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Finally lost my cherry today. A great experience and I love my new tattoo. By Bradley Tompkins at Frith Street.

Congrats on the 1st Tattoo and what a kickass one at that.

I've seen the tiny stars and other fill on plenty of sleeves. As long as they don't distract from the main work, put in anything you like. This is a good example of a traditional sleeve that isn't so busy that you can't make out the primary tattoos. Personally, I'd go with small leaves & vines, clouds, or something that ties the whole sleeve together. That may take planning ahead by your artist. OK, my irezumi favoritism is starting to show here...

have an apt. w/ bailey hunter robinson next sat. he's guesting down here at rock of ages in austin... getting one of his trademark buffaloes to start off my right arm. ~2excited~ just need to be sure not to get confused and call him heather bailey (which i've already done in my head a dozen times) :o :cool:

Thought I would also upload and share this dope action shot. Plus you can catch a peak at my backpiece that's about 5 months settled in as well as Len's great hair lol ;) Another reminder that it is the tattoo experience as whole - that truly makes the tattoo. that's what matters. Tattooing is a very powerful, deliberate and permanent act and series of events. Last Wednesday was an incredible day. My work in the morning. Popping into the tattoo shop to just to say what's up and casually flipping through Len's book - I have 3 tattoos from Len now and each one was a spontaneous act with permanent results. Going and getting a dope haircut so I didn't get a cheap $25cent razor fade (found a new barber, an older black gentleman, he shared his cool snake tattoo on his dark skin, he got in 1967!). My tai chi practice in the park. An encouraging doctor's appointment. The boys keeping the shop open into the evening to accommodate me (shout out to Champion Tattoo Edmonton). The stencil and re-stencil to get the placement just right. The first 30 seconds when I thought holy shit man, this is brutal have I gone too far? Bishops Green on the stereo. Tattoo talk with the boys. Sweating through the table. Feeling my nose about to get crushed sideways on the table. the post-tattoo newport smoke, the vulnerability and the satisfaction with the end result. The morning after when the shower water hit the back of my raw tattooed skin. Even today walking down the street, walking proud and tall with this new tattoo. Hearing the lady behind me in the crosswalk whispering out loud 'damn that's a nice tattoo' to herself. Seriously, I am really buzzing off how this one turned out. The butterfly symbolism is pretty obvious. But also this: I dreamed I was a butterfly, fluttering about, to all intents and purposes a butterfly. I was conscious only of my happiness as a butterfly. Soon I awakened, and there I was, myself again. Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man. -Master Zhuang I became aware of this taoist quote the morning after receiving my tattoo, and I too had the butterfly dream leading up to this spontaneous tattoo. I found it very fitting, not just in the context of the rest of my tattoos, but in terms of some personal growth I have been making over the last few months. And here comes this profound tattoo experience from a simple design that carries some complex symbolism to me, providing enlightenment when I needed it the most. Thank you LST for providing a medium to share the tattoo experience together !

"Yknow what's awesome about this budd?...you have a whole bodysuit of tattoo and MY tattoo is going to be the one everyone is gonna ask about haha" Keepin' it real w/ King Len, guest spot at Champion Tattoo in Edmonton, AB Deadly placement, deadly evening, deadly tattoo. But holy fack did this one sizzle and rattle.

we have found the perfect tattoo for your empty torso!

@DavidR Congrats! Great tattoo. Bradley is a great guy and tattooer.

@The Tig. Thanks for responding with pics. Honesgtly, I think the first and last pic you provided is what I am looking for. Love it. @mtisam. Thanks for those links. I am going to delve into them right now.

Hi, here are two really good discussions about what you are interested in. Hope that you find something to suit your needs. http://www.lastsparrowtattoo.com/forum/tattoo-advice/1649-fill-not-fill-space-between.html http://www.lastsparrowtattoo.com/forum/tattoo-designs-books-flash/818-tattoo-silhouette-negative-space.html

@DavidR Amazeballs ? congrats!!

