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Alright... here goes nothin. Pharoah's Horses tattooed by me, finished in October.

Here is my back-piece from @Stewart Robson Started - 11/25/2011 Completed - 11/24/2013 The tattoo has 78 hours in total.

Second session yesterday. Was a lot easier this time around, not so apprehensive I guess and also made a point to just focus on my breathing for the few lines that needed finishing. Looking forward to the next session! Thanks again Stewart.

Hello! I'm Adam, 29 years old, been living in New York City for the last 7 years. I love BIG, BOLD, TRADITIONAL tattoos, always with lots of black :cool: @suburbanxcore always makes fun of me for liking BIG lines i.e. a lot of the great artists from Spain (El Monga, El Toro, Deno, etc) or their American contemporaries some of whom I've been tattooed by, some of whom I've yet to meet. I work in specialty coffee and have a huge passion for food as well (Chad Koeplinger's IG feed always has me salivating). I'm also a huge camera/film/photography geek. I'll post up some photos of some of the work I have soon. Good to finally get involved!

Thanks to all the LSTer's for voting! Amazingly many cool tattoos this month as always, so I'm very happy to win the November contest! Just look how happy I was when it was announced that I was the winner, haha​​! @Graeme, I think I'm in love with your Chad Koeplinger panther / rose mix. I'm jealous!

Been a couple of months since I got my first ones finished. So happy with them, Dalmiro did an awesome job. So I guess it's time to start planning the next one?! R

Alright, alright! :p I uploaded a few.

Current list: Jay Salerno, Rempe, Shon Lindauer, Mike Fite, and Mario Desa

Yeah, and the city ain't that hot either.

I'll second that. Unless there are three-boobed aliens there. Then I'm down.

I have the great pleasure to announce that my buddy @Wilhell has won the November contest with his jawdroppingly awesome Mike Rubendall snake'n'hannya thigh piece!! Congrats my friend!! Here are some reaction photos from when he received the good news Please PM @steve1461686340 with your shirt info (size and male or female) along with your address. Thanks to everyone for your submissions! December contest will be up soon.

Read more here: A one-way ticket to Mars, apply now - CNN.com Mission to colonise Mars: 'Columbus didn't wait; nor should we' | Science | theguardian.com A one-way ticket too tempting to ignore: 165,000 apply for mission to colonise Mars - despite no chance of them ever returning to Earth - Science - News - The Independent So! There's that. Anyone interested in signing your life away to be a privately owned guinea pig living on Mars? :P edit: also, fuck Colombus. That's all :cool:

Thanks for making a newcomer here feel so welcome. What I'm really interested in is the irony that most of the world sees J-tattoos as works of art but here they are still looked down upon. I've been getting tattooed off-and-on since I was in my mid-teens but in the summer I decided to book in with Tomo at YB for some larger work. It's been a wait but the first session is coming close - which is one reason I've been reading this forum on tips on surviving longer sessions.

Ha! pass... though there are plenty of people I wouldn't mind sending there......

Is it a LST record that a tattoo of the month contest only lasted 9 minutes?

I, for one, can't wait to turn another planet into a sewer.

I'd rather go check out the pyramids in Antarctica.

by Tim Lehi So stoked on how this came out, will definitely be going back to him for more once I save up.

I always get so psyched for a tattoo and completely forget about healing it and all of the fun that goes along with that... I'm starting to catch on now (after 6 years) and scheduled my next one for the end of the work week :)

Are there tattoo artists on Mars? Then, no.

My first tattoo, done two days ago. It's a freehand piece by Yliana Paolini. Was an awesome experience. Well worth the 7hour driving trip to Brighton :) She's freakin' amazing. Next session is in 6 weeks. Can't wait!

Finally! @Wilhell :)

With long sessions, and back to back days in particular, I can say that (anecdotally) I have felt run down afterwards. Sometimes a few days later I get a mild cold or sore throat. I'm prepared to believe heavy tattooing puts your immune system under pressure. Incidentally I also feel like if you have a really heavy session on something like your back or front you can have a little touch of shock afterwards. This year when I got the first day of work done on my front I had the shivers big time that night, and I felt really cold. I think your body can react to it as a trauma even if in your head you know it's OK. Overall nothing to be too worried about though- nothing to be done about it, and I don't believe it really impacts on the end result. Being forewarned might help someone though.

Congratulations, @Wilhell!!!! So rad!

That's Fred. And Higgs, also by Hardy.

