smiling.politely

I'm always stoked that some (if not most) of the guys with work like that will let us photograph them. They seem to be stoked that we're as interested in them as we are, and are glad to have someone willing to let them talk an ear or two off. Also, the Hot Stuff is facing backwards on that gentleman's arm... I would assume it's because they didn't have an acetate facing each way.

This one will be a bit photo heavy... First one is on a fellow who came in and got a family crest on his forearm, said he got this 30 or so years ago early in his time in the military, but couldn't afford the lettering the first visit. He had to go back a two weeks later to add it. Second one is on a guy who came in from meeting my dad at the VA. He got his somewhere in Kentucky, also early in his military service. The rest are on the fellow I mentioned earlier who got his in 1964. If I recall, the Hot Stuff was in Chicago, the hula girl was in Hawaii, and the rest were either Hawaii or San Diego. The last one is the only one we couldn't easily decipher... theories were mostly a heart/banner/leaves design, or a sparrow.

Not the latest work I have, but a few days after the Friday the 13th tattoo I got on the bottom of my foot, I gave doing one on the bottom of my other foot a go. The first hit was 34 days ago. After nine days, it pretty much looked like this, so I gave it another pass. Scabbing finally finished falling off a few days ago. There's a bit of what I think Shawn Porter called "iguana skin" around it, although not as severe as what he had on his Occult Vibrations finger tattoo updates. Probably going to work into it again soon, just to see if I can get it to stick... learning the hard way.

I have a few I can post a bit later today, when I can resize them. We had an old timer in with his granddaughter when she got tattooed, who had just gotten a rose while visiting California, and was showing us his old tattoos from the mid-60s. Done in Chicago, Hawaii, and San Diego, so I know we were looking at some gold. I have a few others here and there I can dig up as well, but those are the ones that stuck out in my mind...

Started this guy in my free time between appointments and walk-ins the last few days. Drawn for a client, although I decided to paint it out since he still insisted on having tribal flames as a framing element. Blown up to 12"x16", not sure how I'll finish out the remaining space just yet.

Just booked in to do my right hand with Steve Byrne at the West Texas Tattoo Convention. Still waiting to hear back from Daniel Albrigo on time and such. One of my co-workers just booked in with Paul Dobleman as well... beyond excited!

Very early in my apprenticeship, a friend of a friend came in to get tattoos on the front of her thighs... she made up a fairy tale for about 15 minutes (of about 1.5 hours of constant talking) to take her mind off of it. That wasn't the weirdest stretch of her talking, either.

@exume Can he get out? Will he get out? Course he will.

I have a few small filler pieces that are TV related... the skull logo from The Mighty Boosh and the name of a ship in a Starfleet Academy training simulation, Kobayashi Maru, in Japanese. Definitely wanting to do a little Twin Peaks owl symbol on my thumb at some point, and I have plans for a few others here and there. Mostly just fillers, but we'll see... I keep doing flash sheets with music, TV, and movie references, and wind up doing one or two designs I want to get per sheet.

My father's older tattoos are black and grey with minimal color, sort of what I would call biker traditional (i.e.- screaming eagle in fine line style, etc.). He also has a lot of black and grey from the '90s, but he's grown an appreciation of the traditional American and Japanese styles since I started getting tattooed. He's got a bunch of color pieces filling formerly empty spaces, and they look great. Do what you want to do, just be sure to find a good tattooer.

I also back trying to book in with Ron Henry Wells... he does fantastic nautical themed tattoos, with a good dose of his style. There's a whale or two I'm thinking of specifically, but I can't seem to find them.

Working on my front with my boss tomorrow, and going to place some phone calls this week to see if people are looking to book for the West Texas Tattoo Convention yet... The line up last year was fantastic, and is looking even more insane this time.

Not quite that gnarly... he was in during the Cold War, and missed combat. However, I have been told that all three events could have gotten several people discharged, court martialed, and/or jail sentences for select people involved.

First, quit doing what you're doing. Throw any remaining needles or ink you have in the trash. Second, get tattooed for years. Third, hope someone give you a chance. Fourth, as much as no one wants to hear it, and no one really listens to it, the best sentiment as to why it's hard to get a chance is something Valerie Vargas said in an interview recently: "Just because you want to tattoo, doesn't mean you should tattoo." You have to prove to someone they can trust you to not waste their time, and your approach does the exact opposite of that.

The short shot of the anchor/skull tattoo by Oliver on a forearm is actually on my fiancée. Having gone to visit her in Limerick a few times and learned about the mentality there, it is a pretty rough city, especially for how small it really is. That being said, I've enjoyed my visits there fairly well. I've not met Ross, but the times I've been in there, Paul and Ciaran were super nice and seemed to treat everyone with respect. They have a new counter girl since then named Emma who's very nice as well. Next European tattoo trip, I'll be trying to get tattooed there, since I some how haven't yet.

