UglyButProud

Got this done by Chad Koeplinger today!

Finished off my second rib panel today with Dave C. at PSC tattoo. I'll use the royal "we" and say that we knocked this out in three sessions starting in late September, about 8 hours total. I'm super stoked on it, the colour in the tiger really pops!
Dave is a great guy, and his work speaks for itself, seek him out.

A couple of pics taken professionally at the London convention, my first professional pics taken, some girl just grabbed me and took me into a room and said strip off lol
Still got two days with Victor as he is not totally happy with my back piece, not sure what he wants to do.
Its for a magazine, cant remember if its skin deep or one of them.
Anyhow here are some stunning shots of my superb body!

Got this little beauty at the NB HubCity Tattoo con one week ago.
A little hotstuff by Sailor Jerry Swallow, Canada's oldest tattooer. He was taught by Charlie Snow, who was taught by F.A Baldwin, who is arguably one of the first tattooers in Canada. He has the title of Hori from Horihide (Yes, that Horihide) and has been tattooing for over 50 years. He knew all the greats personally. Worked with Malone, Zeke, Jack, Irons, Huck, and all the others. Said Norman Collins was an asshole and Hardy was disrespectful. haha
Funny thing is, the lady who wanted to get a tattoo before me didn't even know who he was and wanted to get a tribal design out of a magazine. haha

decided to go with a japanese background for my tattoos, i liked the idea of a mix of tradtional americana with some nice clouds

Most of the outlining done today. Next appt is Christmas Eve, so will outline the underarm and then do all the shading. I don't think there will be time for color so that will be later. There is a mum at the bottom that curves around to the front of my arm, to tie in w/the mum on the opposite side. Then wind/water meet and swirl in the middle.
Sadly, I am not bad assed enough to handle this becoming a full back piece. That very bottom bit of wind/water he added today was the clincher. Yikes.

started today...finish next month...
can't go wrong w/snake and rose right? didn't have either...ScottSylvia's the best :)

At last, a picture with color. The lines are healed and the color is fresh. After it's all healed I'd like to take a photo in better light. This was done by the amazing Gilda Acosta at Fatty's Tattoos in Washington DC, working from photographs of the actual flowers. They are botanically correct!

Thinking of adding a bird to the other shoulder blade next. Or continuing the flowers across my arm. Or both...

So I went for my appointment with Tomas Tomas today.
Trying some different styles :)
Had me toes done lol, wasnt a lot we could do really with just toes but I think once it settles down and its the same colour as the snake, should fit in great.
He showed me a vid and said this pattern is from some tribe from the Amazon. Now all I need is some animal skin leather pants ;p
Hes a fucking awesome crack :)

meh ok here is a pic :)
from the amazing Steve Boltz
totally good time talking mostly golf
turns out Steve is an avid golfer and pretty good
I'm neither but I love stogies and beer with friends
and lets face it - thats more important than a decent backswing ;)
anyway - funky fish on my bicep...

Been ages since I posted on this forum, don't really know why since I have been lurking every now and then. Guess i've been more into real life outside world thingies and started university again.
Anyway a friend of mine put this on my leg. Just to get some panties in a twist: this was not done in a shop, but in a bedroom.

edit: It's about 2 months healed

Session two with Dave C. Got a lot done in about 2 1/2 hours. I was nervous going into this sitting as we had just done the outline last week. I was a little worried my psych wouldn't be there, but in the end it went pretty well. Glad not to have more ribs after this though.

Not to interrupt your "keeping it real" moment, but you are missing the principle reason, admitted or not, that most 'artists' sign up for this contest. It is not because they have hopes of winning it; win, lose or get laughed off, I bet you their business goes through the roof (at least in the short term) because every chump with no clue wants a sweet-tatty from "that guy from the TV". They can now forever scrawl those magic words "as seen on season xxxx of...." which all the rubes will eat up from now until forever.
That's the real shame of these shit-shows, IMO.

Dan Higgs black heart done by Josh Brown (Josh changed the color scheme some). Forgive the wonky photos; I realized this wasn't the easiest spot to photograph.

Finally got some half-way decent healed photos of my Hooper musician leg.
On the other hand, trying to paste together such a single photo is near impossible, at least for an old geezer like me.

I'll reactivate the squidpants thread by putting this there, too . . .

reactivating this thread with my Thomas Hooper piece:

Awesome weekend at the London Convention. There were some awesome tattoos walking around and being created, not least on some LSTers. Congratulations to everyone that got some work. Everything I have seen so far looks great. I didn't get anything big or dramatic this weekend. Just this little guy by Len Leye at Clan of Tusk in Belgium. Really nice guy and fun time getting tattooed. It you don't know his work then check out his instagram.

