exume

So on Friday I went down to Denver to see my man Walter McDonald at Lifetime tattoo, got a pretty good start on my back.  We left some details out of the initial outline (tiger stripes, radiating beams of light..) and plan to add some background and extend downward in future sessions.  Super excited to finally start this and see where we go from here, also my back feels like I've been utilizing less than proper lifting techniques.

deified my shin a bit with Eddy Deutsche on friday, been waiting for this one a while, stoked! What a great dude Eddy is, and totally mesmerizing to watch him work.

My latest from Mike Aul from when I was in Michigan a few weeks ago.

@dcostello I was the guy who came in around 2 and found out I got double booked. Your knee looked killer when it was finished, have fun healing that beast.
Here's what Chad put on me just a couple hours later:

Can't go wrong with a Lehi tiger.

The lady and I went down to Dedication Tattoo for their 2 year anniversary party yesterday, they had a huge sheet of designs to choose from drawn up by them and their guests for the day and we had a lot of fun just getting spontaneous tattoos and hanging out at the shop.
Bryce Operandi put a rose on my elbow, and she got a butterfly girl head from CJ Fishburn. CJ talked her into doing black and gray and I think it looks rad. Elbow wasn't as miserable as I expected either so that's a bonus.

This thread has been fantastic, really great discussion so far, thanks everyone for adding your thoughts! After I read the bulk of it I had to jet off to work so I didn't have time to make a cogent reply until now, hopefully some of my thoughts have survived through the past few days of working. Anyways, these are my thoughts on the subject as a client relatively new to tattoos.
Though I'd always been a fan of tattoos, I got a pretty late start on my "collection" so to speak, I loved the look of tattoos but throughout my teens and early 20s any spare cent went to drugs and booze so actually getting tattooed was fiscally impossible. I got sober, met some people with rad tattoos in and out of the program, and really started thinking about it again, I visited a bunch of trashy shops throughout the greater Colorado Springs area, and found nothing appealing in my search. I've always been a bit of a collector and really dig researching and finding the best version of whatever it is I'm looking for. I eventually found LST which I credit for helping me learn what makes a good tattoo, and really helping shape my tastes. You all have been lifesavers! Sorry for the long personal discourse but I feel it's a bit relevant to the rest of the post.
So after two years of scoring the forum for information, flipping through instagram a few times a day, following an unmanageable amount of accounts on said instagram, I finally took the plunge and booked an appointment with Marie Sena after I had seen her name on the list of artists working at a then new shop (Dedication Tattoo) down in Denver. Her style really spoke to me, I wasn't really familiar with her as a "name" in the tattoo game, maybe read about her on here once or twice but I feel extremely lucky to have such a wonderful first tattoo from such a fantastic person.
I never really set out to be the guy who never gets tattooed by the same person twice, but as of yet that's how it's turning out. I am wary of being perceived as some sort of "starfucker" as @Pugilist put it, but with Denver being so centrally located in this country I am presented with a lot of great opportunities via guest spots to get work from great tattooers! How am I going to pass up a chance to get tattooed by Adam Shrewsbury while he's in town for a couple days, he doesn't even make tattoos regularly when he's home! Chad's going to be here in a couple weeks? Well I'd better find a way to stack some cash because I won't let myself miss out on that. I have a list in my head of people I'd love to get work from, some may be big names, but it's all because their work speaks to me in ways that I can't really quantify, I don't want the most star-studded skin, I just want stuff that makes me happy when I look in the mirror.
Besides the power of the imagery, it really is all about the experience though. Any time I've been tattooed by someone with a "big name" they have been some of the realest, most down to earth people I've met. Jeff Zuck is a gentleman and a scholar, Marie, as I said earlier, literally one of the nicest people I've ever met. Adam is the most down to earth dude, you can just tell how grateful he is to be spending his life making rad art for people. Every tattoo that I've seen Chad put out has blown my mind, and I was pleasantly surprised to see how humble he was, making sure the other guys in the shop thought the composition was solid on his sketch, ready to wipe it all away and start over if Joe didn't like something about it. Myke Chamber seems to get a bit of grief around here, maybe he's too self-promotional, his drawings are simplistic, but his message in all the interviews is a story of hope for those of us struggling with addiction, and I could tell that he was really grateful for his position in life.
Now, @mmikaoj, again, I appreciate you starting this thread, the discussion has been really great! You caught enough flak for what you said about Deutsche, Shige, and Horiyoshi III, but I had to jump in and defend Walter McDonald! I know that some of his tattoos look a little off, definitely not what anyone would call perfect, but goddammit they are fucking tattoo magic in the flesh! That man is one of the best human beings I've had the pleasure of meeting, it's impossible to imagine him without a smile on his face. His shop is beautiful, flash from floor to ceiling, exactly what you picture in your head when you think "tattoo shop," not to mention that he's mostly responsible for me and the rest of the state being so spoiled for choice when it comes to guest artists on a regular basis. Walter is the coolest and I can't wait to get a tattoo from him.
Sorry about the rambling, hope I didn't stray too far from what I was trying to get across.

