Abellve

So I have put on a bit of weight over the last couple of years, started aout 4 months after I did the Tough Mudder, and my most recent blood work came back with everything in the really not good zones. So I'm really starting to try to change diet and everything around and my wife has been working to encourage this. To this end she hit me with a great incentive. If I can trim down to a washboard stomach and keep it for a while she won't complain and I can go get a giant chest piece wherever I want.
So, all y'all out in SF be prepared for me to be out there in about a year when I'm all trim and booked with Scott Sylvia.

Eff what you've heard. Don't worry about what is common. Get tattooed for yourself without concern for what other people do. That starts with not caring whether how you approach it is similar to how others approach it. Before there was an internet and the false assurance of general consensus there were people getting tattooed any way they could. Don't worry about whether it's normal, just worry about whether it will work.
The one thing I would say, as a tattooer... do not compromise the image. Don't go the cheap route, sacrificing the quality of a permanent tattoo on your permanent body to meet your temporary means. Your body is forever and you will regret it...eventually if not instantly.
And when you have an artist that you trust to do it, take his or her advice. They may say to hold off til you can afford a large enough portion that it will look fluid in the end. Don't try to get one corner done, then a little over here and some in the middle if it will look like disjointed sections poorly stitched together. Always be thinking of the whole. Some styles can be tackled in sections but much of the beauty of a back piece is its wholeness as a large piece. Sometimes this means a whole outline of the principle image has to happen first.

Hey Dude welcome!
I have a piece on my back from 3 years ago that was left to add more too as we went. At the time I was unsure of how to progress, and then my tattoo artist moved 3 hours drive away.
But I am still in touch with him, and he touched up the original recently to make sure it was looking good ready to be added to. I plan on having him and his sister do a collaboration on it to complete in the next year (she is his apprentice but is pretty amazing!). So you are not the only one who might have something spread out. I can only afford to do it bit by bit, and prefer to have longer sessions to get more done in 1 go, which means longer to save! But I have also been getting other work done in between, with different artists I wanted to collect.
Dont worry if your story isn't the same as someone else getting it smashed out in 6 months of mad sessions. As long as you found a great artist to do it justice, then let it take the time it needs to save for the best of the best. You will not regret it!
:)

I haven't posted in a while but here's one I did a few months ago.

Eff what you've heard. Don't worry about what is common. Get tattooed for yourself without concern for what other people do. That starts with not caring whether how you approach it is similar to how others approach it. Before there was an internet and the false assurance of general consensus there were people getting tattooed any way they could. Don't worry about whether it's normal, just worry about whether it will work.
The one thing I would say, as a tattooer... do not compromise the image. Don't go the cheap route, sacrificing the quality of a permanent tattoo on your permanent body to meet your temporary means. Your body is forever and you will regret it...eventually if not instantly.
And when you have an artist that you trust to do it, take his or her advice. They may say to hold off til you can afford a large enough portion that it will look fluid in the end. Don't try to get one corner done, then a little over here and some in the middle if it will look like disjointed sections poorly stitched together. Always be thinking of the whole. Some styles can be tackled in sections but much of the beauty of a back piece is its wholeness as a large piece. Sometimes this means a whole outline of the principle image has to happen first.

I've been talking about this a lot recently. How are SO many people who clearly have NO concept of the mechanics of drawing, composition, or even basic familiarity with art in general picking up "tat guns" and thinking "Yeah, I should give this a shot"??

That's the shit right there!!!
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I used to work in a university mail room. I would talk to the work study kids and they would be all "yeah man, I like punk rock". So I'd tell them I had something for them to check out and toss them a CRASS disk. All of them would come back and be like "what the fuck was that?". that, I would tell them, is punk rock. Then they would tell me they were more into stuff like the chili peppers, that was their punk rock.

@CultExciter .... No I am not!
I am using 4 hamsters and a big wheel they run in which hooked up to a motor from a small wind turbine! It's not great for long tattoos but it works well for small kanji and doing lettering! ;)
As long as they are happy and running I can make money!
But mostly I use magic.....he he he

lol 8 pages and no Crass !! No Crass LoL


Some ENT


Doom

Grabbing and touching without consent are not cool. I'm an unattractive male and it's happened to me plenty. I've been sitting at dinner with my wife and felt my shirt sleeve being pulled up by a stranger so they could appease their curiosity
...and I don't think we should be telling girls that if a man invades their space and ownership of their own body they should find it charming or flattering. No one else should have control over what they see of you, least of all men over women given the track record and the culture we've created.

A lot of literary tattoos are terrible because people are far too concerned with the literariness of them and not enough with actual tattoo design. I think there are a lot of ways of doing literary tattoos that are great and are probably overlooked by most people wanting literary tattoos...the scholarly skull or any permutation on that design is always great, you could look at ex libris bookplates for ideas, I can't find any reference images from a really quick google search but I am certain there are some Mucha or other Art Nouveau drawings that would fit the criteria. In general, I think too many people who want "meaningful" tattoos don't care enough about aesthetics and get crappy tattoos because of it.
Here's my book tattoo done by Seth Wood. It's the Necronomicon, pretty obviously.