Good evening, I'm a Brit who's been living in Japan for 10+ years. At the moment, I'm in Yokohama - home of Horiyoshi III's tattoo museum, Yellow Blaze and the Victorian-era district where a lot of the J-tattooers relocated after the government banned ink (again) during the 19th century. It's great to be surrounded by all of this J-tattoo history - and it's hard not to love tattoos after living here for a while. I've been reading LST for the past few weeks. It's a great place you've got going here and I finally registered today. Yoroshiku! TJ

Found out just before Thanksgiving that I got my National Board for Professional Teaching Standards certification! It was a challenging 2-year process for me but one of the incentives to do it in my state is a pretty nice raise, so I'm really happy about it. It was a good experience, kind of like a master's program with no professors. Then our family went to MA and CT for a week to celebrate Thanksgiving & Hanukkah w/family. Fun times. Glad to be back where it's warm. I have some new stories for another thread...

Oh indeed.

That promo video got me emotional, not gonna lie...

Actually, I also just booked with Ron Henry Wells for February at the Philly convention. He's going to be filling in the gap between my Grez and Scott Sylvia pieces. I can't wait.

Nice! I live near NYC and drive to Vermont all the time to visit family. It takes about 5 1/2 hours and a 3/4 tank of gas. It's definitely not that bad to drive. Like @Graeme said, I-87 is beautiful and an easy straight shot to this area.

Tattoos fade because your cells divide and regenerate as you age. Pigment is encapsulated in scar tissue, which also divides and regenerates with age. Thus spreading out the pigment over time.

I have a 3-hour session coming up in less than a week. And now with winter on the way with everyone sick everywhere I go, I'll have to watch myself. I always tended to get as sick as a dog within 2 weeks before Xmas. Rob

Seems obvious

The Horitoshi documentary is fantastic. I got it a few years ago on DVD. You can get it here: LA VOIE DE L'ENCRE Lardux Boutique In terms of which Traditional Japanese artists I like the most it's kind of like trying to pick your favorite sweet in a candy store. Obviously Horiyoshi III is very high but I feel that kind of goes without saying. Beyond him I love the work of Horiyasu. The black that he gets is so dark and smooth and the colors are incredibly vibrant to go with it. Horitoshi is obviously very good as well. I would also mention Horimasa from Isesaki. He did a phoenix on my lower right leg a couple of years ago at the Brighton Tattoo Convention. He worked incredibly quickly and produced an amazing piece. I am thinking about getting something else big from him in the future but that depends on time and money. This is the phoenix I got though.

I had my whole back done, one session a week for almost a year,never felt out of the ordinary,even though I'm anemic and have lousy immune system. Sent from my GT-N7100 using Tapatalk

I remembered this thread and thought about it recently. I've been doing back-to-back tattoo sessions the past month or so, and I can say it really wacks your immune system hard. That or I have really weird timing. I ended up getting the flu one day after a big back-to-back tattoo weekend, a few weeks ago. I just had a pretty brutal tattoo weekend this weekend, and I ended up getting a pretty bad cold all week. I can't say for sure they are related but the obvious thing is, if you are sick and trying to heal a big tattoo, it can slow down the process drastically.

By WT Norbert today. Its a bit bloody in these pics. Saw Chad Koeplinger at the shop, if I knew he was in town I'd have booked in with him too! Bummed by a missed opportunity there.

I'm into that saying that each of us deserves the tattoos they got. Sent from my GT-N7100 using Tapatalk

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

he could always make his own

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

It's been a long time since I've added anything, and the competition is quite stiff per usual! Finally got this thing finished (for the most part). Chris Buckholts @ Webbworks Tattoo in Naples, Fla.

Don't know Takashi but that's not saying a whole lot. Only Taskash I knew was a whiskey drinking cook I used to work with.

About the co-workers... these people vote and sit on juries... scary.... Rob

Oh, I'm still super green with tattoos - have one on the right side of my body by Yoni Zilber, and another still in progress on my left leg from Horizakura. I plan to merge them in the coming years, somehow! No pictures on here, but I suppose I should get on that!

