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Just started a large thigh piece with Valerie Vargas, managed to get in with her on a cancelation while I was back in England visiting family, only the line work so far but it looks great, il upload a pic when it's healed, also I'm trying saniderm for the first time

Yesterday, by Trevor @ Liberty Tattoo Seattle.

I got a rad tattoo from the rad Chris Hold last night in Vancouver. Sharing from his Instagram: http://instagram.com/p/xQPn6qmDU8/

Newest from Josh Brown.

You can pretty much do whatever you want. There are no rules against that, especially if you are not getting tattooed solely by traditional Wabori artists. Chris O'Donnell told me once that it doesn't matter and that aside from some basic rules, there is plenty of room for interpretation.

Definitely going to look into Thomas Hooper, I'm in San Antonio so not too far from Austin. Thanks for all the info, really appreciate it.

@Ebolarama If you think that tribal tattoos look ridiculously awesome, you should go for it! Yes, there is a bit of a stigma attached to tribal (but there's a stigma attached to tattoos generally, so...), and some of it carries over to here, but tribal when it's done well is really awesome. It's strong, it's bold, when it's done properly it flows with and accentuates the body amazingly, and all that solid black means that it's going to hold for the rest of your life. "Tribal" is also a really broad category of tattooing and is really diverse. Usually when people say "tribal" the first thing that comes to mind is that Leo Zulueta or Zulueta-inspired spiky stuff, and maybe that's what you're talking about, but that's only one small facet of tribal tattooing: you could go in a Polynesian or Micronesian-influenced direction; guys like Colin Dale in Denmark are doing essentially Nordic tribal influenced by Viking designs; in Austin you have Thomas Hooper who takes tribal as a starting point and is pushing tattooing into exciting new frontiers from there. There's so much more than this out there too. Explore, explore, explore, and find what excites you the most and makes you feel that you need a tattoo like that.

Ok, right there. If you really want a tattoo, then go get one. It doesn't have to mean anything. It could be something that looks bad ass and you just want to get it tattooed on you. I thought my first tattoo had to mean something too. You'll find that the experience of a fresh tattoo with a good artist can trump any personal symbology. What tattoos have you been admiring? Do those "mean something" to the wearer? On the flip side, a candle burning at both ends, or a candle burning by itself, is pretty good imagery for losing time if you ask me. Google search reveals some good ideas, but no artists, so I'm hesitant to post a lot of pictures here. Here is one from Grez in NYC. You get the idea. Added snake and dagger for badassitutude.

Remember how we were talking about Eagles earlier? BAM! I got an eagle fighting a dragon the other day. If y'all didn't see it in the latest tattoo lowdown thread, here it is! From flash originally drawn by Tom Berg. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Hopefully this amp!

Maybe check out some Roxx stuff if you really want some really black tattoos

Not really the place for this man. Good luck on your endeavors but take a moment to read about what we are about here. Last Sparrow Tattoo - Forum Rules

I'm actually jealous of the potential of a Japenese coverup from a Norwegian artist. Marius why are you so far away and never travel?! Why?!?!?!

