Abellve

Entertainment is entertainment, and nobody can knock ya for that. But just recognize it as such and don't base your personal tattoo decisions on what people in suits think makes good television. I think the best advice that I can give you in terms of getting good tattoos is to spend your time with and take your advice from people who are successful tattooers and collectors. People who really spend a good chunk of their lives around tattooing, those are the people who can give you the best advice. Not TV, not magazines, not your mom's friend's cousin in law.
And I'm really not trying to rag on you dude. I just think you might have a lot of really popularized ideas about what quality tattooing is, and I think a lot of it has to do with the rock star edge that pop culture has spun onto tattooers and the way that tattooing is represented to the masses.

Todd Noble Tom of Finland heads:

yes, girls get tattoos of anything they want. It's not weird. Or if it's weird, who cares? Being normal isn't necessarily something to aspire to.

Absolutely. Accessibility and ease is no excuse for a lack of integrity. There's lots of literature available online too. That doesn't mean it's not plagiarized if you rewrite it in your own handwriting and change the name.

Absolutely. Accessibility and ease is no excuse for a lack of integrity. There's lots of literature available online too. That doesn't mean it's not plagiarized if you rewrite it in your own handwriting and change the name.

When I first started getting tattooed I did all walk ins and all at the same shop. They were all decent artists, but quite a few were kind of rude. I finally found two artists from that one shop who were really friendly and sociable and I really like their work, so I've stuck with them over the last six years. I honestly don't like the silent types when getting tattooed. It makes it very awkward for me sitting there for hours just completely quiet. So I have to have an artist who is willing to engage in conversation with me.
In the end I'd rather have a good balance of a good artist who gives me a good tattoo rather than an asshole who gives an amazing piece of art or the most amazing person I've ever met who tattoos a piece of shit on me. Neither of those are pleasant sounding to me. I'll take the less than perfect tattoo though, which might sound dumb to some people, but I like to be comfortable while I'm getting the tattoo as well and I don't want to line some assholes pockets with cash and be uncomfortable getting the tattoo the entire time.

last week I had some blood drawn for a routine test (i'm perfectly healthy so don't anyone worry) and when the phlebotomist asked if I preferred one arm over the other I rolled up both sleeves and said "well you can either poke this hannya in the face or you can just poke this empty skin on my right arm." She then remarked that since I have tattoos I must not be worried about a simple blood draw and I agreed I wasn't worried. But in my head I was thinking "How many years experience do you have drawing blood?", "Do you have a portfolio of your previous work I can look through before I choose you as my phlebotomist?"
Strange that people have asked me if I'm worried about getting infections, diseases, viruses, etc from tattoo artists that have 15+ years experience but no one is worried about the phlebotomist that might be fresh out of training with only 6 months experience.

A relatively recent one - from Deno when he was visiting Tattoo Paradise last year. Picture borrowed from his Instagram.

I think for me tattoos are part of a larger thing that changed my life...not caring what people think.
I was a really nerdy kid -- like cartoonishly so. To a great extent I still am it's just less evident at a glance. You have to wait til I open my mouth. I was a bullied, targeted kid with more heavy problems than I care to share. I did not fit in...anywhere...but something happened when I was young. Punk rock. Changed everything. I was never going to be a part of the group. I was never going to be accepted or acceptable and more than that, I didn't care to be. If you're going to keep me on the outside, fine. Now I have no reason not to just go about the business of being true to myself. There's something liberating about removing yourself from the struggle to be accepted...outwardly sending the message: I don't need you to be ok with who I am.
Flash forward to today and my tattoos are just one way that same mindset shows through. I know tattoos are going to keep me out of certain social circles...and they're the ones I don't want any part of. It's less about defiance and more about a disregard for convention. That's not why I get tattooed really. I get tattoos for their own reasons or none at all...but there is a reason I have "Outsider" tattooed across my chest and "Stay True" on my knuckles.

no,I can't say that tattoos have changed my life really,
I've always been an outgoing confident person,
having tattoos has been fun,because it's made me a little different than many people I encounter and that is the fun part of having tattoos IMO,
I like the attention and stares,etc,etc that having tattoos causes in public,
what I can say is (since I have been getting tattoos for probably 30 years now) is that my life has changed the tattoos I get,it's been an evolutionary process,constantly changing,and my tattoos are a road map of my life,including people,places,& experiences that I have encountered along this crazy trip we call life.

I think for me tattoos are part of a larger thing that changed my life...not caring what people think.
I was a really nerdy kid -- like cartoonishly so. To a great extent I still am it's just less evident at a glance. You have to wait til I open my mouth. I was a bullied, targeted kid with more heavy problems than I care to share. I did not fit in...anywhere...but something happened when I was young. Punk rock. Changed everything. I was never going to be a part of the group. I was never going to be accepted or acceptable and more than that, I didn't care to be. If you're going to keep me on the outside, fine. Now I have no reason not to just go about the business of being true to myself. There's something liberating about removing yourself from the struggle to be accepted...outwardly sending the message: I don't need you to be ok with who I am.
Flash forward to today and my tattoos are just one way that same mindset shows through. I know tattoos are going to keep me out of certain social circles...and they're the ones I don't want any part of. It's less about defiance and more about a disregard for convention. That's not why I get tattooed really. I get tattoos for their own reasons or none at all...but there is a reason I have "Outsider" tattooed across my chest and "Stay True" on my knuckles.

