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Got this today, Mimi Wunsch at Sea Wolf, great shop and couldn't be happier with her take on a classic. (Really hard to get a good photo of something that wraps over multiple bones!)

Perseverance lectures are up!!! Junii! Jill Bonny! I mean Horiyuki! I mean Jill Mandelbaum I mean Jill Halpin!... ;-) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qT1KpJ2O1mU Chris Brand! Horishiki! And there are more too but I'll try posting them later if someone else doesn't get to it first. A little bummed I can't watch these till I get home. They may not be safe for work viewing if you work with uptight folks.

I'm another person who joined this forum based on the maturity and positive attitudes of the people in this thread! Thanks a bunch :)

Because you're a proud parent and this was his first kill. Sweep the foot! Sweep the foot! :-) - - - Updated - - - I may be going to SOG too much for my own good, but I was half expecting everyone on this thread to own French bulldogs. It seems every time I look around another artist has a French bulldog for a pet.

I'll never understand why the community gets worked up or angry when people want 'meaningful tattoos' to commemorate events or periods in their life, I would wager the vast majority of tattoos(especially for first timers) carry some significant memory, I know mine did and I'd bet a lot of people hear are the same. Now I have some tattoos that I just liked, but tattoos being permanent reminders(good/bad) attract people. Everyone is different, like different things, like diff tattoos, get tattoos for different reasons? So what? If we all likes the same tattoos, same styles and got tattooed for the same reasons, that'd be the dumbest and most boring shit ever.

Greg Christian.

HULA BUG! She's looking far better than the last time I posted pictures. A lot of her yellow has come in and it appears as though she is a Super-Hypo. Short for super hypomelanistic leopard gecko, meaning that she has none of the spots that standard leos have, save for the tail and a few on the head/face. I'm thinking she also might be a carrot-tail (30% orange tail), cause with each shed a little more orange shows up. Basically she is an adorable tiny dinosaur. :o

Got these bonji from Horimitsu today! They were done by machine, too small for him to tebori. Still awesome and very pleased. Please forgive the pic, they are still fresh and only a few hours old. They represent the Buddhist's Bosatsu for protection from evil.

This is great! And kinda relates to something my artist did a couple months ago. I'm not heavy, but did carry some extra poundage for some years, and I'm older. So I've got the start of some sagging in my mid back - you know where I mean. So he was placing the stencil for a moray eel on my lower back and the shape of the eel was similar to the contour of my back there. And I jokingly said, how about moving the eel up a little? :-) Well, by the time he got it where he wanted it, it worked perfectly! The top dorsal fin of an eel is kind of wrinkly compared to its body, and heck, that's sure fitting the tattoo to the body, right? LOL! Get a great tattoo! Go in and tell them if you want to hide anything or accentuate anything - your mom and her friends were on to something!

Maybe this is why I love pussy so much??? OMG....tattoo pigments are why I am gay!!! Nothing in life is safe......and no one is going to tell you what is really in the pigments......I've been tattooed for a loooong time and other than it making me a lesbian and the total lack of filter on my mouth anymore....i think I am perfectly normal! ;) The unicorn tears are why the tattoos don't hurt so bad.....without them you could never tolerate getting tattooed.....

Another display option if you have the same ikea lamp:

This is why we can't have nice things.

Well, if the sessions on your back end up being brutal and you feel like you've been beaten up then I would just take a couple of days off and come back to it when the initial healing phase has started. If you're prepared to be flexible with your exercise selection then you can work around most things. Avoid elbow flexion when you've had your ditch tattooed... Avoid knee flexion when you've had your kneecap done... Common sense I guess. I can't really remember what I did when I was getting sessions done on my back, but I'm pretty sure I just took a few days off and then maybe made some small exercise substitutions. If you didn't want to lie on your back and bench you could shoulder press... If you didn't want to back squat you could front squat etc. I'm still healing that little navajo piece from a fortnight ago right now. The only thing I needed to do for that was wear pants to the gym in lieu of my usual shorts... Pretty handy compared to a newly healing backpiece! -- As way of a general training update, I'm still doing Westside for skinny bastards (I'm on my fifth week of it now). Lower body day was today. I'm doing three days of lifting only and I'm going to add in a fourth day of conditioning only (prowler, farmer's walks, maybe some KB or DB metabolic conditioning).

