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By Jason McAfee at Temple Tattoo. Oakland, CA. B&G arm is almost done. Got a couple more gaps to fill. So stoked.

Hi guys!! For those who have not seen on Instagram, I was a dumbass and scheduled three days of getting zapped on my last trip to SF. That shit is hard on the body!!!!! @cltattooing made an awesome stabby skull for me, and then we hung out w @CABS, who is an alright type of guy (understatement of the season!). Junii added color to my froggy, some shading and background and outlined a peony on my thigh. We started the first snake! Matt (dr claw) started on my serene butt snake. Shad will be starting the mean back snake in October, and Junii is doing the thigh snake (I think?!) I was not the only one getting my butt drilled (word choice?) in the shop that day. I had the pleasure of watching Drew Flores begin one of the backpieces that is part of the 108 heroes of LA project. How cool is that?!? Also @petiloi was in the shop getting some work done by Bill Salmon. Hi!!! I did not identify myself bc, you know, tattoos. But it was cool anyway! Pics attached. Warning: Butt ahead!! (Nice asp, I know. Tips hat to @CultExciter for that one).

So Chad finished my back recently. Here it is.

Finally finished this backpiece by Valerie Vargas at FST :)

Here's a healed picture of my back piece by Valerie Vargas at Frithstreet tattoo :)

I'm gonna submit the smallest tattoo to win the monthly contest (ok, not really, that back, gahhhh)! RAT HEADS GET NOTHIN' BUT CHEESE Y'ALL, done by Cody Miller at Blackheart. Photo pilfered from his Instagram.

Holy shit, what an incredible month this has been! Big thanks to everyone who submitted. The winner of July is @polliwog for this fantastic tattoo by the great Chad Koeplinger. Congrats!! Please PM @steve1461686340 with your shirt info (size and male or female) along with your address. New contest will be up shortly!

Hello all, I found you while looking for information about Saniderm - and will contribute to that thread. To introduce myself : I got my first tattoo in 1976 in Fort Bragg, NC. I wanted a small dragon head and got it off a picture on the wall. It was very different back then for women. Even though my then husband was with me, the tattooist called his wife to come and sit in - really funny. The artist tried so hard to get me to choose a rose or butterfly instead, he couldn't really understand that I wanted a dragon! One thing I must say about him (whoever he was) - I wanted my dragon to be blue and when my husband asked for the same thing, the artist refused - he would do a dragon, but not in the colors I chose. It is a terrible tattoo and I wouldn't give it up for anything - it is a reminder of a time in my life when I thought nothing of merit would ever happen to me, I got the tattoo to show my future grandkids (I had a 2 year old daughter at the time) that I could be different from all the other grandmoms - hah, little did I know how different I would eventually be. I travel full time in a tiny RV - looks like a squished truck camper - with my 2 Cardigan Welsh Corgi dogs. As soon as I retired, I got another tattoo - a small phoenix on my left inner arm. Just this year I got an overthought one down my right inner arm and around my wrist. My artist did exactly what I asked her to and used the design I had created, so I cannot fault her. As soon as I saw it completed I knew something was wrong with it - much too cartoonish for my liking. In one of the NM campgrounds I met a woman with lots of feather tattoos and really liked the shading on them. So, I just got my overthought one redone in a "painterly" fashion - not watercolor as I wanted bright colors. I'll try to get pictures up of it when I have better internet service. Anyway, I am most impressed with this site and am slowly viewing as many threads as possible. Lyn

Needs more black.

So here's my super awesome lady head by Kim Anh Nguyen, done at the Montreal Convention last year.

@severgirl3 you recieved good advice by @CultExciter and @Graeme IMO. I am quoting valerie in hopes you read this a few more times and seriously consider . You just got an honest opinion from one of the best tattooers out there.

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!