That was my reasoning. Originally I was going to have a double helix tree trunk with a tree on top going up the outside of my leg. No way to really cover it in shorts. Only some parts of this will show in the summer for me as I normally wear anklet socks all the time as I sneak in walks and runs whenever I can. It took me years to decide on this. This was my 50th birthday gift. I planned it from the time I was 35. With that math, might be my first and last lol Yes, I thought wtf was I thinking? Happy birthday to me. I would have got up and walked out but, well, I'd have a half done tat haha TC, thanks. I just got up and I'm not hobbling. It's a start. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

1) A lot of people say they're only getting 1...you'd be surprised. :) 2) Pain is temporary, awesome tattoos are forever. After some particularly painful sessions, I have fleeting thoughts of "Why the hell am I doing this? No more!" but they don't last long. Typically, I'm already thinking about my next one while in the chair. 3) Definitely not the worst start to being tattooed. It's one of those spots that's discrete when you want to be, and highly visible when you want to be. Big enough to give you a good taste of what it's like, but not so big that's it's overwhelming to sit through. Plus everyone is nervous for their first (I'm still nervous about every one) and nervousness can throw you off your game and make it harder to sit through.

Second session this month. Scales are now all done and every little thing we do is just making the whole thing pop a little bit more. Super happy.

We need to wear Last Sparrow pins or something.

Here's my latest, courtesy of Karrie Arthurs: https://instagram.com/p/9NAjS4Iwu-/

@Lance no. i was going to work Carlos' booth but since he isn't coming, i will just be a sad little spectator.

1 more week! I can't wait! I think I have a session with Jill Bonny before the convention on Friday. Hopefully I won't be wiped out too bad by the time it starts. I should be there all day/night Friday and Saturday. For now I plan on going Sunday as well but may opt to get a short session in with Jill again before my flight in the evening. I'd love to meet up with everyone. @CABS, @cvportagee, and I tried this great Japanese place down the street last year. It's well worth it if anyone is interested in meeting for a bite or drinks. Feel free to introduce yourself if I havent met you previously. I'd love to meet other LST folks. I'll be a pudgy 'Steve Aoki' with glasses. Likely wearing dark colors. Black/grey sleeves. @MoistTowelette, are you working a booth this year? @beez, did the Shad appointment happen?

Hello and welcome!

Hi, just joined LST and thought i'd share my latest tattoo. Done by Tony Hundahl at the London convention, great guy who does awesome tattoos.

awesome stuff from Robert Ryan @ Electric in Asbury good times good times

Last session all done at around 23 hours all up...stoked this is finished !

I don't usually feel it's my place to offer advice on here, but I also got kinda spooked after my first tattoo and would like to suggest that you don't hurry to change or add to this one...you might find that you feel very differently about it in a couple months. Maybe getting an unrelated tattoo that you feel really good about might give you some perspective on how to add to your rose later on. It's just that getting tattooed is way too much fun to focus on compensating for one you don't like right at the start. Hope this isn't condescending or out of line.

So... not been on to post anything in a little while. I had to miss a session last month for medical reasons. I would absolutely have preferred being tattooed for 3 hours compared to going to the doctors. Anyway I made up for the missed session yesterday. We did the blue on the back of the left leg and then started to put some green in the leaves around the blossoms. I have another session in a couple of weeks time which will complete the scales. We talked about maybe slowly fading the blue towards the tail so that it ends up super pale, almost white, which I think could look amazing. We are then definitely going to be on the home stretch. After 45 hours it is really coming to life and I am incredibly happy with it.

Second session with Kelly:

So here's a long overdue update on my back. its coming along...Unfortunatley life gets in the way and I wont be back for more work until mid November and I'll have to book some more appointments soon for december and into the new year. I was really hoping ot get to Montreal for some more work and check out the convention scene but Im in a wedding that weekend so it'll have to wait for next year. anyways, done by Scott Duncan at Sugar Shack Tattoo in Kincardine ON. He's one hell of a guy, and I love going there

My completed full back piece. Done by Tim Croke at Second Skin, Derby. Completed in 4 full day sittings. Let me know what you think of it!

Wish I were nearby. Great stuff.

I don't think you need to be all that careful with feet really, from experience. What I can recommend however is to take some kind of pain relief-medication that also combats swelling and infection for the first 2-3 days. Also, as soon as you are in a place where you can walk barefoot: do so, take of the socks and wash and cream.

Yup. I never really planned how it would all turn out and placement would have been different if I did. When I started I just wanted to be able to get tattooed by my favourite artists (and didn't want to go below the elbow) I do plan getting some backgrounds added though. Sorry for the crappy picture quality.

I am slammed at work, yet I just read this entire thread. And I'm glad that I did, because there's some great back and forth in it. Thanks to everyone who posted something good here. I don't count my tattoos, but I do keep a list of who has tattooed me. Two weeks from today, I'm getting something from someone who's been on my wish list for a few years now. He'll be artist #42 for me. Then again, I started getting tattooed 20+ years ago. Some of the names on that list are very well-known. Some of them are complete unknowns. One of them is no longer alive, two of them have since stopped tattooing, and three of them were shit on in the this thread's first post. ;) Not a single name on that list makes me better (or worse) than anyone else who gets tattooed. But every one of them is a part of a story--my story. Just as every tattoo I have comes with a story of its own. I love meeting people and sharing stories, which is part of what I love so much about getting tattooed and hanging out with awesome people like so many of you. I'll stop rambling now, but thanks again to those of you who made this thread worth reading.

