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Hung out with my buddy Joe today. He's like a mentor, older brother, super cool uncle all rolled into one. Joe's responsible for introducing me to Henning and putting me on the path of my ongoing tattoo journey. For fun we snapped off this pic of our Henning backpieces. Both our sleeves are also by Henning. Joe has awesome work from Tin Tin, Aaron Bell and Mike Rubendall as well. Enjoy!

Been a while since ive checked back on here but heres a few pics of the panther and the parrot i got from Chad K at the Amsterdam convention back in May, its really hard to get a good picture of a shoulder but Chad drew the parrot to fit the space perfectly. Also a Mum heart i got as a walk in from Jordan Baxter at Black Garden a couple of weeks back, picture pinched from his instagram.

My 10 year old niece was telling me her ideas for future tattoos... And they kind of kicked ass! She wants a dragon on her right arm, with vines & leaves wrapped around it. Then, she wants a wolf fighting a snake on her left arm. On her back she wants a hippocamp (horse/fish hybrid). She's thinking maybe a griffin on her thigh. I was like, "Damn! I might want some of those, too!" Wonder what she'll be thinking in 8+ years...

get two sessions of laser treatment, to lighten the tattoo. wait 6 months to let the skin settle, find a competent artist, and maybe get a rose tattooed over the top, classic, timeless, represents love and could possibly tie to growth etc. a colour tattoo will work way better to cover this design than a black & grey one. that's what i'd recommend

That there's being exposed to a good insight. My 10 year old son is the same. He's constantly talking about his future body suit. How he's gonna slam a huge battleship across his back, full flight eagle across his chest, lightning bolts and skulls. They're funny as. When we returned from riding one of the motorcycles the other arvo and as we're rolling the bike back into the lounge room, my 9 year old daughter looked at him and said...Dylan, I reckon when your older, your gonna be a tattooed biker. The boy just took one look at her and simply said...100%.

I have stopped drinking alcohol while I'm working 6 day weeks and am amazed at the difference I'm feeling after only 3 weeks. My head is so clear and focused, my anxiety has pretty much taken a back seat and I'm making great gains at the gym. Really excited to see where this takes me.

I don't do tattoos,but I paint...

Just got back from a pretty great trip to see family in Newton, MA, Cape Cod, Martha's Vinyard, and Springfield, NY. Last night we ended the trip with our annual Red Sox game at Fenway Park. That didn't go so well for the Sox, but we had fun. My friend got a foul ball. What did I miss around here?

I know ya said at 1st ya didn't wanna go big, but then now thinking something large that would extend high. That was my initial thought when I 1st read your post. Go big, sleeve out the leg solid.

We grew up with some heavy dudes in the early to mid eighties who got into tattooing their faces and shit, but typical jailhouse style. I can honestly say but, that face portrait I have never seen anything quite like it. Truly unfuckenbelievable.

I took the plunge - I called SOG. Molly and Taki are out of the office, but they are passing along my info for a consultation. ::happy dance:: @cvportagee, @Lance, @TrixieFaux - thank you for the replies and the info. You've all convinced me that this is possible and doable flying in and out for a quick trip. I had planned to fly out to CA in the fall - I'd love to make it a combined trip! So excited!!! ^^^Word. Yes, I would regret it tremendously. And that pretty much makes the decision for me - Monmon cat and tebori if he wants!

I'm sure it's frustrating paying more than you initially expected to pay for that tattoo, but a couple of things stick out here: 1) if you go to a different artist to finish the tattoo, you might not have a consistent quality throughout the tattoo, especially when you seem to be happy with your existing work; 2) maybe I'm not understanding this correctly, but it really rubs me the wrong way that somebody offered to finish a tattoo by a local, available tattooer at a lower rate. To me, it doesn't speak very highly of that second tattooer's integrity, and while I'm sure stuff like this happens all the time, it isn't an approach to getting tattooed that we really condone here.

Can we get your niece on here to give people advice about what tattoos to get? These are all killer.

Personally, my phone has become a repository for screen captures for all the tattoos I am in awe of. I've spent a few lunch breaks browsing on my phone taking note of the amazing tattoos, tattooers out there and subjects that inspire. It's no substitute for a good publication with high quality photos though. But it's lead me to learn about or see more work from artists who are not published as much and also find out about tattooers from other countries who have never been published, in my case, in a US publication for example "kojiichimaru" who until IG, I had never seen published anywhere and "gasentat2" who've I've only seen published in a Japanese publication on backpieces. BTW, I'm "lgoda" on IG.

I finally got booked in with Steve! Can't wait!!