paragraphs are your friends! :cool:

@Lance I asked for the specific ones in red. Fugen is my birth year and guardian deity. I was born in the year of the dragon and I have a dragon 3/4 sleeve by Henning on my right arm. Made sense to highlight the Fugen on my right arm. For the left arm I chose Fudo Myoo to highlight in red. Being the immovable one and I also I like the flow and look of the written character a lot. The 8 Bosatsu together is a representation of all 12 Asian zodiac animals as well, a circle of life if you will and is basically protection from evil. I've always been superstitious (but not religious) so this all worked out. I know most collectors who get bonji, especially capping sleeves, get them in black. I went in with the traditional mindset but wanted something a little unique and different. I also chose red because I've seen large bonji characters shaded in red with a red outline and it always looked outstanding to me. Only thing I was bummed about is that I was looking forward to having these done in tebori but being that I have skinny arms and the characters stenciled out on the smaller side, he felt it best to do it by machine. I'm still happy with the results and experience and will definitely be getting future work from Mitsu sensei.

I've always been overweight, chubby or fat. I have both arms covered and quite a bit of each leg tattooed - I love my tattoos. And beautiful tattoos look great on any size body! From a personal standpoint, it is simply my vanity and insecurity that has kept me from getting my back, buttocks and ribs tattooed-- and that is because I wouldn't be comfortable naked in front of most people. My husband ( who is a tattooer will most probably be the one to tattoo my back and sides) As a tattooer, I like big people with big tattoos and small people with big tattoos too> Best of luck

+1 Well said.

Just might want to keep in mind that if she doesn't want to fix it, it might mean that she can't...and getting angry or trying to convince her might just make your tattoo worse. But hey, see what she has to say--you never know!

Give squats a miss if it's up on your upper back! I am in the same situation, healing my back while trying to maintain lifting progress - I haven't found any major problems after sessions on my back above the beltline (aside from squats), its when I'm healing the ass and back of thighs that I feel almost crippled - it cuts out a huge amount of exercises! This might not be the best advice, but I just hold off heavy lifting completely for five or six days, go for a couple of runs, then get back to it when I am healed up, maybe drop the weight a bit and carry on as normal!

The first bit of my new sleeve is booked in for the 5th of April. A big baphomet on my inner forearm. I have another tattoo further up my arm that I got about a month after I turned 18 and I've been planning on getting it fixed since about a week after I got it. Really happy to finally be getting started now.

The dream list, in no particular order: Seth Wood, James Tex, Matthew Gordon, Rubendall (how could you not?), Theo Mindell, Horiyasu (would love a sword as well) Chris O'Donnell, Dean Sacred, Geordie Cole, Jeff Gogue... And on and on... (Having made this list it realized how flippant 10 was, it's probably more like 20!)

She looks really happy! She's got that cute little smile... in the first one she looks like she's up to something. How cute.

I'm of the anal retentive personality type and did tons of research before getting a tattoo. I found very little evidence of actual problems. Even with red ink, most of the issues, that I found anyway, boiled down to it taking longer to heal rather than long term problems. I look at it like this - approximately 20% of the American population has tattoos. With more than 250,000,000 adults in the US, that's about 50,000,000 people in the US alone that have tattoos. If tattoos caused significant problems, we would know by now.

an investment in cadmium

Unicorn tears and the souls of dead cats

This is my homey after his first ever kill...not sure why I find this awesome. I'm a vegetarian.

This is mine from Fergus Simms. Legit one of the best people to get a tattoo from.

