asradin

I had the seventh session on my back yesterday and we finally started in on the colour and crushed the tiger. There's still a bit of shading to do in the water, and we're still figuring out what to do with the snake with regard to scales or patterns, colours, etc., as well as what colours to do the maples, but I am super stoked on the progress we're making.

@KBeee thanks, it was an awesome experience to get. Most of my torso is now pretty much full now as well. All by Stewart.

@KBeee thanks, it was an awesome experience to get. Most of my torso is now pretty much full now as well. All by Stewart.

Just got this blaster today by Ron Henry Wells while he's in town at Lombard St. Tattoo. A somewhat new take on his drippy wolf designs - I'm so happy with it!
Photo taken by Ron and stolen from his IG - Instagram

@KBeee thanks, it was an awesome experience to get. Most of my torso is now pretty much full now as well. All by Stewart.

@KBeee thanks, it was an awesome experience to get. Most of my torso is now pretty much full now as well. All by Stewart.

@KBeee thanks, it was an awesome experience to get. Most of my torso is now pretty much full now as well. All by Stewart.

OK so I tried to put this post up about three days ago but whilst I was doing it a power line nearby got struck by lightning and we lost power for a while. So that was the end of that. Now that we have power again and I have a bit of time I will try again.
I had the fourth session on my back last Monday. I was hoping it would be the last session of outlining but that went straight out the window when Ian started the session by asking me "How do you feel about Tibetan skulls?" Luckily enough I think they are cool and the design that Ian had drawn up was pretty killer so we went for it. The result is that I now have a Tibetan skull on my my ass cheek and the back of my leg. I love it and am very happy to have it on there and we definitely have only one session of outline left. So after 12 hours of work so far my back looks like this. I have included a close up of the skull as well.

I think the kid going for a job as a bus boy is such an interesting example. When you have no skills you are basically at the mercy of everyone, in the context of menial work you are going to be judged for your tattoos; because frankly you haven't got much else going for you!
The way I see it the answer is not to spend your life doing shit work and not getting the tattoos you want, but as @Graeme says, embrace the margins. If you can develop a skill set that demands you be judged on the quality of your work rather than your tattoos, then you got the best of both worlds.
There's a guy who drinks at the bar I work in who I've become friends with, older guy in his mid 40's who has made a very successful career in fashion buying. He's got one the the best collections I've ever seen, two Thomas hooper sleeves as well as hands, bailey Robinson, Chad, Steve Byrne and many many others on his legs, Ian flower on the back of his neck...you get the idea. One of the other barmen asked him if he had ever worried about it effecting his job opportunities, in his thick Manchester accent he replied 'nah, I know who I am, and I'm fucking good at my job'

I might be in the minority here in having this opinion, but I hope the general public doesn't stop seeing tattoos and tattooed people in a negative light. I have a hard time having sympathy or patience for people who claim that they're discriminated against because of their tattoos, especially when these people work in shitty low-wage, low-job security jobs. Where I work I saw a guy with a nice neck tattoo have an interview to be a busboy. Guess what? He didn't get the job, because if you're getting your neck tattooed while applying for jobs that pretty much any chump off the street can competently do, you're a dumbass. I probably wouldn't hire you either.
For me, part of getting tattooed and becoming an increasingly heavily tattooed person is accepting and taking on something that most people don't understand and being okay with it. I think that responsibility, that willingness to put yourself at the margins, is an important part of getting tattooed, especially when into getting into less concealable areas.

Some of the LST posters here are bang-on, it is so others can calculate the money you have spent. In my experience it's either because they are genuinely curious and want to see if heavy coverage is a goal attainable for themselves OR to validate their own holier-than-thou opinion that you are a fool for 'wasting' your money on something which they view as silly and frivolous.
What you see, it took me 10 years of steady progress to get covered in tattoos like this. It shocks most - if you think about a 3hr tattoo vs 200hrs coverage - because I think the average person has a misconception about the time/pain we all here invest...time to manifest the ideas, time coordinating appointments, time to travel, time to research and plan, time to make money and time off work, time applying stencils and placement, time actually under the machine (which is what is only really counted), time to heal, time to develop our relationships with our tattooers, time for the tattoo to age and wear (which is frankly when it looks the best), time for the tattoo to take on a life of it's own as we wear it through our lives. And we can't forget the time to wash/rinse/repeat! When the goal becomes heavy coverage we aren't talking about hours invested anymore, we are talking about years committed. Then a tattoo isn't just a tattoo, tattoo becomes life :)
Tattoo coverage doesn't happen over night. Which is why tattoo to me is a visual representation of commitment, loyalty and dedication, which are values that I think are very important.
So I tells em,
"So, like, how long did that take bro"
"A long fucking time man"

Really? So you would happily give something that you've spent your whole life (or large part of) striving to perfect, your means of providing for your family and whatever else to any random person that asked for it? If yes, good luck to you. You know what my answer would be? Go fuck yourself. I don't tattoo, or have any desire to tattoo but if someone came up and asked for my life on a plate I'd be a lot less civilised and nice than most people, especially if that person was a complete stranger.

