Isotope

Also, look at all the negative space and how well it helps the really old ones hold up.

Pics!

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Death to false BBQ!

I'm not going to lie, I'd eat that.

I unfortunately live in an uncivilized part of the world where what we call barbecue is actually grilling. There are starting to be some half-decent proper barbecue places, but it's still a rarity.

You poor soul.

In Florida (born and raised 24 years), pork and fish were king, and it was still real BBQ. As a kid, my Grandfather made me stack cinder blocks a certain way near the carport, and that was the pit for my entire childhood.

Moved to Texas and beef is king here, along with the central Europe/German style, so I got right to work trying to get it down because it is so damned delicious. If you ever come down here to get tattooed by some of our crazy good local shops, I'll give you a BBQ tour and fire up the pit at the house. Same goes for any LST'er.

Day 4. Collarbone harpoon. I sleep on my back. This morning my beard was full of black tattoo dandruff. Hurts like road rash to shower and can barely turn my neck.

Will BBQ for tattoos!!

Beef chuck short ribs

15 pound packer:

lamb spare ribs:

pork spares:

@Isotope I love the AMS rig! As a lifetime "accelerist", it is right up my alley!

Oh, yeah, the harpoon and roses are obviously monster good too!

Thank you! Here you go!

Oh! @Manu Manu That one was easy! The only part that hurt was the part that goes down onto my chest.

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@Isotope nice one!!!

how painful it was on the shoulder? thinking of getting a traditional dagger through the neck... maybe one day!

edit: and I'm curious: what the line work represent? Make me think of a technics turntable's arm!

The line work is a simple layout schematic of a stable isotope ratio mass spectrometer. It took some convincing to get an artist to do that one, especially on someone who was relatively untattooed at the time, so the artist didn't know whether I would flinch or not. Mike Pain at Atomic took it on when no one on his staff would touch it and handled it like a boss.

Thanks @Manu Manu ! The collarbone was the killer. I can normally shoot the shit no problem, but I had to grit my teeth a lot on this guy.

Really interesting thread. People (who know) sometimes tell me it's odd how into tattoos and tattooing I am, but how hard I work to keep everything covered even in everyday attire. I love it. My tattoos are for me and you only know about this extra dimension of my personality if I've let you get that close. Additional benefit: nobody in this weird University conservative cultural wasteland (College Station, TX) asks me about them.

Steve Lanier from Classic summed it up for me emotionally with his recent hashtag, #yourgrandpahadtoughtattoos. Yup.

This was done by Charley at True Blue in ATX. This is absolutely the cleanest linework I have on myself and I am so stoked/humbled/honored by this tattoo. I apologize for the glare. Great Grandpa and Great Great Uncle were Azorean whalers that settled in New England shortly before the whaling bust. Great Grandpa turned to working in a rubber factory until he could start his own floral business in bristol RI, Great great uncle went from whaling to building fishing schooners and racing yachts with Hereshoff.

Just got work done by Charley at True Blue, Red River, in Austin. Let me tell you, I'd love to keep it a secret, but he deserves the props.

Charley has been doing this a long long time. Knows just about any piece of American tattoo history you can care to bring up. He keeps a low profile, mostly catering to walk ins. He's JUST now working on a social media presence: https://instagram.com/charleymarquez

I came in and after seeing pics of two of his American traditional hand pieces, I asked him for a traditional rose with a whaling harpoon. One of his comments was "for every hundred tattoos, I get to do one like yours."

He smashed my idea out of the park, his execution was MIND blowing. And it was great to shoot the shit and talk tattoo history with someone else who has no filter.

I apologize for the glare, very fresh.

Wow, wow, wow. Thanks everyone for the comments, thoughts and support. I'm still pretty sore, but the spasm released yesterday night, so I can move again. I start physical therapy next tuesday!

They are infrequent, but when they hit, man. Gotten them since I was young and they get progressively worse.

I'm currently in one.

I can't stand up straight, my whole left side is shorter than my right. I look like effing Quasimodo. Kind of scary for a 30 yr old. Transitioning from sitting to standing and vice versa is hell, shot of 7-8 pain scale. I have to sit down and rest walking the 30 yards from my department building to my car. Laying flat on my back is still painful. I finally broke down and went to the sports med doctor yesterday.