That Cripwell suit is beautiful and so perfectly executed, but I find it a little too perfect for my tastes. Looking at those tattoos, I don't know if I get much of a sense of the person who has them. I guess aesthetically I prefer a more organic mish mash of tattoos where you get tattoos of different ages complimenting and clashing with each other and you get a whole that transcends any individual tattoo.

Women go to extreme measures to force their bodies to fit some...whatever, some stupid image that mostly males have foisted upon us that we are less, we're unworthy, if we don't look like this specific ideal. Anorexia, bulimia, eating cotton balls, exercising for hours, surgeries, heck yeah body image is a big part of our lives. Our every day lives, it's all around us, constantly. Men telling us what we can/can't do to *our* bodies, actually trying to pass LAWS to govern what males feel we should and shouldn't do..you know what after a while it gets to be a little fricking old. We're told and it's pretty much beaten into us, from a young age, little girls in elementary school, how we don't fit in w/other girls, and it never quits. Until you've been a girl, a girl who doesn't have a "perfect" body, perfect clothes, perfect hair, perfect skin, perfect teeth, a girl who has looked in the mirror and wished she was dead b/c of how she looks and how others treat her, until you've had your body completely taken over and warped from having kids and nursing, I think maybe a person should just shut their pie hole about how women should and shouldn't feel and how body image is portrayed.

I've been reading along and have both agreed and disagreed with various parts of everyone's posts. There are many good points made all around. But after reading this one, I've reached the point of diminishing returns on this thread. Everyone has their own body image. It's been developed and grown and mangled and thrust upon them over time and circumstances. Body image is not something many people can completely control. Maybe guys handle it better than girls. IDK. Maybe guys don't see it as a big deal. Some do. Many girls do. But to tell someone else what level of importance their own body image should have is insensitive and uninformed, especially since it's not something that is completely under someone's control. I could give some f'ed up examples of stuff that's happened to me that affect my body image in hard ways and I've worked on that over time. Some things will never go away. I'm now much less "sensitive" to certain things, especially things I now realize people say out of ignorance and not to be hurtful. Why do I "give a flying fuck" as you say, about what people think about my body? I wish I couldn't give a flying fuck, but the point is, it isn't completely under my control. I don't blame most people for being insensitive (unless they are just being a complete jackass) because I don't put out in public why I MIGHT be sensitive. The point is, you don't *know* other people's stories. Someone's body image of themselves may mean nothing to you, but affects them in ways they may try very hard not to reveal. So don't challenge people on it. $0.02.

Not sure about anyone else here, but I've had to tattoo over too many long-healed upper thigh scars on girls in my generation to gloss over body image issues so easily. Or heard girls that can't weigh more than 125 pounds talk about how they want to lose weight before they tattoo their ribs or belly. Or been asked about covering stretch marks from when they had kids, despite that being a completely normal and natural thing. Etc., etc., etc. So, rather than think you're entirely the victim and getting attacked here (which I would say has gone a bit overboard, based on misunderstanding of some of your original points due to poor phrasing and explanation), realize that you do have a warped understanding of how deeply body image can affect women who have been conditioned by society to hate their bodies. Also, you should worry far more about poorly done tattoos than tattoos that don't fit the body.

I think the most important lesson I learned from LST is normal, "boring", everyday people are usually the ones getting the awesome tattoos from talented artists. Before coming here I had the silly idea that only creative types with interesting jobs and exciting lives got the best tattoos.

"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! :)

Gotta say, when dars and stots are done right it makes a world of difference! Be it from empty space or a portion of your arm you got fucked up by someone who, at least at the time, didn't know his ass from a hole in the ground.. or had never even seen stars and dots filler.. So @Perez helped me out by doing some little filler yesterday and trying to get the half of my arm that was starred and dotted and looked like shit back on track. Here are two really terrible photos but I am so pumped that my arm basically looks the way I always thought it should! Can't believe I waited this long to get this done.. Thanks buddy!!

I had Ben Grillo jam in a little black and gray skull in a rose between some other pieces on my arm. I'm very happy with it. He also added an itsy bitsy spider and some single-needle webs on my elbow: