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Unofficial observations about tattoos on folks of my generation (roughly ages 21-35) in Portland, Oregon after spending a week there: Freaking EVERYONE has tattoos. Everyone has a bunch of small and randomly placed tattoos all over the place on their limbs. Often it looks like they just enjoy doodling on themselves. Most people look like walking sketchbooks. 50% of the tattoos any given person has seem to be ironic. Approximately 1% of the tattoos I saw would be considered American Traditional. Conclusions: Go big. Be bold. None of this wimpy "arrow on my forearm" bullshit. Side note: Getting even more excited for my appointment with Dennis del Prete in September! Lady head allllll over my right thigh. #winning

I think a lot more accomplishments would be made and goals achieved and fun had if people would stop saying, I'll do XYZ but I want to lose 20 pounds first.

You should totally buy a print and a shirt from Casey O, he's a great dude and a brilliant artist. @Shaun1105 Congrats on all of those things!!! Also I haven't announced it on LST or anything, but I moved shops about 6 weeks ago. Instead of working upstairs from a bar, I now work a few blocks from my house in one of the older shops in town, and among brilliant and passionate artists. Like... we have barbeque's and shit, it's great!! Couldn't ask for a more fun and inspiring work environment.

I've been working on this painting for the past couple of months, and I think I'm finally calling this layer done and now I'll let it dry a bit and then glaze it. I'm really happy with this one, I feel it's the first painting I've done where I've felt like I'm starting to get a feel for oils and how they work and that I'm actually beginning to paint instead of drawing with paint, if that makes any sense. It isn't a great photo because of glare, etc., I'll try to take better ones when it's finished. It's 12" x 36" on canvas.

Drink more alcoholic beverages to make up for the lack of swimming pool activities. That would be my advice.

wrapped my back up yesterday with max kuhn and it is a great feeling. 4 sessions total, around 13 hours.

good tattoos are a great way of distracting myself (and maybe others) from my perceived "imperfections". a good tattoo is a good tattoo regardless of body type.

Kinda sounds like you're gonna go swimming regardless of any advice given...

I saw a rather heavy lady the other day with (from what I could tell) only her legs tattooed. She had a bunch of really huge pieces done and unfortunately she was across the street so I couldn't even get a better look at them. The only thing I wondered was how come she only got her legs done. When it comes to what our bodies might look like down the road or if the tattoo is gonna look one way or the other in 20 years or if I'm even going to be alive to care, there are so many "what ifs" that I hardly give it a second thought. I forget what I was watching but I know it was likely some bullshit extreme weight loss show where the "contestant" (for lack of a better word)went for skin removal surgery and they literally cut the tattoo off of her. I'm just sayin' YOU NEVER KNOW.

It finally happened to me, in New York. I was walking around Park Avenue North running an errand for work. I was bopping along listening to Garbage when suddenly I realized I was a fucking outcast among all these business people for like, TWENTY BLOCKS. I am going to hold on to that sweet moment for a few days.

I know a few really large ladies at the beach with great tattoo work. We compare new work and talk tattoos all the time and they are probably the least self-conscious people I know.

It always is unpredictable isn't it. Plenty of times I've gone in thinking breeze, and it's been far from a breeze and vice versa. We really never know what we're going to experience until we're under that machine. Simply just coming down to never becoming nonchalant about it and treat every sitting with the respect it deserves... if that makes sense. It's like in our things that people say that shit you thread...you must get used to the pain after all this time. I can never see how that statement would make any sense to anyone at anytime. How do you get used to pain? One of my answers to people when I feel like it is, part of me getting tattooed so extensively is because of the pain factor. Pain dictates everything in life. Learn to manage it, I can learn to sustain anything.

This is the best advice, and it almost always gets overlooked. It applies to everything.

Do not swim if it is not done peeling/flaking. It's not chlorine that's the issue. No soaking a new tattoo in any water. Treat it like an open wound. Any trauma to a healing tattoo can prolong the healing and cause it to scab heavier and loose color.

