used in tattoo pigment. How much does this affect tattoo pigment in reality? I don't know. All of that said, I do know that prior to this law, France was already strict about regulating pigments, and that the regulations haven't stopped anybody from using whatever pigments they want to use. It's a non-issue.

Damn, pugilist should shave her legs. Must be like going to bed with a yeti.

There, corrected your spelling error. You're welcome.

I just booked a holiday to Florida for the family next year. Mickey Mouse yay