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You have all probably seen this all ready but here is the session on my back piece from a week ago when I was visiting Rudy Fritsch at his shop Original Classic in Trieste, Italy. Had a super good stay in the city and the shop is truly amazing, I could be there for hours just looking at all of the originals on the walls from some of the best in the culture and also from Rudy himself. We had lunch the day after the session and he sure is a very interesting and inspiring person too. Beyond happy with how this is progressing! Next session with Iain Mullen, who is the other part of this collaboration, will be in Stockholm quite soon and then the three of us converge during the Scottish Tattoo Convention in Edinburgh early next year to put the finishing touches on this project. I am a lucky guy :)

My buddy jaie came to town so i had him stick this dagger on my shin.

Some of yesterday's work, on the top parrot and bamboo from original Ed Hardy acetate. Juan Arreguin, my artist, got it from Nervio who worked in San Francisco for a long time. The next two were taken from Percy Water's book, done by Kemer Rodriguez. Done at Superfly Tattoo in Leon, Mexico.

Little Uncle Alan reaper head on the side of my knee. Really cool shop to get tattooed at- probably the most unique / nicely finished I've seen.

Was lucky enough to get some work from Chris Conn last night. 1st session, halo and color next time. Ill try to post a better pic later. By the way.... one of the nicest guys I've ever met.

Ah, happy to announce I've joined the dedicated crew here...started by backpiece yesterday! Lined in from shoulders to back of knee. Some long line pulls and wow the bottom of the ass cheek wow that is advanced level tattoo. Thank you to the LST crew here for sharing your backpiece experiences, I felt it helped me be prepared for this important session. Sat for 3~4 hours and it was one of the most comfortable tattoo sessions I've ever had. My feet were totally relaxed the whole time. Very cool to reconnect with my tattooer. He did my first in 2003, a rib dragon in 2005 and my crane arm in 2007. Full circle, especially when this back tattoo connects to his older work. Tattoo is being made by Steve Batt (TheGangOfOne) in Edmonton, AB. We are doing a Shaolin kung fu monk with rocks, waterfall, cloud swirls. (You'll have to forgive me, I'm not quite ready to post up pics for the general public, and i don't want my tattooed ass to "break the internet".) This tattoo is the missing puzzle piece...all my tattoos neck to ankle are now connected! :) Feels great, my back is tie-ing everything together, and I've reached the bodysuit zone after 11 years, like I'm walking around wearing armour. But really this is just the start...gonna get going on black and colour in the new year and see what kind of rapid progress we can make.

3rd session done, 3-4 more to go to finish the top half and start/finish the bottom half:

It will take years @keepcalm. My folks too are so disapproving. But, I never seeked their approval to begin with. I use to wear longer sleeves and long pants so I didn't smash them full view, and slowly after time...well, I was just having a beer with mum last night in a pair of shorts and a singlet [emoji4] ...and they're both 78 years old. The comments only stopped within the last under 12 months. I would address them immediately, tactfully, respectfully though stern. See, you won't change that good person in you, and oldies are funny from that generation, they judge big time because their world was so square, but they were raised with impeccable values. You keep on chipping away and out shining with those same values, and after time, a long time, your actions will speak volumes to which they will realise doesn't match what their visual expectation is. Good luck [emoji4]

@keepcalm I do not know how to take care of this issue either, my mom is acting the same way. Everytime I come with a new tattoo she says something, to the effect that she is disapproving but the only thing I have to say is that she needs to get used to it because i will get more. She has this opinion that tattoos are ugly. Her problem is with the art being on the body, she can not get past that for her thats a bad thing, design or look does not matter. I don't have the best relationship with my parents so Im probably not doing the right thing but... I usually try to make them, mostly her, understand that its an art form of its own. That her negative attitude is to compare to someone who is presented with a piece of music, and is of the opinion that its bad because there is sounds in it, before even trying to listen to the music.