It's been a couple weeks now, but I recently got a promotion at work (for a 6mo. contract). First time in 17 years that I won't be working shifts, or nights. Not that I ever really minded, actually, but working night shifts isn't actually very good for your health. Last week my wife and I celebrated 15 years of marriage. But even more exciting than either of those.... My oldest son has autism, and we've tried for years to teach him how to ride a bicycle. Of late we had kind of given up, because he's much too big for training wheels, and he refused to ride an adult tricycle. We enrolled him in a week long bike riding camp for kids with disabilities, and it was last week. It was an hour drive every day (plus the wait at the border as it was in Clarence, NY) but it was totally worth it. He can now ride a two wheel bike, all we need to do is keep him practicing and work on his starts. I've posted two videos on my instagram (@shaunsomers), one that I took on day one, and one that I took on day 5; those were the only days I was able to go. Actually I called in sick to work on Friday because I just had to be there!

posted this in the backpiece thread but i'm gonna give it a shot in here as well. finished yesterday thanks to Max Kuhn.

I finally bought the Charnos Armery tights for covering my arms at work with short sleeved shirts. I'm pretty psyched about how they fit. The other type of arm sleeves I tried (I think it was tat2x sleeves) didn't work for me, they would fall down and bunch up at the top. These sleeves are great because it goes around your back, all one piece so it can't slip down. It makes it possible for me to wear this short sleeve shirt to work without having to put another shirt on underneath or cardigan on top. The sleeves don't quite come all the way to my wrists, good thing my tattoos don't either... Here's a before & after: Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Needles and Sins pointed out this gem, a CBC television interview with Doc Forbes from 1964. CBC Digital Archives - Pastimes General - Doc Forbes, tattoo artist The interviewer talks with Forbes and his clients, we get some nice looks at his tattoos and his flash, but the coolest thing about the interview for me is near the end when Forbes is tattooing an 82 year old client who has really extensive work from George Burchett including a battle royale backpiece from 1906. I've posted this picture before, but I'm a bit of a nerd about tattoo history and when I was visiting my family in Vancouver last Christmas I made an appointment with Chris Hold at Sacred Heart Tattoo so that me and @Pugilist could get matching tattoos from some Forbes flash. What could be better as a souvenir tattoo in Vancouver than a design from Doc Forbes? Chris was amazing and super accommodating about fitting us in on short notice, and the tattoos are great, so simple, folky, and charming. Chris had also fairly recently visited Lyle Tuttle, who has a pretty huge collection of Forbes' flash, and we got to see scans Chris had made of it and there's a lot of really great designs in there. Lucky's Tattoo Museum also has scans of a bunch of his flash that you can view here.

I just happened upon this clip as it was linked on the Pearl Harbor Gift Shop website. So cool !

tattoos are cool.

I thought this post was a joke - I won't even take a bath until I'm 4 weeks out and I LOVE baths... That's not to say I don't bathe, I just don't soak in the tub ;) Saniderm?

The client experience stories on Kian Forreal's website are a good read for anyone like myself who wants to read anything and everything about japanese backpieces.

I just went to google swimming pools and contaminants to post a link here on why you shouldn't jump in, but I am eating my breakfast and I started to get nauseous at what I was reading.

Sure. Gonna use some more to crop out other little areas here & there.

Jesus Chriiiiiiist, @phickey! That is insanely good.

@Graeme I totally agree with that it is a good thing that a person only has two inner biceps to get tattooed. Tiger fighting a snake... that is an epic subject matter my friend. Who's going to be doing it?

@phickey GODDAMN!

@MrToby inner bicep is no fun at all. Really glad I have no more of those left. I'm getting a tiger fighting a snake, shoulders to back of thighs.

