joakim urma

Yikes!

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I remember talking about tattoos 15 years ago at my Dad's house. He has an old one on his shoulder from the navy, circa 1954. My wife just got a small traditional rose (her deceased mother's name was "Rose") and I already had two. My conservative brother then blurts out, "Only bikers and whores have tattoos."
You could hear a pin drop.
My wife was about to jump his shit when I jump in and say, "Well, it looks like we'll need to buy you a Harley since you sure aren't a whore." I gave him the stink eye. My sister even came to her rescue saying, "I have eye liner tattooed to my eyelids and I'm no whore." My brother backed down and stayed that way. Dick move was called out.

my 7yo nephew:
"Uncle Eric, why do you have a Chinese guy on your back?"
"Uncle Eric, do you have a tattoo on your bum?"
"Uncle Eric, I'm gonna get a tattoo like you. Like a Metal Mulisha tattoo. Or maybe Fox Racing."
...don't worry kiddo, Uncle Eric will set you straight when you're old enough ;)

Booked flights and accommodation for the Mondial du tatouage 2016. All-day appointment with Shige the first day of the convention. This will definitely feel like passing a milestone.

Robert Ryan again 12/6 @ Electric in Asbury NJ
can see a break coming though - getting pretty filled up and of course - funds running low after this next one - but also I think I need a break...
...or do I;)

Guess we're crazy.

We only have so much skin, which puts a premium on getting good work. As has been said already, well known artists usually get that way by doing high quality work. On the other hand, getting a tattoo is about more than the finished product. For example, my first tattoo artist was a young artist who's been doing tats for about 2 1/2 years - the same amount of time I've been doing my profession. There was something about that similarity that appealed to me. We're both still learning the ropes so to speak. We connected right away and had pleasant, entertaining conversation while I was getting my tattoo. When I look in the mirror, I like what I see. When i went back to the shop, he remembered me and was excited to see how the tat healed and we bullshitted some more. Now we have a sort of connection. I mean, we aren't best friends or anything, but we're cool. I like that hes relati ely new and young and that i have some of his work. I do think it helps the community grow. I wouldn't change that for anything.
Ultimately, there's enough skin to get great tattoos from well known artists and also get tattoos from lesser known artists as well. Just do what's comfortable and what you don't mind seeing in the mirror. Hell, if someone doesn't post on this site, they likely won't know the difference between Frith street and smith street any damn way.

another new sensation to add:
back of the neck...especially as you get behind the ear. i had to actively keep my teeth clenched to prevent the jaw bone from rattling around. back of the head was heavy sharp pressure. overall back of the neck/head felt more like getting cut open with a steak knife rather than getting scraped with a fork. gnarly shit. so far healing has been easy, a pea drop of lubriderm each morning after healing dry and raw for 72 hours.

Never get confident! Always imagine that the next tattoo you get will be the worst pain you've ever felt! This way, if it's anything less you'll be pleasantly surprised. The worst thing is starting to think it won't be bad and then finding that it hurts more than you had imagined.

I don't think you need to be all that careful with feet really, from experience. What I can recommend however is to take some kind of pain relief-medication that also combats swelling and infection for the first 2-3 days. Also, as soon as you are in a place where you can walk barefoot: do so, take of the socks and wash and cream.

awesome stuff from Robert Ryan @ Electric in Asbury
good times good times

"Yknow what's awesome about this budd?...you have a whole bodysuit of tattoo and MY tattoo is going to be the one everyone is gonna ask about haha"
Keepin' it real w/ King Len, guest spot at Champion Tattoo in Edmonton, AB

Deadly placement, deadly evening, deadly tattoo. But holy fack did this one sizzle and rattle.

I think it depends, Jeff.
Someone can be drinking in a bar, day in, day out, and you're right - that's not an indicator that they have money. It could be a dive bar, and they could be spending their pay cheque drip by drip until it next comes in.
Same principle could apply with tattooing. Someone could have a lot of coverage but it could be work that they built up incrementally, piece by piece, paying just a little at a time. If they're going to some guy who tattoos in his kitchen then maybe they'll fill up even quicker.
But if someone is getting large scale work done, especially by anyone in a busy and in-demand shop (I'm not even talking about Kat Von D here, I just mean someone in a city like London who is charging the going rate) then I think it does indicate certain resources.
Typically I'd stand by the idea that if you're looking at someone who has a lot of good tattoos then they're probably people with a job or access to a decent amount of money.
If you are living on a welfare payment here you definitely can go to a bar and drink every day. You could also go to a scratcher and accumulate a lot of small tattoos and be covered over time. But I don't think you could afford to lay down enough for a deposit and large work in a reputable shop - the outlay is too big.

I think of tattoos more as a hobby than a luxury.
A luxury is something I treat myself to when I have time/money/cravings (I'd sell my mother for some chocolate ice cream at the moment.)
A hobby is something (IMO) that I find important enough to make time/money for. Yep, my car is a piece of shit. Yes, I'm pretty broke at the moment. But I wanted more tattoos, so I made the effort, cut back on frivolous spending, and got some tattoos.
Those tattoos will outlive the new clutch my car needs; I'll still be enjoying them 10 years from now, when I'm doing something totally unrelated to my goals at the moment.
Lets face it, life is super unpredictable. I'm gonna do what I enjoy, cause if I have a heart attack and die tomorrow, my tattoos will be in the box with me... my savings account won't.

