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I just got this from my friend Matt Brotka at Salvation Tattoo in Richmond, Virginia. However his full time gig is at Left Hand Black in sunny San Diego. Pic pilfered from his instagram .

I pretty much disagree entirely with this. First, it presumes that you understand the reasons why people get the tattoos they get. I read recently, it was either on here or on IG, a tattooer (I think for some reason that it was David Bruehl, but I'm not certain about that) talking about how there was a point in their career where they were tattooing a lot of yin yangs. The tattooer asked those clients what religion or philosophical belief that the yin and yang belonged to and none of them could give an even close to accurate answer, but that regardless of this, they were seeking to achieve a kind of balance in their lives. Horiyoshi III says in an interview in the book JBxH3 that a lot of people who get tattoos of Buddhist deities don't even know what they mean. They like the appearance or the name of the god, and maybe they learn more about it after. So even within what you describe as a "culture" people are getting tattoos that are outside of their realm of familiarity. Second, it's useless to talk about culture as this monolithic thing. If you want to talk narrowly about western traditional tattoos, a lot of those are sailor tattoos or military tattoos, or are deeply rooted in those cultures and traditions, and if you want to talk about people "staying within their own culture" a lot of us wouldn't have the tattoos we have. Third, at this point in time there are very few tattoo traditions that are "untouched" so to speak and aren't influenced by tattoo traditions from elsewhere, and I don't see this as in any way a bad thing. Shit, this isn't even a new thing. I read or heard somewhere...maybe it was from an interview with Horiyoshi III again?...that Japanese tattooing and this whole body compositions were originally influenced by Polynesian tattoos. You look at classic Western tattoos and you'll see all kinds of Asian influence there with dragons and what not--George Burchett went to Japan and observed the masters at work--not to mention that way that Sailor Jerry took that Japanese influence and brought it into Western tattooing with those incredible backpieces he did which have been so influential on the way we get tattooed now. What about Ed Hardy, who synthesised so many things into his tattooing? What about Thomas Hooper who does very European tattoos but is very open about how much he's influenced by Polynesian tattoos? I'm going to say that most of the exciting things that have happened in tattooing have happened precisely because people didn't "stay within their own culture".

I've done it and I think one of the super fun things about tattooing is walking into a shop not really knowing what you want and getting something that feels right at the moment. I'm thinking of trying to get a walk-in somewhere next week when I'm visiting my parents. Spontaneous tattoos rule.

I've done this before. Frankly, I find it a great deal of fun to pop in and get something done.

Tomas Tomas just got on Instagram: Instagram I really hate that Dotwork Damian tattoo posted above. It looks like a grandmother's lace doily.

Congratulations on a great collection of tattoos! Please post healed pictures in a few weeks/months. Also I nominate you for new LST member of year because you listened to the collective "wisdom" of LST even though some of the initial responses to your first posts were a little blunt/mean.

^^^I agree. People get what they like, love, or otherwise identify with regardless of it being "within their own culture" or not. One world.

Miah Thomas at Sri Yantra in Oakland Instagram

All-time favorite is on a friend of mine, mostly because of how silly it is. What do gorillas think about? Bananas, duh. By Drew Rash. Additionally, here are three I've seen on Instagram recently that I've loved. Another Tim Hendricks. Squeezing a readable ROA on there blows my mind. Grez. Does it get better than classic roses on a hand? Grime. And to totally tweak out the classic rose, a rose skull morph.

Here is my latest. Done on Tuesday by Aaron Coleman (Immaculate Tattoo, Mesa AZ). I asked for a crawling panther plus "whatever, as long as it's fairly traditional". Got a sword and some roses and I am extremely pleased of course. Done in only 2.25 hours as I mentioned in the 'fastest tattooers' thread.

Horitomo cat from a few months ago ... sorry for the dark picture

New one from Chris O'Donnell. Flaming traditional dragon head.

The *original* NYC Tattoo Convention - NYC Tattoo - Home Its on for 3/7 to 3/9 in NYC at the Roseland Ballroom. My artist, Studio 69 Tattoo, will be working and I have plans to take a couple of hours of chair time one of the 3 days. It would be nice to see some people from here show up too. Rob

I felt kinda like a crazy risk taker before, but it's good to know I'm a bit more normal.

@Graeme @JAllen If you dig that retroey psychey proggey sound , check out Wolf People.