This thread has been fantastic, really great discussion so far, thanks everyone for adding your thoughts! After I read the bulk of it I had to jet off to work so I didn't have time to make a cogent reply until now, hopefully some of my thoughts have survived through the past few days of working. Anyways, these are my thoughts on the subject as a client relatively new to tattoos.
Though I'd always been a fan of tattoos, I got a pretty late start on my "collection" so to speak, I loved the look of tattoos but throughout my teens and early 20s any spare cent went to drugs and booze so actually getting tattooed was fiscally impossible. I got sober, met some people with rad tattoos in and out of the program, and really started thinking about it again, I visited a bunch of trashy shops throughout the greater Colorado Springs area, and found nothing appealing in my search. I've always been a bit of a collector and really dig researching and finding the best version of whatever it is I'm looking for. I eventually found LST which I credit for helping me learn what makes a good tattoo, and really helping shape my tastes. You all have been lifesavers! Sorry for the long personal discourse but I feel it's a bit relevant to the rest of the post.
So after two years of scoring the forum for information, flipping through instagram a few times a day, following an unmanageable amount of accounts on said instagram, I finally took the plunge and booked an appointment with Marie Sena after I had seen her name on the list of artists working at a then new shop (Dedication Tattoo) down in Denver. Her style really spoke to me, I wasn't really familiar with her as a "name" in the tattoo game, maybe read about her on here once or twice but I feel extremely lucky to have such a wonderful first tattoo from such a fantastic person.
I never really set out to be the guy who never gets tattooed by the same person twice, but as of yet that's how it's turning out. I am wary of being perceived as some sort of "starfucker" as @Pugilist put it, but with Denver being so centrally located in this country I am presented with a lot of great opportunities via guest spots to get work from great tattooers! How am I going to pass up a chance to get tattooed by Adam Shrewsbury while he's in town for a couple days, he doesn't even make tattoos regularly when he's home! Chad's going to be here in a couple weeks? Well I'd better find a way to stack some cash because I won't let myself miss out on that. I have a list in my head of people I'd love to get work from, some may be big names, but it's all because their work speaks to me in ways that I can't really quantify, I don't want the most star-studded skin, I just want stuff that makes me happy when I look in the mirror.
Besides the power of the imagery, it really is all about the experience though. Any time I've been tattooed by someone with a "big name" they have been some of the realest, most down to earth people I've met. Jeff Zuck is a gentleman and a scholar, Marie, as I said earlier, literally one of the nicest people I've ever met. Adam is the most down to earth dude, you can just tell how grateful he is to be spending his life making rad art for people. Every tattoo that I've seen Chad put out has blown my mind, and I was pleasantly surprised to see how humble he was, making sure the other guys in the shop thought the composition was solid on his sketch, ready to wipe it all away and start over if Joe didn't like something about it. Myke Chamber seems to get a bit of grief around here, maybe he's too self-promotional, his drawings are simplistic, but his message in all the interviews is a story of hope for those of us struggling with addiction, and I could tell that he was really grateful for his position in life.
Now, @mmikaoj, again, I appreciate you starting this thread, the discussion has been really great! You caught enough flak for what you said about Deutsche, Shige, and Horiyoshi III, but I had to jump in and defend Walter McDonald! I know that some of his tattoos look a little off, definitely not what anyone would call perfect, but goddammit they are fucking tattoo magic in the flesh! That man is one of the best human beings I've had the pleasure of meeting, it's impossible to imagine him without a smile on his face. His shop is beautiful, flash from floor to ceiling, exactly what you picture in your head when you think "tattoo shop," not to mention that he's mostly responsible for me and the rest of the state being so spoiled for choice when it comes to guest artists on a regular basis. Walter is the coolest and I can't wait to get a tattoo from him.
Sorry about the rambling, hope I didn't stray too far from what I was trying to get across.