I can relate, I feel ya My parents reaction to my first tattoo was OMG why why why...it's so big...why did you do that to your body... Then I got some bigger hidden pieces. I never disclosed because they clearly were not interested in acknowledging the big pink (well, purple, blue, battleship grey, etc) elephant in the room Then I got both arms done. And some legs. I wore long sleeves and pants to family dinners for years after the fact...then eventually my parents said, look, we don't really like or understand tattoos but we know they are obviously important to you. And we don't want you to feel uncomfortable when you come visit the family, you are loved and accepted. So please know you can wear a short sleeve shirt and shorts when it is summertime and be comfortable with us. You are our son and we love you, regardless. What I'm trying to say...your parents love you. And hopefully they come around. Change in perception can take time. And mom and dad did come around...after 10 years. I came home from a trip with a screaming eagle on my neck. They weren't that shocked which actually was super-weird! But then we finally had a conversation where they gave me an opportunity to open up briefly...about why and what tattoos give to my life, what it means in my heart, the confidence in my body Why your neck?! Well, easy mom n dad! because there is no space anywhere else! But until they do...remember your tattoos they are about YOU and they are to worn with your CONFIDENCE. Own it! So don't waste your energy trying to convince your parents, family, whichever people that aren't genuinely interested. That's their friggin' problem, not yours. Good luck :) about your Mom...Moms don't like seeing their kids in pain, which is all my mom could see in my tattoos. Pain. Until I talked to her. Open from the heart. Then my mom saw them as colourful and beautiful. The pictures on our skin are a reflection of what's inside us and where we have been. So talk to your Mom openly. Tell her all the positive things the tattoos have given you. And in time, let's hope your mom/family can drop the negativity and have an open-mind, to accept you and accept the things that are important to you. In the meantime, remember - your tattooed skin is thick and colourful now. don't let the negative vibes stick to you. Tattoos are temporary...and so is life :)

Booked in with Tim Lehi yesterday. Appt is beginning of March. Stoked!

I didnt think the shin was too bad. The center area where the bone is felt pretty tolerable. Going up toward the knee cap felt better. The ankle area and as he moved out towards the outside of my calf was real sensitive for me. Pretty much everything hurts from jaie though. He goes slow and deep to get everything really dark or bright. He outlined with a needle he spread out some, so the outline felt huge. Not that sharp precise feeling. When we were talkin about that he said mike malone made a joke about tattooing with huge needles is kinda like riding a bike with training wheels. Lol. - - - Updated - - - Oh yeah. I sent my lady a pic of the stencil and she says "you think he is gonna add blood drops to the tear?" Right as we were done he says. I think we should add some blood dripping down. You cool with that?

I have a shiney new tattoo!! Still in shiney new packaging Got Giger style wings added to Angel Tyrael on left leg. That's me until May next year and of course I know what I want. Will take a pic later and share when back home. Beyond fucking happy!!!

That means only two more months until we see your butt, right? :)

that shit happens right on TV and the tattooers think they actually have a chance at $100K and the chance to be called Inkmaster! ;) i think every tattooer has to struggle with that conscience right from beginning, because no one starts off good at tattooing. i'm sure most actually start off fucking up a lot of tattoos before the learning curve starts to be a little more vertical. during that learning period, people with high morals, standards, and goals might think "holy shit.. I'm fucking this up. I need to get better!" and they work at it. others, with perhaps less morals, standards, and goals, might not find the need to improve since their ends are meeting and that IS their goal. on the other hand, in that day and age and all circumstance, he probably WAS the motherfuckin standard! if you want to get a koi tattoo and you're living in that era and area, you're getting a sardine penis tattoo... no ifs, ands, or buts about it. if you don't want it, you can get the fuck out. it might sound immoral, but like the Canada Bill Jones' quote from Rounders, "It's immoral to let a sucker keep his money." like you said, there's plenty of that shit happening to this day and there's no real reason for it. plenty of bad tattoos going into skin, but no shortage of good tattooers. the client gets what they ask for and what they pay for. in the case of Inkmaster, I don't think the "human canvasses" are paying for shit and some of them walk out wearing exactly what they paid for. no matter what, this dude Jimmy Ho is a G... still holding it down with one glove. I hope he's saved and invested enough to live well once he's done tattooing.