Howdy all! I found this forum yesterday and subscribed today. Got my first tattoo on my 18th birthday and have been adding to my collection ever since. I've been looking at gettin' a chest piece done, but I'm still looking for my inspiration. Lots of really good artists on here and I'm looking forward to contributing to the community.

Sent from my LG-E980 using Tapatalk 2

This is a style of tattoo that I really like. Obviously there are those who do it phenomenally well and those who seem to jump on the band wagon. For those who are looking into the style for the first time and don't know where to start then the artists mentioned in previous posts are really good but also the Black Tattoo Art books by Marisa Kakoulas and published by Edition Reuss are fantastic. Looking through them I found a lot of really interesting artists and ultimately went and got a calf piece done by Patrick Huttlinger who is now based in Germany. There's a picture of the piece in my gallery or below just here:

That wretch! She was supposed to let me know that she was on her way so I could take her place!

Somebody should correct me if I'm wrong, but it's a Jerry design that he took from an advertisement for ammunition. If you want the flash, don't ask for it here, go to a shop and ask because if they can't find that particular piece of flash they shouldn't be doing the tattoo anyway.

@hogg Oliver Macintosh is too good , this is one of the toughest tattoos ever

Hawk wrapped around my forearm by Timothy Hoyer

Half sleeve now finished. Thanks to everyone here for advice and thanks to Nick Colella for the awesome art. Sent from my LG-E980 using Tapatalk 2

By Scott Sylvia last month at Blackheart.

Knee hurts like fuck! 5 hours on this by Piotr Deadle :)

Second session just finished on my thigh. 6 and a half hours in. Swollen, bloody and inky but here is a pic. Tried to get some details in on the right side pics.

Saint Christopher is considered the patron saint of travellers. My grandfather had a Saint Christopher medallion which he wore throughout WWII (including getting shot down and parachuting out of a flaming lancaster and evading the gestapo with the help of the Danish underground, but that is another story.). The medallion got passed down to me which I wore instinctively at all times and felt safe or protected by it. My other grandfather and my parents always had a Saint Christopher statuette on the dash of their vehicles. They all believed that it protected them from the dangers of the road because the one time the statuette was not in the car was the one and only time each of them ended up in severe car accidents. My first tattoo was of Saint Christopher. May 6, 2003 to be exact. Hours later I am leaving the tattoo shop all bandaged up. A friend of a friend picks us up. 2 blocks from the tattoo shop, some dude runs a stop sign and T-bones the car on the passenger side. Nobody was injured thankfully but the car was a write-off. To this day I can't settle on whether that post-first-tattoo car accident was either a) God punishing me for getting the tattoo of a religious icon OR b) Saint Christopher protecting me from serious injury. It still haunts me. But at least I got some fodder for the story of my first tattoo :)

Anansi Boys is great fun.

Welcome! Man, if I had my chest open now...

Thomas Hooper does my favourite squidmitts. A couple of examples stolen from his instagram:

heck, that really must be sore! Do you have a photo? Not had that area worked on at all yet, all things in time. Had a couple of other pieces coloured yesterday (same arm) but the elbow is distracting completely from any discomfort they might be wanting to give. Bonus. - - - Updated - - - Er yeah, sorry, probably shouldn't be asking for photos of a stranger's arse...

My family is Jewish. And though we're not religious, my dad still tries to take it pretty seriously. It's against the Jewish religion to get tattoos, and if you get one you can't be buried in a Jewish cemetery. That's my dad's main argument against me having tattoos. But personally, being only 20 years old and considering myself agnostic, I'm not too concerned with where I'll be buried right now. I have heard that a Jewish person with tattoos could still be buried in a Jewish cemetery though, but they have to peel off the tattooed part of the skin. And interestingly enough, there are many young Jewish people, especially in Israel, who are getting their grandparent's/great-grandparent's concentration camp numbers tattooed in order to never forget the Holocaust. This has had mixed reactions. Some say it's good that the younger generations remember the Holocaust and their relatives who either survived or passed away. But others still want to stick to the traditional Jewish values and see getting the number tattooed as demeaning and a way to strip a person of his or her humanity. But if you change the meaning for yourself and see it as a symbol of strength, it can be a great commemoration.

ohhh...so you are learning by yourself, at home? please leave this forum.

This fucking rules. Jesus.