No shit @beez it's a small world. Butt snake all the way, I also really enjoyed watching Junii work on your leg. My wife has a big peony piece on her side by Junii and if all goes well might be her apprentice soon. I consider myself very lucky to be getting a sleeve from a living legend like Bill Salmon. And Bill and have built a friendship over the last few years so it makes it that much more meaningful. Matt aka Dr claw will be finishing my thighs piece and start into my inner leg with I think a big geisha spider. Its goona be rad. Looking forward to see in ya at the convention @beez. I'll be doing another few sessions on my leg woth Matt Deverson, if you haven't seen his work check it out and hopefully I'll be getting my chest done by Myazo. What's your plans

Agreed. I've been the same way. Years ago I used to follow TONS of tattooers on IG. Then I started unfollowing tattooers that are nowhere near my geographically (UK tattooers, Australian tattooers, shoot even a handful of East Coast tattooers). But then I found myself missing out on some good guest spots from these tattooers. So now I'll follow my favorite tattooers regardless of location. Sometimes I'll just follow the shop account if it's active enough. I did unfollow tattooers that I know I'll never get tattooed by or doesn't fit what I'm looking for aesthetically because they're too good and they have giant wait lists.

I came into this thread with lofty ideas of dropping a last minute tiebreaker...and then liked every single one.

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.

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]

Get consults from other artists.

I'm going to challenge myself stop posting negative/sarcastic comments and stick to the established threads (latest, back piece, awesome, etc.) Reading some of the intro/troll threads is counter productive to my life goal of peace and happiness.

SMART MAN - - - Updated - - - I'm successfully down from over 1000 to about 750. And I kept all of you LST folks. The things I do for internet friends...:D

Back pieces in real life. I love it.

this just reminded me to do an instagram audit. down to following 104. hope this helps me disengage my face from my phone.

Went in for a consultation today with WT Norbert at Hunter and Fox in Sydney, what a nice guy he seems to be. Seems he has plenty of time available because he is going to be putting a tiger head on my Kneecap this coming wednesday. So stoked, not as traditional as my last coupe of tattoos but his work stands alone in my opinion This is going to hurt ha ha. Hunter and Fox Tattoo - W.T. Norbert

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

Looks like I'm going to see Dillinger Escape Plan tonight in Brooklyn - woot!!! @Mick Weder - sounds like a great weekend trip!

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

Fixed.

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

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)

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.

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.

Did the first session on my back yesterday with Dave Cummings. Really stoked on it.

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

Can't remember if I posted this here Sundancer but Valerie Vargas, Frith Street Tattoo

Grez just made this one on me a few hours ago... I'm in love.

Might as well post this one up. Got this last week from David Mushaney from RebelMuse Tattoo in Lewisville, TX, just outside of Dallas. I couldn't be happier!

@Eilin Pharaoh's seahorses...BRILLIANT!!!

First day and the contest is over.

^ ^ ^

You are an inspiration, sir. Because of this I've been doing an Instagram cull. Now if I could just wean myself off LST I'd be set.

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.

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

So, somehow it's been 14 months since I last got tattooed(!) - I went back to uni and life has just kind of got in the way. Finally getting back in the swing of things, hopefully. I've got a consultation with Xam booked for next month so just deciding between a ship on my arm or a girl/reaper combo somewhere on my leg. Leaning towards the latter just now.

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.

Tough competition this month, but I guess I'll throw my hat in the ring. Panther from Aaron Coleman. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Picked up this lil' thigh giblet while on vacation in Japan in 2013 from the (then) Hiroshi Hirakawa at Three Tides Tattoo, Osaka

I'll enter this one because I love my eagle. Happy to see her every day, and she has a name :o By Chad Koeplinger at Congress St. Photo from his Instagram.

Greg Christian does beautiful swallows. There's a newer one on there in a different style that's equally beautiful.

That tattoos can give you STDs! I just saw this on a tattooist's website. "Tattooing carries a risk of STDs and other nasty things infecting you, and you wouldn’t want to catch any of those." If you're getting sexually transmitted diseases from a tattooist, it's not the needle they're sticking you with.

here's some pix of my sleeve from Marcus Kuhn...