Grabbing and touching without consent are not cool. I'm an unattractive male and it's happened to me plenty. I've been sitting at dinner with my wife and felt my shirt sleeve being pulled up by a stranger so they could appease their curiosity
...and I don't think we should be telling girls that if a man invades their space and ownership of their own body they should find it charming or flattering. No one else should have control over what they see of you, least of all men over women given the track record and the culture we've created.

I've been playing Antischism, Conflict, Subhumans and Flux of Pink Indians a lot lately. Catching up on the classics I guess.

I suppose I'll contribute to our collection of giant ass-flowers. Finished a few weeks ago by Grez!

Needles and Sins pointed out this gem, a CBC television interview with Doc Forbes from 1964.
CBC Digital Archives - Pastimes General - Doc Forbes, tattoo artist
The interviewer talks with Forbes and his clients, we get some nice looks at his tattoos and his flash, but the coolest thing about the interview for me is near the end when Forbes is tattooing an 82 year old client who has really extensive work from George Burchett including a battle royale backpiece from 1906.
I've posted this picture before, but I'm a bit of a nerd about tattoo history and when I was visiting my family in Vancouver last Christmas I made an appointment with Chris Hold at Sacred Heart Tattoo so that me and @Pugilist could get matching tattoos from some Forbes flash. What could be better as a souvenir tattoo in Vancouver than a design from Doc Forbes? Chris was amazing and super accommodating about fitting us in on short notice, and the tattoos are great, so simple, folky, and charming. Chris had also fairly recently visited Lyle Tuttle, who has a pretty huge collection of Forbes' flash, and we got to see scans Chris had made of it and there's a lot of really great designs in there.

Lucky's Tattoo Museum also has scans of a bunch of his flash that you can view here.

I haven't posted in a while but here's one I did a few months ago.

I saw them in a tiny little club in Lafayette Indiana. I was there to open the club for them when they showed up. The funk that came out of that van when they opened the door is something I will likely never forget until the day I die. fucking awesome show though, He kept jumping around between songs saying "We just want to be your friends!!!!"

Cruised out for beers and food last night.
Young lady serving from the bar asks, awesome tattoos. She extends her hand, I shake it like I would anyone else. We chat for 5 minutes about tattoos. She pulls up her own sleeve to show me her sleeve work. She thanks me for the time, I say.. No! Thank you as she served me a beer for free.
A pleasant, genuine exchange with respect which should be consistent with every engagement...in my book.

Grabbing and touching without consent are not cool. I'm an unattractive male and it's happened to me plenty. I've been sitting at dinner with my wife and felt my shirt sleeve being pulled up by a stranger so they could appease their curiosity
...and I don't think we should be telling girls that if a man invades their space and ownership of their own body they should find it charming or flattering. No one else should have control over what they see of you, least of all men over women given the track record and the culture we've created.

Grabbing and touching without consent are not cool. I'm an unattractive male and it's happened to me plenty. I've been sitting at dinner with my wife and felt my shirt sleeve being pulled up by a stranger so they could appease their curiosity
...and I don't think we should be telling girls that if a man invades their space and ownership of their own body they should find it charming or flattering. No one else should have control over what they see of you, least of all men over women given the track record and the culture we've created.

I haven't posted in a while but here's one I did a few months ago.

Grabbing and touching without consent are not cool. I'm an unattractive male and it's happened to me plenty. I've been sitting at dinner with my wife and felt my shirt sleeve being pulled up by a stranger so they could appease their curiosity
...and I don't think we should be telling girls that if a man invades their space and ownership of their own body they should find it charming or flattering. No one else should have control over what they see of you, least of all men over women given the track record and the culture we've created.

Grabbing and touching without consent are not cool. I'm an unattractive male and it's happened to me plenty. I've been sitting at dinner with my wife and felt my shirt sleeve being pulled up by a stranger so they could appease their curiosity
...and I don't think we should be telling girls that if a man invades their space and ownership of their own body they should find it charming or flattering. No one else should have control over what they see of you, least of all men over women given the track record and the culture we've created.

We are a Queer positive shop so we have no - NO - shortage of every kind of person from every fringe queer community and it's AMAZING. The other day, a guy said to me "This new album is SO gay." and I replied "YES THAT IS AWESOME!" It felt mututally nice that when someone called something gay the first reaction we all had wasn't like "Oh, really? It's stupid?" LOL
Anyway, as for the massage tables -- STAY AWAY from the ones that have the beams that pull out and you click them into the four corner legs. They're cheap cuz they're week. Try to find one that fold out as simply as possible with as little assembly as those are the ones that I've used for years and had no problem getting REAAAAL big boys and girls on top.
It's a nice thing, too, to be able to tell a client who is scared that they m ight d amage your table by virtue of their weight to, "do their worst." Or similar jokey-type-thing. Really breaks the ice and let's 'em feel like no one gives a shit if they've got a few extra pounds. We just wanna tatttoo em and not judge.

Yes.
I forget none of you are from Wisconsin. People don't know about other people here