So many penises..

George burchett flash dragon done by Cheyenne Sawyer at Atlas Tattoo in Portland

Popped into The Pearl this morning to catch a session with Tim Pausinger before he left for the Xmas holidays. He basically finished my chest piece. In January we'll link the shoulders and arms to it. He is also going to do some spider webbing between the tattoo and the bottom of my pecs. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Holy shit the never ending stream of tattoos continue. Mind boggling. And to think I was even gonna attempt to enter one of mine. Keep em coming!

Finished my first session with Katja Ramirez at Perfection yesterday. I'm super happy with the result and I'm going back for another round in February.

Imo it doesn't just demean the artform, but is a step towards undermining the whole craft. The more people who do this kind of thing, the more people will expect tattooers working for nothing. @Graeme noted earlier, that "Given that it's a pretty nasty feature of contemporary capitalism that it's even harder to make a living as an artist, illustrator, photographer, musician, writer, etc. because increasingly fewer people want to pay for that kind of work." Which is spot on. I make my living as an artist/illustrator, and I get request to do freebies all the time. Make me wanna fucking puke. Just last week a danish music festival contacted me: "We would love to have you decorate one of our bar areas, but unfortunately, we do not have a budget for this, but there will be lot's of publicity". Seriously - these guys have a million dollar budget, but expect me to work for nothing? Fuck that. It's come to a point, where I don't even write anything back - I just send them this:

Souvenir piece from my trip to Japan last month. Completed by Mutsuo at Three Tides Tattoo.

First time posting hopefully I uploaded the image correctly. Finished this little guy in the summer.

Obvious comments about people getting the infections...errrrr...tattoos they deserve aside, this guy is an idiot. Given that it's a pretty nasty feature of contemporary capitalism that it's even harder to make a living as an artist, illustrator, photographer, musician, writer, etc. because increasingly fewer people want to pay for that kind of work--not to mention the number of other careers that now practically require countless hours of unpaid labour in the form of internships--there's nothing at all "refreshing" about working for free. Maybe if these people actually valued artists and paid money for art that instead of complaining about how they, the oh-so-romantic-Jawbreaker-is-my-favorite-band perpetually starving artists, don't have money for things like tattoos (but please don't ask them how much money they spend on drugs), they would have money for things like tattoos. Maybe they'd have to live on tighter budgets, pick up extra shifts at work, wear clothes and shoes a little longer, and so on, to save the money to get tattooed and that it would be worth it because if you love tattoos you'll find a way to make it work even if it doesn't mean instant gratification. Not to mention that if you have a respect for tattooing as a craft, or shit, for crafts and craftspeople in general, that you should understand that this stuff always comes at a price and that the craft isn't less "pure" because of it. I can't wait for the hipsters to be eradicated by a plague of hepatitis.

I'll second this. And I'll add yet another echo of "If the shop doesn't have the flash, you shouldn't be getting tattooed there." @Synesthesia I personally don't see any qualm with you bringing in a print-out just in case, especially if you're going to a shop that would most likely have it anyways.

You're telling me! I'm hoping to once I knock off some new tattoos that I cannot wait to get :)

Well thankfully I went with the advice from all the veterans here. I chose to use Nick Colella. I posted this elsewhere but wanted to keep my progress all in one thread. The pictures below are where I am at and go for color on October 25th. I am so excited I can't wait. I do have one dilemma, I am not sure if I should try to get one more image in the spot between the racing flag and dogs ear in the last picture. I don't really have anything else in mind for this arm and looked at daggers, roses etc and don't think they will mesh will the other tattoos on my arm. I plan n asking Nick his opinion too. When I left, we planned on 2 more sessions. One for color the other for filler. So I have to decide fairly quickly what to do. Picture before last is the filler I planned on asking for. Thanks again guys, great advice! Sent from my LG-E980 using Tapatalk 2

here's one mark cross did.

Many of you might know this tattoo studio, and it was some LSTers who recommended it to me.. I simply must get my next tattoo at this place, their work is just incredible! .:: King Carlos Tattoo ::.

Everyone needs to check out Geordie Cole out of Tattoo Magic in Melbourne Australia...next level stufff..also I'm partial to Martin LaCasse in Philly..very quiet and low key..but just a monster in the talent dept. Check out his 365 project...best 60 dollars you'll EVER spend