My mum came over to stay for christmas and I'm not good a keeping secrets from her (and there barely is a reason anyway). I didn't want her to 'accidently' find out about my first tattoo, so I thought it better to tell her about it. After having read about so many rather negative reactions on here, I wasn't quite sure what to expect. I was sure she wouldn't be super angry with me, but major disappointment would have been a possibility. So, the two of us had an evening out and the conversation went something like this: Me: Mum, I actually bought something with the money you gave me for my birthday. Her: Oh good, what is it, something nice? Me: Well, I do think so, but I'm not sure you'll like it... Her: It's your money and you can do with it whatever you like. What is it then? ...[her being really curious now and trying to guess]...a gun?!? [We're German, so this would have been very unusual and rather unpopular. And yet, I found it rather odd that this was the first thing that came to her mind.] Me : Hell no! Her: [Comes up with another totally weird guess which I can't even remember] Me: No, nothing like that....I got tattooed.... Her: Ah...I see...what is it? And where? Can I see it? Me: I got a lynx head and some flowers on my thigh. [And no, I couldn't show it as we were in a public space.] Her: Does it have a special meaning? Me: Not really, I just fancied it. Her: So it's more like decoration? Me: Yes! Her: Fair enough....Are you gonna wear hot pants in summer? Me: Err....what? No, I wasn't planning to. I'm not a teenager anymore... Her: What about a swimsuit, will it be visible then? Me: Well, it would be, but you know I don't really go swimming very often. Her: So it's pretty much always hidden?!? Can I see it later? ... At the end the of the day, the hardest thing to understand for her seemed to be, that I wasn't planning to show off the tattoo as such. Phew. Could have been worse. When I later mentioned that I was indeed thinking about getting another tattoo, this seemed to stretch it somewhat though. I guess little bits of information from time to time will be a better approach in this case... ;-)

Horitomo posted a pic of the work in progress on my gut. Check it. Instagram

Upper inside of the arm tonight. Feels like burning. With Greg Whitehead, as usual! A fun panther-leopard with a Tibetan shell. Starting to close in on it with this arm. Room for two modest/smallish pieces and then just filler after that. Crazy.

BAM! Is right!

or ON your head!!

Ooooh, don't start putting ideas into my head @Graeme!!! ;)

Wow - Colin Dale's stuff looks really cool.

I have some scars that have been tattooed over. If they're more than a year old, they shouldn't be any trouble for a tattooer to go over. Still have to get my leg surgery scar blasted over!

Thanks for the thoughtful responses :). I think this might be a step for him because my other tattoos are on my legs, not near such an 'important' area haha. @pidjones I think it is the placement that is his main concern, as I already had two tattoos when I met him, as well as my septum and several other piercings. I've never really looked 'plain'. His mum is a little conservative but his family wouldn't really affect anything like that. And thanks @marley mission, it sounds like a good idea to have a discussion about exactly where is issues with the tattoo lilye and hopefully we can work something out. I definetly have plenty of other ideas that I can focus on first haha. @scubaron I got my first tattoo on my birthday in August and I have three now, I don't think it's excessive if you have lots of ideas; I have so many ideas that have been going through my head for ages and the only thing slowing me down is the funding.

Welcome! That sounds like neat imagery, and it's cool to think about representing how you are breaking the chains. But I wonder if down the line, when you have really broken free, if you want a memory that still reflects you being somewhat chained (or roped) down. Is there a neat image that can represent where you are heading, instead of where you have been? Anyway, just a thought. But a cool idea.

Trevor's a great dude, and a great tattooer. Looks awesome!

I'll be letting the tattoo artist doing a freehand script. Nine words should fit easily across my ribs and still leave room for the flowers. If I show people my tattoo I want them to be able to read it! Have any of you had experience with having a tattoo done over an old injury? I broke a rib a few years ago on that side and I'm concerned when he goes across that rib it might hurt a bit more due to the calcification that had developed on it.

When it comes down to it, every tattoo is unique because even when you get beyond things like design, placement, application, the tattoo itself is just an indelible mark that means much more than what it appears to be: that tattoo is going to be associated with the process of getting it, the conversations you had with your tattooer, the stories and jokes that were told; that tattoo is now part of your life, it's going to age with you and become part of your story. That's why tattoos are one of the coolest things in the world. I met a guy a little while ago who has been around tattooing for a good long while and has collected a lot of wisdom over the years and while he was telling stories, he made the observation that one of the things about tattooing is that it can mean all sorts of different things to different people. I guess that's what it comes down to: while the idea for that particular tattoo isn't in itself original--the idea is directly and shamelessly lifted from Ed Hardy and has gone through various moments of popularity since it was originally conceived--I came to the idea through trying to learn about tattoo history and draw inspiration from it, and I got the tattoo from a tattooer who does tattoos that I feel capture that looseness and power of Ed Hardy's tattoos and art, and I think that makes my tattoo totally different than somebody who wanted a copy of a picture of a tattoo they saw on the Internet, even if the tattoos look similar.