I don't think I can agree to that. *sigh* Spencer was my tattoo artist, for the past-- almost a year... so sad I've had to release him back to the wild.
My hair dresser, on the other hand, she is still MINE.

66 Triumph
.

Why does it bother you? I find it kind of endearing, as it usually means that said client gets tattooed by the same person consistently. We don't own our friends or our coworkers or our dentist, but we still say "my friend, my coworker, my dentist."
I don't see much of a difference?

I think for me tattoos are part of a larger thing that changed my life...not caring what people think.
I was a really nerdy kid -- like cartoonishly so. To a great extent I still am it's just less evident at a glance. You have to wait til I open my mouth. I was a bullied, targeted kid with more heavy problems than I care to share. I did not fit in...anywhere...but something happened when I was young. Punk rock. Changed everything. I was never going to be a part of the group. I was never going to be accepted or acceptable and more than that, I didn't care to be. If you're going to keep me on the outside, fine. Now I have no reason not to just go about the business of being true to myself. There's something liberating about removing yourself from the struggle to be accepted...outwardly sending the message: I don't need you to be ok with who I am.
Flash forward to today and my tattoos are just one way that same mindset shows through. I know tattoos are going to keep me out of certain social circles...and they're the ones I don't want any part of. It's less about defiance and more about a disregard for convention. That's not why I get tattooed really. I get tattoos for their own reasons or none at all...but there is a reason I have "Outsider" tattooed across my chest and "Stay True" on my knuckles.

I stay pretty busy trying to make sure that my five year old daughter, and two year old son don't grow up to be assholes. It is not glamorous but I like it.

besides getting tattooed, which is also awesome but that's for a different thread.
Just got back from a guest-spot at Godspeed Tattoo in Breckenridge Colorado, where everybody are the friendliest tatbros. Did a early morning/sunrise canoe trip on a mountainside lake, skated at several different skateparks, several mountain trail bike rides, camped out for a few days way high in the mountains with good friends P Wee, Miho, and Joel Long, did some 4 wheeling in a jeep in same area, and had a campfire drawing session with P Wee & Joel.
Can't wait to go back.

I think for me tattoos are part of a larger thing that changed my life...not caring what people think.
I was a really nerdy kid -- like cartoonishly so. To a great extent I still am it's just less evident at a glance. You have to wait til I open my mouth. I was a bullied, targeted kid with more heavy problems than I care to share. I did not fit in...anywhere...but something happened when I was young. Punk rock. Changed everything. I was never going to be a part of the group. I was never going to be accepted or acceptable and more than that, I didn't care to be. If you're going to keep me on the outside, fine. Now I have no reason not to just go about the business of being true to myself. There's something liberating about removing yourself from the struggle to be accepted...outwardly sending the message: I don't need you to be ok with who I am.
Flash forward to today and my tattoos are just one way that same mindset shows through. I know tattoos are going to keep me out of certain social circles...and they're the ones I don't want any part of. It's less about defiance and more about a disregard for convention. That's not why I get tattooed really. I get tattoos for their own reasons or none at all...but there is a reason I have "Outsider" tattooed across my chest and "Stay True" on my knuckles.

The tattoo is bad enough, but reading the replies on Facebook made my soul hurt.

Paul Bosch:

here's a preview of my back from Björn Liebner at Red Chapel Tattoo in berlin.

some more progress on my back. started coloring the face and sword. done by jess yen. no filter!

I think tattoos have not only changed my life, but they have swallowed my life whole.
It's weird but I don't hold any special meanings for my tattoos, but the more I think about that it suits me to a tee. I am not a sentimental guy, I don't keep pictures, I throw most of my shit away when I move, and only collect two things, one is tattoos and the other is beer which is consumable. I don't think I changed that much with tattoos, i just found a way of getting tattooed that suited me and in turn has given me something to focus on.

I've talked about this some before...
A few years ago I found out that I have a neurodegenerative disease that will eventually land me in a wheelchair. I really don't know how fast or slow it will go. There's not any treatment for it, nothing to do for it but treat symptoms and wait for the inevitable.
I got super depressed about it for a long time. I absolutely HATED my legs. Despised them for having this disease, for failing me, for "dooming" me to be disabled someday.
Sometime last summer I started to have persistent dreams that I was getting my legs tattooed. I ignored them as well as I could for awhile, and then started putting some serious thought into going for it. I started looking around the interwebs to see what was out there...
And then I came here :)
Since I started getting my legs tattooed my feelings about them have changed completely. I don't hate them at all anymore. In fact, I might even love them!!! I definitely love the tattoos, and to a great degree all those positive feelings have bled over onto the legs themselves.
And... I'm finding that my perspective about the disease as a whole is beginning to shift some too...
I'm coming around to the idea that I need to view it less as a curse, not "being doomed", and more of just "a change"...
I'm definitely not all the way there yet, but it's something that never would have been possible in the state of mind I was in when I hated my legs guts for having this thing in the first place.
- - - Updated - - -
And I have to add...
I want to thank all y'all here at LST for being here, for giving such great input and advice, for showing off such great work all the time!!
God forbid, what if I'd gotten crappy leg tattoos?!?!
I doubt it would have had the same positive impact that it's had...

I've heard this same sentiment echoed many times, especially by women. I started getting tattooed the minute (ok, a month or so later) after I turned 18.. without getting too sentimental, I think that in a way it did help me figure myself out, even if for the first four or five, I didn't really know what I was getting in to. I've never had to grapple with any body issues but internally.. it seemed to level me out a bit, if that makes sense.
Glad your changing skin is literally changing your life!