Where did the latest tattoo lowdown thread go?
Anyway, this past weekend was Ocktoberfest at Old Soul in Canonsburg, PA. It's a cool event where the shop invites a whole bunch of artists (like 60'ish) for the weekend. Some by appointment, some by walk-in. The trick is that everyone is queued up for a table/space to work since the shop has maybe 12 stations. The Old Souls guys have it running like clockwork...superiorly organized. You still have to wait but with the festival outside in the street and karaoke going on inside, the time flies by in no time.
Nate Hudak made this for me on Saturday. He has a super light hand and is fast. Back of the left thigh.
 
 
 
 

I have an appointment with Chad Koeplinger on Sunday. Pretty stoked. 
 

Finished off this eagle/snake with Grez a few weeks ago. Hard to get a good photo by myself!

Also got this weird reaper from Chad around the same time. For the first time I'm having trouble healing red ink but it's getting there! 

finished down the left side, shoulder, neck area, and started down the right side. fun times!
 

So on Friday I went down to Denver to see my man Walter McDonald at Lifetime tattoo, got a pretty good start on my back.  We left some details out of the initial outline (tiger stripes, radiating beams of light..) and plan to add some background and extend downward in future sessions.  Super excited to finally start this and see where we go from here, also my back feels like I've been utilizing less than proper lifting techniques.

I was going thru some old photos and I came across this album from the "Beware! the Yokai" show back in Oct 2014 at Empire Seven Studios in SJ, put on by Chris Brand and State of Grace.
Thought I'd share. FYI... These are completely unedited. Sorry.  Not sorry.  Enjoi

I attempted Japanese style stuff for the first time ever and I thought hell, why not make it unnecessarily hard on myself and do two koi instead of one. I used Copic markers.

So on Friday I went down to Denver to see my man Walter McDonald at Lifetime tattoo, got a pretty good start on my back.  We left some details out of the initial outline (tiger stripes, radiating beams of light..) and plan to add some background and extend downward in future sessions.  Super excited to finally start this and see where we go from here, also my back feels like I've been utilizing less than proper lifting techniques.

So on Friday I went down to Denver to see my man Walter McDonald at Lifetime tattoo, got a pretty good start on my back.  We left some details out of the initial outline (tiger stripes, radiating beams of light..) and plan to add some background and extend downward in future sessions.  Super excited to finally start this and see where we go from here, also my back feels like I've been utilizing less than proper lifting techniques.

More bendy chrome, please.

I love this thread! At present, I intend to keep my tattoos at/below my knees (famous last words, I know), with loose aspirations for American traditional-ish patchwork "sleeves". I want to take my time filling them up though, and really only pursue work from artists I love for pieces that resonate with me, rather than rushing to get covered for the sake of getting covered. Also, I promised my husband I'd take it slow, partly for the sake of our bank account, and partly because he's worried I'm going to "get all tatted up like the guys from Lucero". 

check out dave fox

Getting a Hannya from Myke Chambers in February. Super excited!

Just dropped by Atlas to see the rendering Tim drew up. The 3rd can't come soon enough.

Excited to be getting a Johan Svahn dragon on my lower arm in a couple of weeks. 

My girlfriend bought me this book along with the finger wave book vol.1 & 2. Now I'm left waiting for mysterium to ship. Good think I have two books to melt my brain until then.

Polls are closed, and the winner of Tattoo of the month December is @SStu with this incredible skull tattoo by Thomas Hooper. Congrats!! 
Sorry for closing the poll a couple days late folks. Anyway, the next contest will be announced on the 1st of January, so keep your eyes peeled for that :) 
Big thanks to everyone who contributed this month!!