Rad Kelham

That's the whole point! I LIKE being a dick about it! Getting you guys all riled up while I'm riding the bus or making a sandwich or taking a crap! The subtle backhanded compliment. Making you angry and loving it! Bahahaha plebeians! I don't really care about any of this. I'll get a stick and poke tomorrow or a trad piece the following day. Muh ha ha ha ha. Tequilaaaaaaaaaaa bitchesssss!

A tried and true method for making it through painful tattoo sessions is dayquil + nyquil, so you're halfway there! Personally I like to add some red wine to the mix too.

You've watched some widely available documentaries and read some recently published easy to obtain books, you must be really good at research.

You're cute. I remember when I had been getting tattooed for 4 years and thought I was an expert. However you do have me beat for chatting about tattoos on the internet - must feel good to be such a heavy hitter here ;-)

My opinions are after studying it, not based in ignorance. I own the Amund Dietzel biography and multiple sailor jerry books which i have read and traced and painted cover to cover. I can tell you about Stoney St. Clair and of him being interviewed by Ed Hardy, and Ed Hardy working up in Vancouver Canada way back in the day. I can tell you what "flash" actually means, how it was created, tattooed, traded, and improved upon. I can point out intentional mistakes in Sailor Jerry flash where he tried to protect his work from being copied. I spend 5 days a week in a shop full of classic flash and have 15 years of obsessively reading everything about all styles of tattoos. I've got some friends who are excellent traditional tattooers (who know I don't really care for the style). So call me rude asshole but don't say I have no interest in understanding traditional. I'm well informed and perhaps even more educated on the topic than you (or maybe not). I even have some traditional tattoos and plans to get some more. I just refuse to be a fanboy to them while ignoring everything else. I also know excellent tattooers and other collectors who share the same opinion as me but are too polite to come out and say it. I'm not interested in making friends here, just having the real talk about tattoos.

Hey, I was commenting on the whole thread. And the dude is classic good vibe material. You misinterpreted me. Sorry.

Shit. Too many good points.

https://youtu.be/gbIv7W7rhx4

Cute Beagle Is Bloated: https://youtu.be/8qYiX_b35EQ

Thank you. I'm not trying to replace my hairline or anything and it often looks like a scuba suit if you have your neck tattooed and into a full head. I don't care what other people do but that's not my chosen aesthetic. It's more about getting the important images than coverage for me. @Rad Kelham

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In fact I gave Jeff Zuck more space to work with but he felt like this was the best approach for this particular image and I'm inclined to agree...vs stretching images or elements for the sake of coverage.

Yeah I agree about the scuba suit - that's why I'm growing my hair back. Anyway this is my fave tattoo I've seen on here. Bravo.

Another Jeff Zuck piece from the Roc City Tattoo Expo. Rad guy, Great tattooer.

Super nice. But why not do the whole head?

I've always loved traditional tattooing because of how it ages. Ive seen in person a lot of underwater super colorful shit and it never looks good old. I've also seen in person a lot of old biker tattoos that look like shit. Never seen any old traditional tattoos that I had to stop and ask "what is that,' because even when they look like grease stains, they look better than any other kinda grease stains.

And now for the circle jerk: the higgs druid. That elder who does the same goddamn thing every day and has been doing it for hundreds of years and will keep doing it for hundreds of years. Thats fucking cool man. Thats power. Real spiritual mental power. Also the first tattoo time got me thinking about them this way. As far as art and the evolution of tattooing and tattoo art... I got a lot of devo records from my dad when I was a kid and i dont know if we arent men

I'll just put this here again. 26 years old.

@beez, points taken.

People love to say "that's not gonna last" with regard to newer styles of tattoos, and that traditional tattoos will last.

Pardon me, but let's get real folks - that attitude is largely horse crap. Those old traditional tattoos on our parents and older, they mostly look like shit now. Have you seen any real sailor jerry tattoos now? Unrecognizable. All tattoos age and degrade.

On the other hand, here is an Eddy Deutsche sleeve completed in 1989 which I photographed less than a year ago. This piece is over 25 years old at the time of the photo. Dude also had an OLDER Guy Aitchison sleeve on the other arm and it looked equally good.

