Reyeslv

That Chad Koeplinger and Jondix piece is nothing short of pure awesomeness.  Here's my favorite Skull by Stewart Robson while he was at Frith Street Tattoo. 

The back, to me, was entering a whole new world of getting tattooed. It's not a difficult spot, it's a series of difficult spots that are challenging for different ways, and it wasn't until I came in on the morning of my appointment and saw the stencil that I realized exactly how big my back is.

This is a masterful quote. Reading it brought me back to the entire experience. Never a fan of that F--King Liner, I would hear the shader get disconnected and I thought "not again". It did get to the point where I would hear "sorry" after my tattooer realized he needed lines to complete.... But it's a great experience and I do miss it. Planning the appointments and watching the piece come together. It only happens once.....ENJOY @sophistre

My 17 year old went on a trip to Believe with EF Tours through her high school. She came back with a shit tattoo. Before the trip we had several meetings with the teacher in charge. We had to sign a waiver if we allowed our 18+ year old to drink on the trip since in Belieze that is the legal age.

There was no discussion about getting tattoos, only temporary Henna tattoos. My daughter said the teacher went with them to this tattoo shop. Although I know that it was my daughters decision, I believe it was done under peer pressure.I think the teacher should have counseled the kids against making a rash decision that would be so permanent.

I messaged this teacher and he said he had all the students have their parents give permission via facebook or text. I did not give my permission. I told him the tattoo was of poor quality and would have to be fixed. He offered to have it fixed. Mind you, I was not asking for him to pay and I don't want him to.

The things I am most concerned about are the cleanliness of the shop, clean needle, and regret.

I am pretty tattooed myself. I have talked to my daughter about tattoo choices and we had agreed she would get her first after she turned 18. Although I know it was ultimately her choice, I think it was done under major peers pressure under the teachers watch. I am pissed off. Not sure if I sould or should not hold this teacher accountable. Mind you, it was not "technically" a school sponsored trip.

This is the so called artist who did the shit tattoo Ken Richmond | Artistic Skin Designs Inc.

How do I know he used clean needles. I can't really find any tattoo regulations for Belieze. Do you think my daughter needs a blood test?

The part of the story I find perplexing is this "teacher" went with these students to a tattoo parlor? Was this same teacher having alcohol with the kid that were able to drink? This just seems like a recipe for something destructive.

I grew up in a different time, I would never had wanted to hang out with a teacher and vice versa. There was a distance between teachers and students.

I mean I know I'm probably never going to win one of these things but it's still awesome to see what you guys are entering! Maybe we can have like a lightspeed August contest of 3 days!! What do you think @Iwar?

@cltattooing Are you kidding? That backpiece will be a WINNER!

Too bad submissions are down... I guess we all don't have that much skin left!

Alright folks, here ya go

Man that's beautiful!

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I CANNOT believe I am missing another year!! Oh well 2016 it is! You guys will have a blast and hopefully will end up with some great tattoos....

"I've been kind of interested in a foo dog.". Stewart Robson. Done!

"Maybe a really excellent lady head?". Valerie Vargas. Done!

the one-two punch! Aside from the convention they've both guested at Blackheart while in town the last couple years. You never know, you could win the golden ticket. Ha ha!

But yes, you're right there's always an amazing roster of artists at this convention @sophistre. And any number of these people can and would do an excellent job. I am always happy to play the devil on someone's shoulder if they're debating a tattoo, so please don't mind me. Then, with this list of attendees I don't really need too. You'll just find yourself in a chair in a happy tattoo overloaded daze.Ha!

Thanks for all the info and recommendations! I'm going to check out all the places that have been mentioned. Just wondering - how do you guys know all these shops in NYC do good work? Have you gotten work done there, or know someone who has, or do they just have really good rapport in the tattoo community in general? I ask because up until I joined the forum I pretty much relied on Yelp reviews and the like to determine which shops to look into.

A few months ago I stumbled across Kings Ave's website and was really interested in getting work done by Justin Weatherholtz, and I was told his rate is $275/hour. That was way more expensive then I'd been expecting - even in the city, that's pricey - so I was really disappointed and figured I'd have to find someone else. $200/hour I'm totally fine with...but considering I'm not exactly rolling in dough, he's kind of out of my price range.

I would change that price range.... Artists like those at Kings Ave charge that much because they are worth it. You could end up paying that lesser amount but the talent could possible be much less then the 75.00 difference. You should wait and save the money you need to get what you want. Your skin isn't going anywhere and you will have whatever tattoo you get for a LONG TIME!

Here's something you don't expect to see under the santa suit!

Santa Claus is Coming to Town -- and He's Covered in Tattoos - NBC News

Because everyone has a skull.

When in doubt get a skull....

Help us welcome @Pugilist as our newest Moderator!

She has had a solid presence on LST for the past two years and we look forward to having her on the team!

Very nice!!!

Bummer not seeing you, @beez, @Reyeslv, and @scott this year. I'll try to snap a few photos so it will almost be like all the LSTers are here.

Thanks @Lance we have had some good times there. I'm totally bummed missing out this year.

Hey @Iwar: @Wilhell just told me you'll be staying in my neighborhood! It's only a 7-minute walk from my place. Sorry, I don't know how far that is in metric. ;)

It's only a 3 1/2 minute walk in metric!

Thanks Guys,

I'm honoured to have become one of the Tattoo of the Month winners :)

Even though there wasn't much competition this month (in number of people, not in quality ofcourse ;) ), it still feels awesome to have won :cool:

Your piece scarred others away!!! Congrats!!!