If I were in your shoes, I would try to truly understand why your mom hates them so much. She hates them just because they are trashy? It must be more than that for her to act so serious about it. I'd sit my mom down with a bottle of alcohol, and I would force a clean answer out of her (my mom prefers avoidance of issues). And you have to ask the right questions too. This might seem silly but root cause analysis is a valuable life tool, use the "5 Whys". "Why don't you like tattoos?", "In your mind, what makes them trashy?" I'm not going to role play this whole thing out, but I hope you get the idea. Then explain your side, why you like tattoos, how tattooing in this day and age is very different than tattooing in hers, etc. In my own experience, I see a lot of it come from pressure from our parents own peers. If your mom's friends hate tattoos, then that makes her look horrible as a mother that she raised some miscreant that likes tattoos that would embarrass her in front of her friends. You have to see it from her side. If you were on her side of the fence, what would it take to change your mind? I can tell you, sure as shit, if I were to go to the beach with my mom, she would immediately be fearful of what the people around us would think about my tattoos. She can't help it, she is a mother. She wants all her kids to be seen in a respectful light, and that is her opinion of what respectful means. My older brother rocks a mohawk. It looks good. My mom hates it and it embarrasses the hell out of her because her friends see her son with a mohawk and she feels ashamed.

I finally get to give this a shot! Dana Helmuth, 95% completed at Read Street Tattoo in Baltimore, the rest done in his private studio.

I met a girl, we talked tattoos, she's from az, shows me her legs done by roper, says they're friends and she can text him and give me a referral. Looks like I'm saving some money and flying to Arizona sometime this year. !!!! Also naturally me and this girl have been seeing each other. Life is cool sometimes.

Front of my El Monga leg. Done at Tattoo City in March. Pic is from today (healed). Entered the back of it a few months ago, figured the front needs to toss its hat in the ring.

And I tattoo many older people, who keep the fact that they get tattooed hidden from their older parents.

I only recently figured out that waiting for my mom's approval or appreciation of my tattoos is fruitless. I've been waiting for over thirty years & it's not ever going to happen. My mother hates my tattoos, she thinks tattoos are ugly and thinks that they look dirty!!! I realize that when she sees any tattoo- it's as if a veil comes down and she doesn't see content. All tattoos are the same to her. Well you know what was very freeing??? It was my realization that my expecting my mom to accept my tattoos is as unreasonable as her expectation that I would not like them or want to get them. It's her opinion and she is entitled to it. I also have an otherwise close relationship with my mom. Another thing that has changed is that at one time in my life I would dress to cover my tattoos while visiting my mom- now I do not. - - - Updated - - - Keep in mind that up until only recently - the last 10 years or so- tattoos for the most part were only popular with certain subcultures of the population- especially getting heavily tattooed. Bikers, people in jail, the military and sideshow freaks. No others !

I feel for you. My mom didn't like my tattoos at first (20 years ago). She wasn't as overt as your mom, but her quiet disapproval was like thunder to me. Every once and a while we talked about it, but she associated tattoos with my father, who was a big a$$. Even though she is a reasonable woman she admitted it was challenging for her. I kept doing my thing and about 4 years ago she came right around and is very supportive. So yeah, time and patience. I really like the suggestion of writing a letter to your mom. She might be projecting her own fears on to you; it's more about her than you. She may never like them, but perhaps in time, she can get to a place where she doesn't get so emotional about them that it affects your relationship. Don't let her feelings stop you - you are your own person and need to keep being true to yourself.

I'm stoked for you, @bongsau! Must feel great to tie it all together.

dude it looks awesome

only 2 more months of waiting!

don't get me wrong, we have the privilege of the interwebs and hindsight to know who the worldwide standards were back then and currently. this is why i specified circumstance, era, and area... i'm pretty sure hong kong tattoo clients didn't have tattoo mags to peruse or an internet to surf and they likely weren't flying to japan or hawaii to get tattooed. the koi back piece you showed was probably the dopest thing on the block! looking at it, the peony and finger waves aren't all that bad... plenty of artists these days would do worse with a shit ton of reference at their fingertips. the design of the koi could definitely use help, but he says himself in the video that he never learned to draw. even if that client was a "westerner" and he took that tattoo back to the midwestern US, it would probably STILL be the dopest thing on the block and the local tattooers wouldn't know where to start.

when I think about a mom and their kid getting tattooed, i think of Marcellus Wallace during The Bonnie Situation sayin, "Oh, no fuckin shit she'll freak." I did the same thing as @sophistre but after I got my first tattoo... sent a long ass heartfelt email with a photo of the tattoo with some explanation about it and she called me soon after saying she understands. that broke her in easy, but she had no idea the coverage that would later ensue. ;) I think what a letter (or email) does as compared to a conversation is allows you to clearly get all of your thoughts and points out to the reader rather than having the listener rebut, interrupt, or shut off altogether. it can't turn into an argument and you don't have to deal with emotions. you can get all your emotions in writing and the reader can let their emotions flow as they read, soak it all in, and reply when they're ready (if at all). either way, it found it to be a bit safer and more effective for my mom. just another option, depending on your situation. good luck!!