Sorry, no, not done on Ink Master. Local artist in my hometown, NYC.

I had my Chad rose morph copied, maybe not line for line, but very substantially, by somebody on here (I'm not going to name names) and it really bummed me out. It wasn't even so much that it was copied--and to be clear here, I'm not talking about the handful of people on here who have gotten rose morphs from Chad or from other tattooers, I'm talking about one specific tattoo--because having tattoos copied is pretty much inevitable in this day and age when so much is available online. What really bummed me out about it is that it was on somebody from here. I don't know the interaction this person had with their tattooer: did they bring in a picture of my tattoo, did they say they wanted that sort of design and the tattooer found a photo of my tattoo? This is the sort of thing that happens all the time and it is what it is, but I guess there are a couple of things that really bother me about it, one being that this forum should be educating people and giving them knowledge so that they aren't doing things like bringing in photos of other tattoos and wanting more or less exact copies of them and that this happened just underlines the fact that a lot of people are here not because they want to learn and get better tattoos, they just want to take from here; that somebody thought it was okay to copy the tattoo of somebody they interacted with. It's not just taking a picture from instagram and handing it to your tattooer. Plenty of you people here have tattoos that I am jealous of because they're so rad and I wish they were on me, but the right thing to do in that case is draw inspiration from that, not straight-up copy it.

Couple of little Bonji on the shins done by Benjamin Toner, at Sacred Art, Manchester. Lovely way to finish out the year, cant beat some nice Bonji!

i'll put this up here, not all healed up yet but whatevs Untitled by misomad, on Flickr

Just got done with my chest/half sleeves from Horitomo at State of Grace. Took me a couple of years to get it all done since I had to fly there and book back to back sessions. First, here is a pic of my fucked up tattoo that I got when I was 18. Horitomo touched it up and incorporated it with his art. SOrry not sure why some photos are posting sideways, I have it upright when I loaded them. [/img] [/img] [/img]

My super cool new filler piece from Paul O'Rourke at Love Hate in Cork, Ireland. First time at the shop and was blown away by how good it is - also helped that Paul is a seriously nice guy. I definitely will be back. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Firstly, what a great thread- so good to hear so many open and honest experiences. As others have said, I can really relate to what has been said about feeling a sense of guilt and shame about my tattoos and consequently not trusting my own convictions. Being told by anyone that by getting (particularly visible tattoos in my case) you have sabotaged your future happiness is bad enough. But being told by your mum, even if its only implicitly by a line of negative questioning that I have ruined everything from future job prospects, my looks, to even the chance at being a good and respected father is a hammer blow. I really don't think they mean to be as cruel as they are, if it was someone else's child they would be able to see that undermining someone you love in such a devastating way is wrong. I'm not a parent, but after sitting down with my mum and thrashing all this stuff out I think it has a lot to do with letting go, that this baby who they bathed and protected for so long is now an adult and is asserting such (from my mothers perspective anyway) a visible, brutal autonomy over their own body. the weight of parental expectations has been an absolute bastard for me, comparing myself to other family members and feeling like a failure because, by getting tattoos i had closed the door on my own future. It is only now at 27 that I am beginning to see that there is not only one game in town, and that the occupations that would exclude me for being visibly tattooed are not ever wanted for my life anyway! I currently work as a bartender in a good cocktail bar and I plan to combine this with a yoga teacher training course which i'm going to start next year, I also plan on completing both my sleeves by the end of next year. I'm not gonna be a lawyer or an academic and I can't see myself earning a tone of money, but as @beez so rightly points out, we are all adults with the right to make our own decisions.