@MrToby give me a few days and I'm going to regret like hell saying this, but short tattoos almost seem like they would hurt more than long ones because the start of a tattoo always sucks before the endorphins kick in. The last tattoo I had was a small one on my calf, it took about an hour, and at the start of it I was like "why do I do this to myself, tattoos hurt!" because those first few lines are always awful. I am doubtlessly going to regret saying this because I start my back on Thursday. I visited the shop and saw the drawing for it today and it's amazing and I am super excited, but the plan for the first session seems pretty ambitious! It's going to be rad though, I'm super stoked on getting started and watching it come together. I'll post pictures after the first session.

Find good reference and use it a lot. Don't worry so much about creating something that is "yours" as reproducing quality imagery. Don't listen to the folks who praise you. If someone says something isn't good see if they will tell you why. Good luck.

I wouldn't do it. Why risk it?

Here is a healed up pic of the mushrooms. I think they healed up pretty well.

Picked up the Tiger today. Belted 200k's on her straight up. Jesus, had more fun riding this today than the Harley. Dropped in to see Grand Ma on the way home also, think she too would have liked this old girl. Awesome.

Sorry for the delay - the Saniderm roll I got is 10 inches wide, which managed to totally cover my thigh tattoo. I just liked that I didn't have to piece it together over a larger area, since I'm already pretty cack-handed at applying it, but I don't think it matters that much!

loads of this, was just mentioning it to someone at the shop a few weeks back. also it seems like everything is becoming a hybrid....crabs with oni faces, shark eagles, geisha snakes, etc....and everything is "sick" "soooo sick". looking for someone to start doing "healthy" tattoos.

What are we riding? Post 'em up. Wide Glides, love 'em.

Two weeks after my first tattoo I had to go to Vegas, and with two young kids with me I pretty much had to go swimming. My tattoo is high on my shoulder so while it did get wet, I never really let it soak (unlike a foot tattoo like @growltiger 's). It was also healed enough at that point that I put sunscreen on it and also stayed in the shade as much as I could. My tattoo suffered no ill effects. But there's no way I would have done any of that after only a week. I would have been sitting in the shade, and I would have been mad at myself for not planning my tattoo date better - which I think should be the lesson that you learn here.

I don't know, I once had a first grader using that phrase. Cracked me up. She must have been what they call "an old soul". [emoji1] Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I did like it,that was very well written & I agree with it. PS,I have my wife's name on my body.

@Deb Yarian thanks for the contribution. I for one have judged decisions by peoples choices in tattoos and tattooers. Going to work on remedying that

I love this, and thank you for sharing it! I appreciate the call for treating people like adults.

If it means anything... the guy who invented the wheel is still getting fucked today....

I thought it was about time I posted my recently in progress backpiece, started end of Feb this year. This pic is about 36 hours in progress. I am quite tall and also have a bit of extra meat around the "love handle" area so is a big amount of skin to cover. I have been doing constant 3 hour sessions every 2-3 weeks with 2 x 6 hour sessions thrown in. Generally have been pretty good with each session but I have to say left thigh background shading for some reason sucked incredibly, probably one of the least favourite sessions of all my new work. Strange thing was the right thigh shading a week later (not shown in pic) was easy. I just noticed btw the snakes body going across my arse does line up, it looks like it doesn't but must have been the way I was standing in the pic. It was taken after the left thigh shading session and I was not a happy camper. :) Also just attached the outline after the 1st 6 hour session.

So Monday was the second session on my dragon back piece. There were definitely some interesting moments in it that were less than fun, but I am very happy with the progress and can't wait for the next session at the start of September.

haha right now i'm leaning the opposite way. animals/creatures over deities/characters.

Don't feed the troll?

You can like one thing without disrespecting everthing else.

Yeah, these are definitely killer. He'll be at King's Avenue in July, and I'm bummed my tattoo fund will be too empty to get something between all the other tattoos I'll be getting this summer. Which I guess is a good problem to have. Haha.

Log cabins! Usually with smoke pouring out the chimney, mountains & pine trees for background and maybe a couple birds chirping around. First couple I saw I thought to myself "hmm, that's kinda neat", but when they started popping up in my instagram feed on the daily they got old real fast. At least for me.