Fantastic thread. Lemme add my late-to-the-party contribution:
I feel a little resistant to classifying tattoos as a luxury product. And if I'm being honest, it's because "luxury" to me connotes wealth, which I do not possess. I'm ok with people asking me just about every silly questions about my tattoos (even the dreaded "what do they mean?" and "what are they gonna look like when you're old?"), but I can't stand it when I'm asked how much it cost. Partially because it feels like they're shopping for a bargain through me (which is insulting, and I'd rather not be a part of that), but mostly because it gives the asker an excuse to make some snap judgment about my socioeconomic standing. I shouldn't care, I know, but that stuff is a bit of a sore point for me. All I've done is made a value judgment, and traded certain trappings of modern living (TV, cable, blu-ray, microwave, newest/baddest phones, etc) so I could get good-quality tattoos by excellent artists. That's not say I don't have possessions I cherish, I do, but I think I spend much less on planned obsolescence than most. That to me is not a luxury purchase, it's just making a consumer choice.
But like @misterJ said earlier, if we're doing all this mental gymnastics to justify it, then it must be a luxury thing. I'm sure sneakerheads share our struggle.

Gakkin and Guy Le Tatooer...the heavy black bodysuits are blowing my mind. Especially the recent one that Guy Le Tattooer is working on that French gal, with the dots, ornaments and big peonies. The layering is crazy, the results are beautiful.

Got this Shishi Lion from Alix Ge at the London convention yesterday (pic nicked from her instagram):

When I arrived, Alix was still drawing. She told me we couldn't put the tattoo on the side of my thigh like I had asked for because for that I would have to lie down and she only had a chair. Well, alright then. When I came back from a short tour around the convention she had obviously done another drawing which was much bigger than the first. She thought the animal had to be rather large to be nice, good with me. But she didn't think we could fit peonies as well, would I be happy with cherry blossoms instead...? Bummer...what? Noooo...! Oh well, so we agreed to put on the lion stencil and see then. Stencil went on, peonies were added freehand. No problem, all fitted on there nicely....but...that was gonna be a looong session. If I was a strong woman, she asked. Ermmmmm, well, I bl**dy hoped so...what else could I say? She looked at me particularly sceptical after she found out it was only my second tattoo....
Obviously, we made it, yippie!!!
Six hours on a folding chair with two breaks. Even though I got some odd looks and remarks for running around with a pillow under my arm, I was well glad I had brought it because it made the chair way more comfortable! Apart from that, getting tattooed at the convention was actually surprisingly good as there was so much to watch and get distracted by. I could openly stare at all the tattoos walking by and quite a few people gave me encouraging smiles and words. That was really cool.
Alix is super lovely and I kinda felt a little bad for her having to sit on her small suitcase for hours. Towards the end she told me that she wouldn't be able to do what I did and that she'd never get a tattoo that takes more than one hour herself. I doubt that's actually true, but it was a sweet thing to say anyway.
Suffice to say I'm super chuffed but also glad it's over!
And this morning my 3 1/2 year old greeted me excitedly with "Mummy, I have a tattoo, too!". Turns out the entire family has tattoos now, some of them of the temporary type, some rather not ;-)

Awesome weekend at the London Convention. There were some awesome tattoos walking around and being created, not least on some LSTers. Congratulations to everyone that got some work. Everything I have seen so far looks great. I didn't get anything big or dramatic this weekend. Just this little guy by Len Leye at Clan of Tusk in Belgium. Really nice guy and fun time getting tattooed. It you don't know his work then check out his instagram.

Here's mine from Friday at the London convention, done by Tony Hundahl. So unbelievably happy with this one!

Nicked the picture from Tony's instagram as my camera is broken

So I went for my appointment with Tomas Tomas today.
Trying some different styles :)
Had me toes done lol, wasnt a lot we could do really with just toes but I think once it settles down and its the same colour as the snake, should fit in great.
He showed me a vid and said this pattern is from some tribe from the Amazon. Now all I need is some animal skin leather pants ;p
Hes a fucking awesome crack :)

Been ages since I posted on this forum, don't really know why since I have been lurking every now and then. Guess i've been more into real life outside world thingies and started university again.
Anyway a friend of mine put this on my leg. Just to get some panties in a twist: this was not done in a shop, but in a bedroom.

edit: It's about 2 months healed

piss poor excuse for a picture of the actual tattoo, I'll get you guys a better one when it's healed and not completely crusty.