Messaged.

@cltattooing That reaper is fantastic! I'm pretty sure you could sell most of the regulars on this site two prints of it each. Also, a sheet of repaints from the Lost Art From Tattooing's Past book from the last few days. Threw some lower than usual prices on them, although I don't expect anyone to get them, even with that. Maybe some of my friends would be interested, but we'll see.

Anyone here know of a tattooer that's been sued for malpractice? I'm unsure it's happened, but with the number of people we have here, and the combined years of experience and knowledge that's floating around, I'd be interested to know. Because the fact of the matter is a medical release for a hospital and a tattoo release form are wildly different, period. A tattoo isn't an appendectomy. I'm sure there are states where paperwork and care and such are actually not legally required, based on what I know about many states' lax licensing laws. In terms of what's legally required for people in a tattoo shop to do for their clients, there's no national legal standard overall, and I'd imagine that if you went from state to state where licensing is more strict, you'd still find heavy variances between what's required. I came into this forum originally asking questions and saying things about which I probably had no right to in a lot of ways, I was treated pretty roughly (far more than anyone in this thread is), and it made me think that I should look at myself and level of knowledge, look at others' level of knowledge, and assess my right to blab away. In almost two years here, I have hardly posted as a result of that. I've been around tattooing literally my entire life... I spent a great deal of my early youth with my parents while they got tattooed in a shop operated by white supremacists and bikers while my father tried to keep the guy that ran the place out of trouble/jail... and realized that I didn't know enough to have an opinion that mattered yet. Still not sure that my opinion matters on a lot of things yet, but I try my best every day to learn. EDIT: for the sake of clarification, neither of my parents were white supremacists. However, in the days of tattooing being illegal, you couldn't be too picky if you wanted a good tattoo. If a guy had a sucky personality, you just had to learn to keep your mouth shut, or not get tattooed.

@GrayCatLove I'm amazed you'd call something like this reason for leaving a tattooer compared to the fellow in the "Worst Tattoo Customer" thread (or whatever it was called). Trust me, forgetting an aftercare talk is far more forgivable that what that fellow was doing to his customer. There is a glaring difference between the two. And perhaps the tattooer assumed that since the person who started this thread had a smaller tattoo on the wrist, that they'd remember that bit of instructions, especially if it was recent. I've not been given aftercare instructions since my first tattoo, actually. I do have a lot on my arms, and lots from a small group of people, but by that equation I shouldn't have been tattooed by the person who gave me a job scrubbing toilets to earn an apprenticeship more than once. Or any tattooer that I've been back to, for that matter. And while paperwork in my state includes a little walk through about the basic issues one could have, and you fill that out pre-tattoo, i'd imagine one in five hundred reads the release in full, having watched a few thousand copies of that paperwork get filled out.

When I went to Frith Street over the summer, my fiancée and I arrived for our second day of appointments, and Stewart was sitting up front waiting for his appointment with his hair in pigtails. I would have chuckled and complimented him, were I not so focused on being quiet and respectful the whole time I was there! Can't wait for a year when I can make it over to London for the convention... 2014 or 2015, if all goes according to plan!

@thebadnewshughes "Oates" was my favorite! I've had this lil idea in my head for a week on layering paintings on top of each other to see how they'd look... initially, I was thinking just images over text, but during my down time today, I started a full 11x14 of what I'm seeing. I'll update with a finished photo in a day or so. There's black palm sized designs on top of this, and I'm going to add a layer of lettering similar to the dagger still... Looking at it a bit more, I'm seeing my mind being influenced by the collage/layered work from Hardy and de Vita, as well as some influence from a printmaker named Sean Starwars and his Woodcuts printed on old billboard paper. But, I don't want to analyze it too much.

Just saw this posted on Facebook... talked my dad into a little hand poked heart on his forearm at the end of the night. Don't have any good finished photos, though. I'll try to get one sometime that's in focus and such. His last hand poked tattoo was in the military in the late '70s or early '80s... it was one you had to earn through some sort of actions, of which he's only ever told me part of the story. And even that bit was pretty rough, so I'm unsure if he'll ever tell me the rest.

Absolutely not... it's one thing to finish a line when someone says stop, but to hold them there and keep working as long as he does is unprofessional.

This has always seemed staged to me... and if it wasn't, she shouldn't have been allowed in the chair.

Got this yesterday before our shop opened... not expecting it to stay, mind you. If it somehow does, we're going to stipple shade it at some point.