Isotope

One tiny little touch up/detail session left next month!

One tiny little touch up/detail session left next month!

This weekend's brisket.

I love this thread.

Thank you everyone here for sharing your journey so far. So much incredible work. This truly is a crucible, and it has really been sinking in more and more just how special it still is.

Because it's a diatribe railing against the butter industry. We must use knives only for meat, not soft and salty pats of fermented milk.

Because the easiest way to make a tattoo tougher is to put a dagger in it!

Just because you got something stabbing through your head doesn't mean that you're having a bad time

I try to bring BBQ, coffee, etc. And I tip every session.

Frankly, @Thenegativeone, it's really naive to think that cultural destruction is only ever "entirely perpetrated by the state". Cultural appropriation happens any time you disassociate the images and symbols of a culture from their original meaning and start valuing them purely aesthetically or stereotypically. So the filmmaker @Graeme mentioned is not being childish. Her people, their language and their practices had been systematically brought to the brink of extinction. And now she and others are working to revive those traditions and reinvigorate those cultural practices. Can you imagine if blonde college girls started getting twee "native tattoos" based on those designs that you've fought so hard to bring back to your community? Wouldn't you be pissed? We should listen to people when they say they have a problem with these things. (This also happens often in a myriad of ways that are not tattoo related.) It's ok to appreciate things from afar. Be interested and active in learning about different tattoo practices and their cultural meanings, be supportive of it, but don't just blindly co-opt things because it looks cool.
The Vikings thing is interesting. To me it's not culturally appropriative in the sense I described above, and I think a big part of that is that there was never really an attempt to wipe out Viking history/culture (not in the way that happened to Native Americans). With that said, I wouldn't go about getting runes or tattoos found in old mummies, for example.

Ta Moko designs are based around genealogy, social rank and status, accomplishments, and so on, so I could see a hypothetical situation where you got a Maori tattoo because "they have the most badass warrior culture on earth" and ended up getting a tattoo that describes somebody else's life and family. Would Maoris be offended by this? I don't know, but they'd probably think you're a dumbass for getting a tattoo of something that you're engaging with so superficially.
I do think the same goes for Viking stuff. If you're going to get magical staves tattooed on you, it's probably best to understand what you're getting and what it means. The trend a few years ago of people getting Masonic imagery is another example of this: you might think it looks cool and mysterious and occult, but people who know how to read the imagery know you have gibberish on you and you come across as a moron as a result. I don't see how getting a tattoo just because it looks cool and having no understanding beyond that is any different than somebody getting kanji while not understanding the language.

More progress... this session was at the Austin Star of Texas Tattoo Art Revival Convention. It was my first time being tattooed at a convention with so many people going through, I was nervous at first, but once the rubber hit the road, it was a lot of fun, and the distraction of all the people was a huge help.

More progress... this session was at the Austin Star of Texas Tattoo Art Revival Convention. It was my first time being tattooed at a convention with so many people going through, I was nervous at first, but once the rubber hit the road, it was a lot of fun, and the distraction of all the people was a huge help.

More progress... this session was at the Austin Star of Texas Tattoo Art Revival Convention. It was my first time being tattooed at a convention with so many people going through, I was nervous at first, but once the rubber hit the road, it was a lot of fun, and the distraction of all the people was a huge help.

More progress... this session was at the Austin Star of Texas Tattoo Art Revival Convention. It was my first time being tattooed at a convention with so many people going through, I was nervous at first, but once the rubber hit the road, it was a lot of fun, and the distraction of all the people was a huge help.

More progress... this session was at the Austin Star of Texas Tattoo Art Revival Convention. It was my first time being tattooed at a convention with so many people going through, I was nervous at first, but once the rubber hit the road, it was a lot of fun, and the distraction of all the people was a huge help.

More progress... this session was at the Austin Star of Texas Tattoo Art Revival Convention. It was my first time being tattooed at a convention with so many people going through, I was nervous at first, but once the rubber hit the road, it was a lot of fun, and the distraction of all the people was a huge help.