I'm happy to hear your wife is getting her appointment with Valerie. Loooong wait.

@Lance @cvportagee @ian @Scott R @cltattooing @hogg - Taking this year off, not happy about it but it doesn't align with things. Hope you guys all have a great time and enjoy the meet-up!!!!!

My poor butt! You can see the beads of blood already forming on the lotus on the left side. Butt is finished. Not much left!

I swear this towel was clean before we started. And I got to add a new color to my stained fundoshi. Purple!

Man, that is one sweet back piece!!!!! Thank goodness we only have one ass, that is too much pain to try to endure again!

Welcome to LST. And you're not alone; @Reyeslv is also vegan. ;)

And I lived in Las Vegas for a while. @Lynn Webster Rose where did you get your work done?

Don't listen to other people. (Haha = that includes ME!!!)

Go with your gut.

DITTO!!!! Your Mom, Your Memories, Your Decision! Do what your gut or heart tells you. Also, sorry for your loss, I'm sure what ever you pick your mother would have loved it.

Hey everyone, new to this site obviously haha. I'm getting my first tattoo in about three weeks and none of my friends or family have tattoos, so I thought it'd be cool to be in an environment where I can have thoughtful and helpful discussions with people who understand!

Looking forward to chatting with all of you.

-lindsay

Welcome to LST. What are you thinking of getting? and do you have a shop and artist picked out?

After seeing @Graeme get off to a good start both here and IG, I got to thinking, my backpiece has been finished for a year and a half now. I sure do enjoy having it, but, damn I'm glad it's done! I wouldn't want to experience it again.

Totally agree with you!!!!!

Last session in last night, minus an upcoming touch up session.

Mike

Congrats, that is a beautiful piece!!!

I did a search to see if this was posted before. Here's a youtube video of the Yakuza and the relationship to tattooing. Some really nice bodysuits and stories.

It is great to hear that I am not the only one who questions WTF did I start a backpiece. Only today I have finished a 3 hour background shading session on my left ass cheek and upper thigh. I now can look forward to 4-5 days of hovering over toilets when needing to take a sh*t and general discomfort of sitting anywhere. :) Doing a backpiece at the start seems such a great idea at the time but it can be a long hard slog. I am now into mine for about 40 hours and we haven't even started colour.

For me it has been a great eye opener for people that are heavily tattooed. I used to always see large scale work in pictures and loved the look of it etc, but it is only now that I can appreciate the long hours of not only tattooing but the healing and day to day discomfort that the healing brings.

I always thought the actual tattooing sessions were the worst but I am now appreciating that the week after each session can suck just as much.

Not trying to put anyone off a backpiece as once done the results can be spectacular, I am just saying it can be a long road. :)

That is an amazing piece you have going and I sympathize with the agony of the heel. Those tender areas take a good 2 weeks to be 100% and back to normal. I do love when you are in the shop and everyone is talking about their back-piece experience. How they are so glad that it's behind them. They talk about how getting a back piece just sucked. I can't remember how many times I heard "man I'm glad that's over".......

Personally, my phone has become a repository for screen captures for all the tattoos I am in awe of. I've spent a few lunch breaks browsing on my phone taking note of the amazing tattoos, tattooers out there and subjects that inspire. It's no substitute for a good publication with high quality photos though. But it's lead me to learn about or see more work from artists who are not published as much and also find out about tattooers from other countries who have never been published, in my case, in a US publication for example "kojiichimaru" who until IG, I had never seen published anywhere and "gasentat2" who've I've only seen published in a Japanese publication on backpieces.

BTW, I'm "lgoda" on IG.

Big fan of kojiichimaru he was a good find!

I've been thinking about this. Personally, while I like instagram and the access to so many pictures of great tattoos, word of mouth recommendations are key for me, and I think a tattooer would have to be doing something really special for me to want to get tattooed by them solely on the basis of their instagram account. I also realise that I've been getting tattooed for long enough, regularly enough, and geographically broadly enough that the pool of tattooers who I've either seen tattoos from, or heard good things about, or had the chance to meet at a shop or a convention is pretty large, and that this isn't everybody's situation.

I think what I like least about instagram is that the volume and nature of it makes tattoos kind of disposable. I think it's pretty much useless for large tattoos because you can't get any meaningful sense of a back or a sleeve on a tiny picture. You can't capture the detail of a large tattoo on a picture that fits on a phone screen, and you can't really get an idea of how the tattoo fits and flows with the body. Small tattoos seem more suited to instagram in this way. The volume though...like what does it mean when you can see dozens (if not more!) really great tattoos every day? Do we get a better appreciation for the tattoos, or is it just that we glance at them for a couple of seconds, hit "like" or not, and then scroll down to the next one? There have been so many times that I've seen something really cool on instagram and I'll think of it days or weeks later and I can't remember who did it and I can't find it again. Whereas there are tattoos in tattoo magazines I have that I remember even though I maybe haven't looked through the magazine in a couple of years.

So basically, instagram is a really great tool in a lot of ways, but like everything with the internet, it tells us a lot less than it maybe appears at first.

Agree with your perspective on instagram.

For me it's the methadone substitute to my addiction. Not as good as getting a tattoo, but viewing the work still stimulates me. The challenge for me has been following too many tattoo artist and get away from the "disposable" aspect that you stated. I follow and unfollow based on content. I've cut the list down considerably and challenge myself on seeing a tattoo and being able to pick the artist. By my memory I'm really good, but that's MY memory.