This might be the only appropriate time in life to say "...what she said." ^^^

Fixed.

green machine still experimenting a bunch but i think i've finally got the hang of how to lay out a page (borders solve everything)

I've never seen a tattoo shop rated below 4 stars on Yelp, meaning that everyone must be getting really great tattoos. The thing that bothers me most about Yelp is that so many of the "bad experiences" could have been made better if the reviewer took 2 minutes to be a human being and talk with somebody at the shop/restaurant/whatever rather than go home - or whip out their phone - and write about it. Or to just chalk it up to having to interact with people you don't know & shug it off if it's small enough, which it usually is. ("The cashier looked like she was JUDGING ME!!") It enables a lot of the most irritating kinds of modern-day behavior. The flip side is that it can name & shame businesses that racially profile, etc.

I'm amazed at your use of upper case letters. It is Very Difficult for Me to Type Like This.

We Can't Help You without Knowing the Quality of the Work. good Luck.

Started my ribs/the rest of my leg with Dave Cummings. I'll be in Montreal every two months to get this sucker done. Super stoked.

What makes a good tattoo might help answer your question: http://www.lastsparrowtattoo.com/forum/general-tattoo-discussion/2396-what-makes-good-tattoo.html

Just got this piece done, 1st tattoo, It's solid black, want;) to turn it into a sleeve eventually!

Just got word one of the boys is returning home to Australia after over 12 months in Canada. Viewing a beautiful 2013 Road King for him this Sunday, and if this motorcycle is good as it reads and looks in the pictures, we'll have the brother stepping off the plane, straight back onto two wheels and riding again in 3 weeks on a welcome home 2 day run. Sandy beaches, open fires & away from the city lights..again. Happy days.

When you also consider the neck beard this guy is working on, this truly is as horrifying as it gets.

With the ratio of the size of the root ball to the size/height of the tree required, the tree will go most, if not all the way to your knee. Otherwise it will look like a squat ugly bush.

Dragon by the dude who's doing my dragon back piece, Evan Dowdell.

It allllmost doesn't seem as bad when you realize it was meant to look like that.

David Carson is coming back y'all. (Not that he ever really went away, also, I hate Sagmeister).

I can see your just really wanting to have this tattoo finished and can definitely appreciate how frustrating it is that it's taking so long. Don't let the change in price confuse you too much, I'd take a guess and just say he's working in with shop policy, but everything compounds when we don't know what's going on. Make an appointment to see him face to face. Sit down with your schedule and match it against his. Iterate your need to have the tattoo completed. Knuckle in and smash it out...if resources are not the issue. It's the communication both sides that makes it harder half the time. Good luck with it, I'm sure it'll be sweet once you sit down with the person and forge a way forward.

nothing wrong with some shitty DIY brotatz but this is taking it a step too far. Someone needs their fingers broken

Have you considered laser treatments?

I was ready to go for tebori if he mentioned it, but when I got my monmon, there was no mention of it, he was setting up his machines before I even went into his little room. At one point another artist came over to check out what he was doing and Horitomo was showing him this new machine he was using and telling him how good it was. I figure, if he wants to use machines, he should! Tebori would be a cool experience too though. So basically, I am of no help!

Congratulations!

We don't really like discussing prices here on the board, but frankly, $160/hour is not outrageous, at all.

not finishing the tattoo is the cheapest option.

@Graeme After people talking about your back... but not seeing a picture of it here, I was wondering where it was posted. I finally caught up on the latest tattoo lowdown thread because I was away last week, and now I see it! It looks so good. Just with lines that tiger has character.

Check out this Kim Saigh tattoo, @mhapp95. It's got a lot going on -- but it's also a full back piece. If you want that much stuff incorporated into your tattoo you'll either have to go big or simplify IMO.

I just watched this past season. What a complete waste of time. HOWEVER, I do love watching the l live finale shows because they are so poorly done and the truth of how bad Navarro is at his job is revealed. Also, this show is so incredibly boring that the editing becomes a character.

I've been painting pictures...

My oldest daughter wanted to slam some bullshit passage down her rib panel. I said, sweetheart...I love you, but if you ruin prime real estate like that with shit text, I'll be forced to trade you for another daughter with more brains. She's 25 this year and has learned the sound advice given by her father.

Big fan of kojiichimaru he was a good find!

Agree with your perspective on instagram. For me it's the methadone substitute to my addiction. Not as good as getting a tattoo, but viewing the work still stimulates me. The challenge for me has been following too many tattoo artist and get away from the "disposable" aspect that you stated. I follow and unfollow based on content. I've cut the list down considerably and challenge myself on seeing a tattoo and being able to pick the artist. By my memory I'm really good, but that's MY memory.

I don't like to complain much about tattoo healing discomfort, but mother of fuck, I wish somebody had warned me about how much a healing back itches!

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.

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 did! Kind of. I made it to Three Tides in Tokyo where I had a wonder experience all around and ended up with a nice little dragon head by Ganji. [/img]

Uh oh.