This has been a great thread - I realize I need to be more appreciative of how my folks and family have reacted to my ink! When I first started getting tattooed (almost 20 years ago now) my Mom hated them. We had to have the "why are you doing this to me" and "I don't see why you want to deface your body" conversations where I had to explain that none of my tattoos were about HER and that I didn't see it as defacement. Over the years, and many more tattoos (big hiatus in the middle where I got an eyebrow piercing instead, ha!) she now understands that this is a form of my own self expression and it's not a reflection of her. I've proven that I make good decisions on placement, style and content and that they don't hurt my life opportunities. My Dad is slowly coming around, but he will never like them. My brother and sister in law show them to my nephews (4 and 2 now) and we play "what is this? yes, bird! what sound does the bird make?" with the younger one. My other nephews show me their press on Spidermans when we Skype. None of my family would ever get one. And some don't 'understand' them. Which is fine. They don't have to. But nobody should make you feel BAD about them. Or ashamed. And look at all these stories of parents who came around to some understanding in the end. I think there is something burned into our psyches (especially us girls) that want our Moms to be proud. And those of us with tattoos know that our tattoos are part of us and it feels like a rejection of ALL of who we are when someone is just nasty. Never forget you are more than your skin. Good luck. :) (that got a little rambley! sorry)

Oni Head by Stewart Robson guesting at Blackheart tattoo before the SFO convention. This shot is from today, healed. BOOM in your face, @Cork you're not the only one with a massive Japanese tattoo this month, haha!

Yeah! Can you call my mom and tell her this?! Haha!

Spinal fusion to correct kyphosis (similar to scoliosis). I can elaborate more but it might start to feel like an episode of Miami Ink...

I am new to tattoos. I always thought they were cool, but had trouble getting past the issue of permanency. The funny thing about scars is, they are permanent. Finally realized, a nice cool permanent tattoo is a lot better than an ugly permanent scar.

I have a surgical scar from a shoulder injury (from a crash with a roadbike). This is a picture the day after surgery The scar didn't heal very nicely (as you can probably imagine from that picture ;-) ) And this picture a couple of minutes ago, you can still see a part of the scar without ink, and you can see the covered part. I also have some road rash on my elbowd, which is now covered by my sleeves.

I have one of my feet tattooed. So many people talk about how bad it hurts but it seems like the popular first tattoo for young girls so I had to find out. Yeah that shit does hurt, but now that I have one foot done, I kind of have to do the other. Shark is a good idea. My friend has a tattoo of a shark that says mom below it on his foot, because his mom got attacked by a shark when she was a teenager. They always come in and get tattooed together.

"Rules" might be the wrong term.....but I would need to respectfully disagree with your "Just go for it" statement! Although the views on tattoos have definitely changed over the last 7-10 years we are not out of the woods yet! Trust me I have been tattooed for almost 30 years and those of us who have been tattooed that long know how a tattoo can keep you out of certain jobs and in my case stopped me from getting a promotion into management! Some cities in the U.S. (all I can speak too) are more "tattoo friendly" but there are still people who will not hire people with visible tattoos! I also grew up in a time where you had to "earn" those spaces (hands and neck) by being pretty heavily covered! I know it is an artists job to put on what the client wants but i guess i am just a little "old school" maybe when it comes to those spots! I think it's silly to see someone with their hands done and just about nothing else on their forearms (same with necks but no sleeves). People definitely looked at me differently after getting my hands and especially my neck done and although after you have been stared at for so long you tend not to notice it BUT they still stare....LOL It's sad......but there is still prejudice out there and if you aren't a tattoo artist or work in the craft then it is a bit more difficult to climb the corporate ladder with visible tattoos. I hope that does become a thing of the past.....but we aren't there quite yet! While I do understand it is an artists job to do what the client asks....I tend to respect more the artists who in the back of their minds at least think twice before they tattoo someones hands or neck! Just my humble opinion and stating it as respectfully as I can! :)