I can agree with that viewpoint, though I personally would have too much of a conscience to be permanently marking someone with poorly drawn tattoos just to make ends meet. Then again, that shit happens all the time to this day!

Great vid, thanks for sharing. I figure it's because he is from the era where tattooing wasn't a "thing" or a "lifestyle" and the only way to get into it was to be born in, which he was. He even said that he wasn't that smart or good at anything else so he just took on his family's trade. I'd say he's truly of the old school, where he didn't have the luxury to follow his dreams or whatever, but had to make ends meet somehow.

My mother has been extremely supportive of the tattoos my brother and I have, but they do still make her uncomfortable on some level, and this is definitely why. She's less concerned about what other people will think of her than she is about what they'll think of my brother and I -- she worries that they'll make snap judgements about our character, and sees this as the potential for doors in our lives to close unfairly to us. I sent her a long letter before finally getting started on getting tattoos, explaining my interest. She'd made the usual 'what will you do when you're old and they look terrible?' remark, and as part of the letter I explained that I'd rather be interesting when I'm 70 than a bangable 70-year-old -- seriously, who cares about that at 70? I'm 33 and I barely care now -- and added sort of on a whim that, given I hope to donate my body to science when I pass away, I hope the person who receives it spends a few moments puzzling and wondering over all of the art on me. Bizarrely, this latter image is the one that seems to have made everything fine for her. She finds it hilarious. Everybody's mom is different. Communication is worth a try at least once, though, and if you can get to the bottom of it, all the better. It'll be a shame if not, but you have nothing to feel guilty about either way. A mother's job is to prepare her children for the world and the decisions in it, so that we're ready to make those decisions for ourselves when the time comes...even in the presence of opposition to what we find important. Sometimes it just gives rise to uncomfortable differences of opinions in the end. ;)

You should talk with your Mom, because neither your visits nor your tattoos are going to go away. Ultimately she should respect the fact that you make your own choices and the fact that the two of you don't need to agree on everything. If her reaction to that RIGHT is going to be so negative it's only going to have a negative impact on your relationship and time you spend together . . .

3rd session over, that one felt even more brutal than the last. Completely finished the top of the shoulder and under part of the arm all the way to the armpit of doom(fuck my life that shit hurts). Top half of the sleeve nearly finished, this is the only pic I have for now, will have to post more once it's healed.

Did not think that I would win this contest with all the killer tattooes from Jørgensen, Rassier, Shige, Shinji etc. So it was actually just for fun, but thank you all for the votes!

Throwing the hat in. Newbie getting his second tattoo, 4 months after his first. I got this skull and dagger from Luke Wessman in NYC @ Wooster Street Social.

Well, here's my entry. By Markus Lenhard - private studio in Berlin - work in progress cheers!

So half sleeve is coming along nicely - foo dog and goldfish recently added. Sleeve by Daniel Innis at the Pearl in Toronto.

Here's a couple of recent oils. The Rock of Ages is 5" x 7" on birch, the skull is 10" x 12" on canvas board. Both are for sale if anybody is interested.

The only tattoos that don't get much appreciation around here are bad ones.

One more session to go and filling in the blank spot underneath.

Little quacker from Clare Hampshire, pic stolen from her IG. Wraps around to outer forearm.

Yes, I did......I got the tattoo below from David Bruehl......and I got another piece to my snake (no photo of it) by Mike Fite! Mike Fite and I have an agreement.... He started a skin tear snake head on me about a year and a half ago sooooo......every time we see each other....he adds another piece of the snake on my body somewhere as a filler piece....LMAO! :D

If you read earlier in the thread, and other specific threads, you'll see it's not uncommon to do two day sessions - especially if you're travelling a long way. They suck- especially the second day, when you're already tired and inflamed from day one. But it's a good way to make progress quickly, and the mortality rate is pretty low. ;)

Sorry no pics. I got a chance to look through a pile of Dana's secret stash of Roper pics, some are pretty good. I also got a chance to scroll through Bloodwork Bodies. Man, that book is amazing. The green dragon is in the book, I had to steal a clean pic for you guys. Not to mention it was good to catch a glance at @hogg's ass on more time.

Tim Lehi oneshot

its already on the site so i guess i'll throw this in from jeff rassier last week

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