And I also agree that this place is pretty aggressive. I make some unpopular comments, but they are opinions on tattooing in general. In response I often get personal attacks, like my art is crap and I don't deserve a tattoo machine tattooed on my hand. Now that's just plain rude stuff.

Well, I think a good majority here are aware of these people. I love Aaron Cain, Pacheco and James Tex. Certainly not oblivious to it. I'm also certain that I don't have a tattoo machine tattooed on my hand, but I can recognize most on site. There isn't a Captain Big Nuts card to attain around here. I certainly am not interested in making anyone stay if they feel like they don't belong. Just know your audience. Period.

Glad to hear you have some good taste for the true greats as well as the popular trad guys.

Only regular size nuts in my shorts.

Apologies for not knowing my machines. I've only been exposed to the Jim Rosal and Dave Richmond machines in my boss' quiver. Having something tattooed on your hand doesn't mean you have to be able to name each and every one of its kind. I have a sailboat on my other hand but can't name each and every boat on the dock.

Filip Leu, who? Never heard of the guy. He some instagram phenom? Ha ha!

Just some washed up old timer who can't even do traditional tattoos ;-)

That's not what I said at all. You have a relationship and wide exposure to tattoos and I respect your tastes even if they're not my tastes. I just think that traditional tattoos are harder for the layman to appreciate because they're not as flashy.

I agree with that, that traditional is harder for the general populace to appreciate. Heck, my apprenticeship has given me a new appreciation of traditional. I just traced the entire sailor jerry encyclopedia of flash, and I liked it a lot. However, this place needs to open their eyes to these people: Aaron Cain, Guy Aitchison, Marcus Pacheco, Mike Cole, Rob Koss, Filip Leu, Don McDonald, Steve Moore, Carson Hill, Cory Kruger, James Tex, and like 30 more that this forum doesn't give a fuck about. These guys can tattoo circles around Mike Chambers et al. What the fucking fuck? I'm so fed up I'm going to quit hanging out here.

I just spent the afternoon chopping wood for my mentor. I've got blisters and a belly full of tequila, so apologies for the rant.

Traditional and Japanese are hands down my favorite styles of tattooing. A really interesting thing is happening in the development of traditional tattoos right now, where artists are keeping in tradition with the technique and tools of prior generations but really branching out in subject matter, concept, and style. For instance, look at the work of James McKenna, Aidan Monahan, or Slawomir Nietschke. All of whom keep with the bold line, heavy black, saturated color, negative space ratios, and dynamic designs, while exploring very interesting and wacky themes. Or even the less weird but still very advanced and finessed work of artists like Herb Aeurbach, Paul Dobleman, or Gordon Combs. It's a super cool and exciting thing to be happening within a particular school of thought and is what makes the style most interesting to me.

It seems to me that the general populace prefers realism or new school tattoos, or even the more painterly stuff. If that's your preference, I don't really care, but I do attribute it largely to ignorance and a magpie effect.

So liking these is ignorant? My tattoo appreciation was largely shaped in Canada. At the time Steve Moore was pretty much the most respected tattooer in the country amongst tattooers. His style, technique, and level of awesome was light years beyond everyone else, according to tattooers, not the general pop.

Remember all the times you were having sex with her but pretending she was another woman. Or waiting until she falls asleep so you can jerk off thinking of other women. Now, go have sex with those other women.

@Rad Kelham Invalid link is all I'm getting .

Hmm...how about now:

Hey Folks. This is my first flash sheet I just completed as an apprentice. I had 40 prints made (11x14"). And am selling them for $10 or $15 shipped each (USA). I'm also interested in trading for your prints. Thanks![ATTACH]12513[/ATTACH]

Yeah that was bad advice. Let me try again: move to a new city. Start a new life. Never look back. Get a small dog, start skateboarding again after many years. Basically reinvent yourself and pretend the old life never existed, that way you can avoid your suffering entirely. A new hairdo is a good idea too. Go incognito.

Thanks for the critique. I made it super busy and nuts because I was thinking about Watson Atkinson's work from the late 90s early 2000s. I also like to fill every possible area like I've done with the tattoos on me!

Beer. Drugs. Hookers.

Nice!