Here's mine from Friday at the London convention, done by Tony Hundahl. So unbelievably happy with this one!

Nicked the picture from Tony's instagram as my camera is broken

Got this Shishi Lion from Alix Ge at the London convention yesterday (pic nicked from her instagram):

When I arrived, Alix was still drawing. She told me we couldn't put the tattoo on the side of my thigh like I had asked for because for that I would have to lie down and she only had a chair. Well, alright then. When I came back from a short tour around the convention she had obviously done another drawing which was much bigger than the first. She thought the animal had to be rather large to be nice, good with me. But she didn't think we could fit peonies as well, would I be happy with cherry blossoms instead...? Bummer...what? Noooo...! Oh well, so we agreed to put on the lion stencil and see then. Stencil went on, peonies were added freehand. No problem, all fitted on there nicely....but...that was gonna be a looong session. If I was a strong woman, she asked. Ermmmmm, well, I bl**dy hoped so...what else could I say? She looked at me particularly sceptical after she found out it was only my second tattoo....
Obviously, we made it, yippie!!!
Six hours on a folding chair with two breaks. Even though I got some odd looks and remarks for running around with a pillow under my arm, I was well glad I had brought it because it made the chair way more comfortable! Apart from that, getting tattooed at the convention was actually surprisingly good as there was so much to watch and get distracted by. I could openly stare at all the tattoos walking by and quite a few people gave me encouraging smiles and words. That was really cool.
Alix is super lovely and I kinda felt a little bad for her having to sit on her small suitcase for hours. Towards the end she told me that she wouldn't be able to do what I did and that she'd never get a tattoo that takes more than one hour herself. I doubt that's actually true, but it was a sweet thing to say anyway.
Suffice to say I'm super chuffed but also glad it's over!
And this morning my 3 1/2 year old greeted me excitedly with "Mummy, I have a tattoo, too!". Turns out the entire family has tattoos now, some of them of the temporary type, some rather not ;-)

Most artists are confident in there work and thrive on and get inspired by seeing others work. It's almost a friendly rivalry like "oh they did that awesome piece, watch what I can do". I found in my personal experience, It inspires most artists to step up their game.
The only time you would be disloyal to an artist is if you commit to have them design/draw an entire sleeve, start the work, then go to someone else to finish or change or add to it. That wouldn't be an issue if you were getting several pieces to make up a sleeve, as the thread is speaking about.

Finally got to visit State of Grace and get my Molly Monmon Cat from Horitomo!
He did an amazing job. Just spectacular. I sent several pictures of her and some descriptions of her favorite things, her personality and her character. She *loved* shrimp sushi and got an entire order for her 16th birthday, right before we lost her to cancer. Horitomo created a picture of her in heaven with a halo and surrounded by her favorite things - including that she is surrounded by catnip! The face is perfect. I gave him a decent size square footage and told him he could expand beyond the cat and add other elements. Her face is perfect. When he showed me the sketch, my eyes just teared up.
It was neat to be tattooed on the platform in the shop. It is a little sanctuary with neat drawings, books and items on shelves. He is a quiet gentle soul.
I tried tebori for the whites and I probably would not do it again. For many areas, I didn't even feel the first 4-5 pokes. It just felt like a shoving pressure but there was *no* pain. Then the last several shoves were painful. But around my hip was bad all around. I'm glad I did it, though.
Crashing out now holed up in the hotel with mom. <3 <3 <3

Steve byrne Rock of Ages austin tx

Fresh one...

Got this wicked draw-on zen spider from Jonny Murdoch from Government Street Tattoo (Victoria) who is in Edmonton for the week.
Also this smug lil bumble bee too:

the idea of which came to me in a dream 3 nights in a row...then i googled "angry bumble bee" and bam! clipart reference on the first hit.
These toonie sized tatts are so much fun. Hooray for "recreational tattooing" lol.
Jonny's hanging at Champion Tattoo, Shawn Hedley's new shop in town. Super dope shop, nice hospitality, guess they got a bunch of ringers guest spotting in the future...better leave some space ;) Great tattoo talk yesterday and I got to see a backpiece Filip Leu and Kurt Wiscombe tag teamed up close. Amazzzzzzzing

This is what I was able to sit for today with Dave Cummings at PSC tattoo. About 3 hours, and not nearly as intense as my 1 1/2 with Chad on my other side, thank goodness! We stopped there because the next step was colour for the tiger, and I didn't have it in me. Next session next week, healing permitting.
So stoked on this!