Verdict is total loss of curvature in lower spine plus extreme muscle spasm. Steroid shot and RX for muscle relaxer, NSAID, and referral for physical therapy.

I'll be honest, I've gotten my best heals using just my immune system after taking the bandage off the next day. I just shower normally keep it clean like any skin wound.

Crappy tattoos get upvoted, good ones downvoted, and the mods think they are gods.

I spent a grand total of 5 seconds there upon reading quite authoritatively that Mike Malone was an apprentice of Sailor Jerry. A LOT of bad tattoos. I don't mean tattoos I wouldn't get, but bad tattoos.

And when I told him that it was was insulting and demeaning, whether he realized it or not, seeing as he qualified his statement with "good tattoo artist." This was the response I got:

I'm simply talking about the design work junior, and I don't give a rats ass if you or anyone else is offended that not only can I design, but I actually know

my human anatomy and can design as well and often times orders of magnitude better (we've all seen **** tattoos) than some people who ink even. I'm not saying I can ink, I'm talking about design.

Design is design, it doesn't change just because it's on a body for someone like me who's spent years learning every muscle and curve.

Hell I could get into Zbrush and actually design and render a tattoo on a human 3D model that I sculpted. Easy Peasy.

I'm sorry if the reaches of my artistic abilities are offensive to some. :P

Oh guess what, I could lay out a design on a car too - or an airplane, or a boat, or a dog, or a building, or a **** Tyrannosaurus Rex - doesn't matter.

Sorry for your ignorance in this matter!

Thanks guys. It just struck right in my heartstrings as VERY condescending and patronizing, born out of confident ignorance.

It would be this guy's first tattoo, a boat that was in the family to honor his dad.

This is from another, tattoo unrelated forum I frequent. Related to another hobby. A long time member was looking for tattoo advice and help with a sketch. I chimed in and recommended casually that he find an artist he wants to book with, pay the deposit, sit down and talk with them, and let them do the sketch, rather than people on this tattoo-unrelated hobby board. Another member who is a book illustrator chimed in:

...That said I've seen enough tattoos in my 44 years that I'm pretty sure my professional illustration background would serve just fine

in doing a drawing that would work on the body as well as any good tattoo artist. Not any different despite what Isotope says (he's making assumptions)

things that look good in that space:

flowers

spiderwebs

girl head

compass

tudor rose

mace on a chain going over the shoulders and through the neck

butterfly

spider

scorpion

snake

beetle

GREAT list, thank you!

I guess I really wanted some other tattoo folks opinions. Seeing it every day, it's nice to get some outside perspective.

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Actually, I think I had a stroke of inspiration this morning. Being born and raised in backwoods Florida, hear me out:

Traditional panther head, face on, but Florida Panther instead of the traditional black. Instead of daggers, Florida paleo-Indian spears/shell axe.

So this shoulder "patch" of flash and chest piece is driving me nuts; more specifically, the negative space in between them seems awkward. I have to keep it quarter sleeve for professional reasons. I'm kind of getting the itch to ask an artist (yes I have one in mind)... to add new work to the space and make something cohesive and solid. Like I said in my intro thread: zero artistic creativity. I would be relying and completely dependent on the artist to tie my interests/desire together. I don't know how ok this is. Any thoughts or advice on would be appreciated... Sorry for the crappy mirror photo.

I think it's arguable that there is no single stronger body image equalizer and transcender than good tattooing.

I'm extremely lucky. The love of my life is a Plainskin by choice, but she loves my tattoos. To her they speak to the commitment I give to get to where I've gotten in my life, especially given where I started. Her only request ever has been for me to tell her what I'm planning to get before I book.

Ha, thanks. No color, just black and grey shading. Lots more to do with it. I went to the black and grey master, so hopefully it will finish up photorealistic.

It's funny, I showed my back at the start of the session and the only reaction was "lookit all that white skin!" It was a relief for sure.

I definitely cannot wait to see the finished version with detail pics of head, scutes, etc. Awesome. You're stoked. Bravo. :D

I don't know how to share this type of Instagram post, and certainly can't from my phone, but here's a link to my chest tattoo, done today by Steve Byrne at Rock of Ages.

http://instagram.com/p/0i-naeNBEe/

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

That is AWESOME! So gorgeous. I would love to get work from both Steve and Tony eventually!