Wow, just finished reading this thread from start to finish. First things, there are some truly eloquent opinions on here, and I'm really impressed that there has been so much in the way of disagreement and debate handled in a proper grown up way..... Surely it is a rariety indeed to find an online discussion which features strong opinions that has not degraded into name calling or worse. I kept thinking I wish some of those people who judge the heavily tattooed as stupid could read some of these posts!
Secondly, my humble opinion is that there is a distinct difference between seeking out a tattooer solely because they are a well known name and doing so because they do solid, beautiful work that appeals to you (and they're well known). I'm very lucky to have been tattooed by some well known tattooists, but every single one of them I have chosen because it is their work that speaks to me first and foremost. I'm also extremely lucky to have had lovely, positive experiences with those guys, so much so that I've been back for more! A tattoo is so much more than the image you're left with. I pride myself on my collection, but have been known to be tattooed by people I've never heard of because I got good vibes from them. Last year at Brighton I got tattooed on whim by Stewart OC (who was then at Prick, London) because I walked by his booth, we got talking and just got on. I thought, I want this guy to have my money! I'd just started my apprenticeship and he was so lovely, offering advice etc.
And last of all, as a tattooer myself, someone who is constantly working on improving, putting the best tattoo I can on (not just thinking about that instagram photo!), I do come across customers who clearly only want to be tattooed by certain people because they have a 'name', like it's more important to have been touched by those people than for them to have a good tattoo. That definitely irks me! Sometimes I think that comes from ignorance and the assumption that just because you've heard of someone that they MUST be better than someone you haven't heard of. But as as an anyone who has a 'hidden gem' in their local shop knows, that's not always the case!

Not now, maybe not ever. Why would you get tattooed on your back anyway, you'll never see it, and unless you plan on spending most of your time shirtless, neither will anybody else.

I really agree with this, and I think there's certainly an extent to which, especially if you're fairly new to getting tattooed and want good tattoos but maybe lack the self-confidence to look at a portfolio and say, fuck yes, this is what I want, that there's a sort of reassurance and validation that comes from going to a tattooer with a well-known name. I don't mean this to denigrate anybody because I've been there and I'm sure most people here have experienced this to some degree or another. I mean, I got my first tattoo from Seth Wood, who needless to say is absolutely fucking incredible and who I really credit with setting me on the path to get tattooed how I do, but when I got tattooed by him I didn't know shit about tattoos, I didn't know he was a pretty big deal, and while I wanted to get tattooed by him because he was the person at the Montreal convention who's tattoos spoke most to me, I remember looking at stuff on the Internet about how to look at portfolios and how to look at linework and shading and what not (this was before I knew about LST) and I was checking that against what I'd seen of Seth's tattoos and to be honest, though everything seemed good, I had really no experience to tell good from bad.
I also think that an important part of getting tattooed is that it's the sort of thing that you can only start to figure out by getting tattooed, so maybe the tattoos you got when you started getting tattooed wouldn't be the tattoos you would get when you have more experience getting tattooed, but that's the beauty of tattooing.

I want to get tattooed by people who do tattoos that I can feel in my gut, which is to say that when I see an artist's tattoos, or look through their portfolio or on their instagram or whatever (though more and more for me I want to see the tattoos, and not just pictures of them) I want to have a deeper reaction than just thinking that it's a good looking tattoo, and I want to have a good time getting those tattoos. I've been tattooed by some "big names" and I've travelled a fair bit to get tattooed, and to be honest, I feel a little self-conscious about it because--and maybe this is only in my head--I fear coming across as somebody who buys into that kind of almost celebrity culture that sometimes goes along with tattoo collecting that I think @Pugilist articulated very well. Because for me it's not about that and it was never about that. I just want to get rad tattoos.

This thread really makes me only want to get tattooed by people older than me like Bob Roberts and Eddy Deutsche. I realize it wasn't your original point (I too am wary of the star culture in tattooing) but your misinformed dismissals ('there are limits'!) are so offensive to me that I can't get over it. In the end I realize it comes down to different sensibilities and what I'm looking for in tattoos is obviously very different from yours. BUT, if I can add my 2 cents as a person who's been tattooed by both Eddy Deutsche and Bob Roberts, Eddy is the most 'PMA' guy ever (if that's what you're after). If you're looking for an 'experience' or stories, Eddy and Bob have plenty. The flash at Spotlight has bullet holes. (The fact that the stencil is made from the original flash push pinned on the wall alone makes it almost worth getting the tattoo to be a part of the history.) Nothing 'soft' or 'squiggly' about my Bob Roberts tattoo. There's no question about Eddy's technical ability. I think every respectable tattooer would disagree with you on this point. I think people with 'perfect' tattoos look uptight--not what I'm going for (not interested in putting computer graphics on my body either). Any imperfections will add to its beauty.