Finished my leg by Marius Meyer yesterday, we managed to finish it in only three sessions and I'm very happy with the result!!:o Cat lady on the front is by Chris Conn

You will look no more "ridiculous" with tattoos than anyone else! Get tattooed, get what you want, fuck the world. I don't tattoo so I can't answer your questions about working with skin and placement but I can't imagine it's that much of an obstacle. @Shawn Porter posted a video a while back on his OV blog, an awesome awesome Dave Lum video, where his shop helper -- a woman -- was talking about how she hated her legs and her butt. How she was self conscious and never thought she'd get tattooed there, but once she did get some coverage on those areas, she loved them. Maybe the only big folks you're seeing with a significant amount of work have some not-so-great tattoos.. or maybe you're just freaking out cause you've only got one so far. But if you've got the itch, you've gotta scratch it, and everyone else can go to hell. Truly. Apologies if this was too strongly worded.. I had the night off, some beers were consumed. The only people I don't like with a lot of tattoos are dickheads regardless of their tattoos.

Is it too early to post this...? I know it's seven months away but I've put it in my diary. It looks like I will be getting tattooed most of Friday, all going well (it's far enough out that I'm going to sit on that for the moment, I'm superstitious about jinxing it). The last 1-2 years in a row I've missed this convention but this time around I'm looking forward to it - and hopefully meeting some LSTers. Anyone fired off any e-mails or secured some super-early bookings?

Done. Getting one of his geometric flowers. No idea where I want to put it, but I'll figure that out when I get there...

The ideas list is a little more divided, but generally is around animals, again in no order: -Bear (maybe two headed to be on trend ?, maybe fighting something else) -Octopus (To add to the list of artists, the ones I've seen Andre Malcolm do are insane.) -Giant, mostly black, Ryukoi. (Inspired by the Horiyoshi 3 carp in Tattootime.) -Dragon -Big ol Reaper! -Battle Royale (with cheese) -traditional nautical themed back, with some framing. Maybe just a bear/octopus/dragon battle royale is the best way to go...

You sound like a hyper 5 year old naming his favorite candy. Love the enthusiasm!

Hi I'm Piers from the UK, I'm new to the last sparrow forum but have been following the web videos for years. I've been collecting tattoos for about 6/7 years now, I am a regular at Frith Street tattoo. Here's a picture of my back by Valerie Vargas.

Welcome!!! @Piers Suckling Good to see that you are now a member!

Love his work! This might have to actually happen. Thank you!!

Blaze and bubble were funny for different reasons and the guy who posted shirtless fashion pictures in the parking garage was so awesome if he was a troll.

It's basically laboratory grade dirt; no, ink companies won't tell you what's in it if you can even get them on the phone; and as far as cadmium poisoning, not gonna happen don't worry. You will not get poisoned from a tattoo.

I wouldn't really recommend moving here until you already have a job lined up, although it's pretty competitive in that arena as well. Rent is climbing in both SF and the surrounding areas on account of the tech boom. So pretty much, it's definitely possible to make it, but it's probably going to be a hustle.

@ironchef, I love it when sleeves are capped by bonji. Very nice. I've been debating getting that done myself, but I've little room between the end of my sleeve and hand. Especially at the wrist bone. Kokuzo Bosatsu being my birth Patron though. Can I ask you the significance of, if I'm right, Fugen Bosatsu and Fudo Myo-o being red vs. black? Was it Horimitsu's choice or did you ask for it?

Birthday gift to myself. Tattoo by Matt Howse at Seventh Son SF CA. Photo pulled from his instagram. Stoked.

I love this piece by Horimomo. Outline with a machine and shaded by tebori

Saints and Sinners Tattoo in Dallas would be worth looking into. Marie puts on some awesome tattoos.

Ha! Alright then, here's my RH Wells from last year (march-ish I think).

My 9 year old daughter, after learning how much her grandmother hates tattoos, told me, "well, that's her problem then." :)

so here are my thoughts on fat people with tattoos..... theyre fat and have tattoos. being a good person to be around is way more important, it just takes longer to get out of your way if you fall in my direction. just get tattooed and enjoy them

I know plenty of overweight people with awesome tattoos. Fuck what people think. You only get one life. Live it.