@MadeIndelible If you look in the interview I've mentioned all the people that tattooed me although it's not shown in the video. Also if you want to see specific credit for certain tattoos there are some shots of them in one of the short videos made for FST: On The Shoulders of Giants

Just been going through this thread and realised I never posted a healed photo of my back. It's all settled in nicely and is about 9 months old now

So yesterday was interesting. By the time I started my back piece I'd been up for 30 hours working. But the lining is pretty much done. Here's the link to his blog:
Panther vs Tiger in Progress – Stewart Robson
The sparrows were a suggestion from @Stewart Robson and from the Amund Dietzel book and I think an excellent idea. Can't wait to get the lining finished and start on the shading :)

It's not Breaking Bad ;)
Meaning; it's not serialised. There isn't a story. It's in four parts because each part focuses on a different aspect of being part of FST (or being part of tattooing as a whole)
Part One is the close knit family aspect.
Part Two is the global 'community' and FST's position in it.
Part Three is the people, roads and attitudes that led us to be where we are (wherever that is) and
Part Four is focuses on what it is to dedicate your life to something.
Each part was designed to stand on it's own. Each one has a slightly different feel. Already the people who've seen the rough cuts of them all have a favourite.
Thanks to everyone for the interest. Special thanks to those who bought or rented it. I really appreciate it. The response has been way more positive than I thought.
I feel I should say: it's probably not what you expect. It's not a moving gallery of tattoos and it's not an advertisement for tattooing or for FST.

This is going to sound weird but I don't care, I'm drunk and in France so fuck it, but I always imagined you looking like the guitarist from Cancer Bats, god knows why....

Really? So you would happily give something that you've spent your whole life (or large part of) striving to perfect, your means of providing for your family and whatever else to any random person that asked for it? If yes, good luck to you. You know what my answer would be? Go fuck yourself. I don't tattoo, or have any desire to tattoo but if someone came up and asked for my life on a plate I'd be a lot less civilised and nice than most people, especially if that person was a complete stranger.

Just been going through this thread and realised I never posted a healed photo of my back. It's all settled in nicely and is about 9 months old now

I agree with a lot of this, and a lot of what I find uninteresting with everybody trying to do this "style" now is that it becomes too much about putting a certain technique up on a pedestal instead of using that technique, and many others besides, to create a powerful tattoo. It's the same thing with these guys I see on Instagram who are all about doing super whipshaded traditional. Technique is there to serve the art, not the other way around.
And that said, you'll never get tattooed by somebody if you don't ask them because they "seem" busy.

By Phil Hatchet Yau at Master Tattoo in San Diego, CA. What a rad dude to get tattooed by. I met Drew Linden there too, she's super chill!
I thought Phil switched to a rotary at one point, but he was using lidocaine instead (which was awesome). I've met only one other tattooer that uses Bactine during tattoo sessions.

I saw this today and didn't see a previous posting of it. Pretty interesting images.
Cedric Arnold:

Just got this put on me by El Monga. Picture stolen from his instagram.

So I wasn't sure if I was going to post any of my new tattoos but decided in the end to just go for it. I moved to France four months ago and have been sat in a lab isolated from the world pretty much ever since. I went to the Mondial du Tatouage show in Paris for three days as a birthday present to myself. I booked in with Stewart Robson and Valerie Vargas from Frith Street and also Greg Christian. I ended up getting tattooed six times in three days. It was also my first convention and I'm going to make sure I go to a few more :D
I stole all the pictures from the respective artist's instagrams apart from one which I took with my phone.
Demon head on knee - Stewart Robson (Frith Street Tattoo)
Geisha Girl Head - Cody Miller (Blackheart Tattoo)
Flaming Torch - Greg Christian
Castle - Cody Miller (Blackheart Tattoo)
Medusa Head - Valerie Vargas (Frith Street Tattoo)
Devil Head - Nick Roddin (Blackheart Tattoo)
I can't wait for the convention next year

So I wasn't sure if I was going to post any of my new tattoos but decided in the end to just go for it. I moved to France four months ago and have been sat in a lab isolated from the world pretty much ever since. I went to the Mondial du Tatouage show in Paris for three days as a birthday present to myself. I booked in with Stewart Robson and Valerie Vargas from Frith Street and also Greg Christian. I ended up getting tattooed six times in three days. It was also my first convention and I'm going to make sure I go to a few more :D
I stole all the pictures from the respective artist's instagrams apart from one which I took with my phone.
Demon head on knee - Stewart Robson (Frith Street Tattoo)
Geisha Girl Head - Cody Miller (Blackheart Tattoo)
Flaming Torch - Greg Christian
Castle - Cody Miller (Blackheart Tattoo)
Medusa Head - Valerie Vargas (Frith Street Tattoo)
Devil Head - Nick Roddin (Blackheart Tattoo)
I can't wait for the convention next year