I'm late in posting this. Also it's long. Grab a cold beer and read at your leisure. So was I the only one who attended the Shige Seminar at the SFO convention? If anyone else went I'd love to hear your thoughts. Especially if you went Sunday. I attended Saturday and what was supposed to run from 10:00-11:30, lasted till about 1:30. And only because Ed Hardy's lecture was supposed to take place in the same room at 1:00. I suspect it could have gone on for another hour. Shige was rushed at the end and had to skip over some explanations. Even then, it was both entertaining and educational. For about 3 hours he discussed the practice he goes through developing each of his back pieces. Starting with a day long consult with his clients to make sure they get the tattoo they want and to make sure he and they are all on the same page. He explained 1 day may seem extreme for a consult, but given the size, the fact they will be together for long periods for the tattoo, and the tattoo will be a part of the Client forever, giving them a day for a consult was most responsible. In one of the back pieces he showed us, he explained the Client originally wanted one design motif but he convinced him to go another route. In that particular case it was a friend with a family, and who owned a nail salon. The Client was originally interested in a hell scene but Shige asked him if he really wanted that type of scene given his new family and his life making people feel more attractive. The Client realized then that something else was more appropriate and together they arrived at a design incorporating a Buddhist diety. I thought this was cool because it showed his commitment to his Clients and their happiness. He also noted that each back piece is designed specifically for each individual's body. No design can truly be swapped out for another person because he designs in full scale, and for the bearer's shape. Rather than drawing a sketch and enlarging it, he'll draw life size designs. I thought this was an interesting approach and allowed him to fit as much detail as possible into a design. This explains a lot from what I've seen of his work where for example the arc of a sword scabbard perfectly follows the curve of someone's lats. In regards to subjects, whether they be Buddhist entities, mythological/natural creatures, or scenes from specific stories, Shige explained he takes great care in making sure he gets the subject just right in portraying them accurately and accentuating certain elements as needed. One thing he mentioned was that it was his job to educate the Client about stories. The Woodblock, Noh, Kabuki scenes are not something most Japanese Clients know about. Most people in Japan are just as uneducated as non-Japanese in regards to this. As such he takes great pain to research as much as he can. In the instance with deities, each hand carries a certain item. Which hand it is in and which item is very specific. This reminded me of Horitomo's lecture on Fudo Myo-o who said the same. If the items were lacking or in the wrong hand then the depiction of that deity would be off. It's all in the bearer if they truly care, some don't, but it's good to hear things about these deities most are not aware of to know they may be incorrect. He also noted that most motifs based on a story is based on a true story with a historical figure and context. It was very important to know this and he went through the process of showing some back pieces and describing their stories and where in particular they took place in Japan and when. And also compared the time spans between each. Now I've always been interested in mythology since I was a wee lad so bit by bit I've made an effort to learn about particular historical characters, many of whom figure into these stories to a certain degree so some of these stories were familiar to me, but I always relish the chance to hear more about them. Even so, Shige apologized many times to the group for making it feel like a history lesson, but also stressed how important it was to know it. Why so? One example he explained was when designing patterns on kimono or the colors used. One would not apply the print design of a geisha from say the 17th century to the print design on a princess's kimono from the 10th century. The pattern would be wrong for nobility and the time period would be off. subtle things. In the past the closest thing I've seen to this example was with regards to samurai style armor from the 1500-1600's being depicted in stories from about 1100. They were cool images, no big deal you think, right? Not really. I mean if you don't care about details like that it's all good, but in relatable terms it's like showing a Viking at the controls of a drone strike or a knight wearing chaps and a pair of six shooters at his side. It can be cool but it can also just as easily make someone scratch their head. All this, displayed the shear amount Shige goes through to give his all to a tattoo. What was also nice was that while informing the group about the historical backdrop of particular stories, he also touched upon their relationship to other stories and how they interconnected. He also alluded to particular stories he felt would make interesting subjects for future large pieces. Taki who was translating, joked that he wasn't sure if Shige was hinting that he wanted some one to make a request for those stories. If it was, or you want to give it a try, I can fill you in on which stories those were. Ha ha! Between all of this he also described how having no "master", outside of the constraints of certain story elements, he was allowed creative freedom to do what he wanted and not conform to rigid traditions. For example normally a back ends a certain distance on the ribs down the side but I believe it was his Taira No Tomomori back piece, that the subject wrapped around the Client's body to almost become a full body suit or in the case of another tradition mandated a Buddhist deity be depicted with 11 faces. In that particular case instead of tattooing all 11 he introduced some western notions having some hidden with the idea that as the faces wrapped around the deity you wouldnt be able to see some and he also allowed the Client's face to be the 11th. In addition that particular face was known to always wear a smile. So Shige told the wearer that he always has to smile now. I thought that was pretty clever and a nice inside joke between the two. I'll end this now, but like Shige's lecture it could go on much much longer. Suffice it to say it was a very enjoyable time and what I came away with was a profound appreciation for one man's deep thought process he gives to each of his Client's tattoos. Often times, something Clients take for granted of their Tattooers. Thank you Shige and Taki for the seminar. Also everyone who attended received a print of Fudo Myo-o and a digital copy of his book! Now I have all 3 versions. Hardcover, paperback, and digital! Sidenote, every time I mentioned "Client", I was very tempted to swap it out for "Canvas". But that would be too cruel.

Bad photos (part of the reason I dont upload many tattoo photos) heres my dotwork tibetan skull so far . Its still to get more stuff added Fuckin spot appeared right in the eye whilst healing :)