Freddy Corbin, Temple Tattoo Oakland

decided to go with a japanese background for my tattoos, i liked the idea of a mix of tradtional americana with some nice clouds

Great post @exume, thanks for sharing!
In my defense I have to say that I didn't say anything about Shige. It was someone else who said he had better artists at his local shop... (still want to know where that is) Also, I think I did say that I like some of Walter McDonalds stuff a lot (?), but that I was not as into how rough and loose his style is. His ideas, design and concepts are often way cool if you ask me!
In the end, as with any art, it's a matter of preference. Someone mentioned that Chad Koeplinger tattoos in a looser style and he's in the bunch I'd consider favorite tattooers BUT I don't like the stuff that's very loose (yet). I think this could be a journey in itself, to learn to appriciate the rawness of things. A parallel could be to someone who gets into punk music by listening to, say, Bad Religion. After some years this persons taste might have refined/degraded (depending on you perspective) to the point where Discharge is his/hers favorite band, if you see the resemblence. I think it can be an obstacle to experience and enjoyment of any art form to judge it on scales of trashy - clean, dark - positive, energetic - static, and so on. There's no way to quantify the tattoo mojo and soul that is the most important ingredient.
I don't know. For me tattoos are still mostly a visual thing and sometimes used to imprint/express an idea/feeling/concept I feel strongly about. I don't doubt that Walter has a smile on his face even when sleeping and that Eddy is one of the raddest guys, that Spotlight has bullet holes in the flash or whatever. Those are great things! But I am not sure that, for me, this would help me choose and artist to get work from. For some people it probably does, and I'm not going to say who is right or wrong in this. Tattoo culture is not a sport, I think it's totally fine that people have strongly oposing ideas and taste preference and I think it's fun and evolving in it's own to discuss without having to decide who is winning an argument.
@Pugilist: I agree, it's always important to think twice about what you set in stone publicly (or set in HTML, in this case) And I absolutely think we should all try to be fair and not fall into gossip and trash talk. However, just because it's somebody's livelihood doesn't make it immune to criticism, in my opinion. One thing I like about this culture is that is participatory. You can't really be on the sidelines and still enjoy it (well you can watch Miami INK, but that's another story) Even getting just one tattoo means you have to make an active effort and become a, if tiny and shortlived, part of it. And I think one of the beautiful things is that it's not very hierarchical, no thrones of professional art critics who dictates what to think and feel about tattoos, what's good and who is not.
I think there needs to be room for discussion, in a polite and civilized way about things we/you/I don't like and to voice some critical oppinions about people's work too. I am sure Deutsche has the kind of following where he's legacy will continue to grow still (and I also think he deserves it, I hope I made that clear). I also hope that people can make up their own minds and trust their own taste. I hope we don't get threads where the sole purpose is to talk shit about somebody's work, that would be really unfair and a lowmark for the forum. In this case it made for some interesting arguments that also lead to other ideas and perspectives comming through. As long as the tone is good and people behave I think it's benificial for everyone that we're not only giving eachother high 5's in the Latest Tattoo Lowdown-thread and joining into the choir whenever a respected tattooers name is mentioned. But yeah, thanks for pointing it out!
"Think before you post!" is a good moto

OK, so this is going to be a bit hard to follow I'm sure..
A few weeks ago I mentioned to Iain Mullen that I wanted to get some kind of geometric dotworky type of tattoo and I wondered who he thought I should get it from. After just a second he said "Xed Le Head! He's the originator of that whole style". And I thought: Yeah, that would be cool! Out of this short trade of words came some thoughts that later began to formulate.
I easily find myself soft to the idea of getting tattooed by well known tattooers. I'm not the type of person that show of my tattoos or brag about them to friends and strangers. Pants drop and shirt goes off in tattoo shops when tattooers show interest in seeing what I have, but that's about it. Still I have some notion of wanting to get work from big name tattooers that I admire. Of course the style of the tattoo goes first, but even among tattooers of "equal" skill and in the same style I'd easily choose the one that seems most well respected in the craft. If the tattooer an interesting character it's also a big plus. I gues it has to do with the added "value" of the tattoo: the circumstances around getting it, the shop or convention, the mode that day and the person making the tattoo. I've always by interested in people so I want original folks to mark me too.
I also have this belief that people who spent a lot of time and energy doing their craft will have a very refined taste. That their added years and position "in the game" will leave me with a tattoos that I will learn to appriciate even more as time passes, as I too go deeper into the culture.
There are limits however. I wouldn't get a tattoo by Horiyoshi III or even someone like Bob Roberts or Eddy Deutsche, I think they lost it a long time ago. (Come on, send a lynch mob..) I was set up to get tattooed by Henk last autumn in Amsterdam but I don't think I care about it anymore. Getting heavily tattooed is a hard process, there is only so much skin to cover.
I also think sometimes about WHY we go to the lenghts of getting tattooed by people from across seas for example. Hopefully we can be honest to ourselves and do it because we want this particular person to leave their mark on us and grace us with art, and not do it be part of some "I got tattooed by the Smith ST-crew club". (I got a tattoo by Eli Quinters by the way...) But what if everyone who wanted a particular style tattoo saved up all their money and went to the master of this style? Everybody. Would someone like Jondix have the chance to blossom if we all went to Mike The Athens? Would the tattoo world not have El Carlo if people where picky enough to only see El Monga? Maybe we should be less elitist and let the small dogs get their chance a bit more, to help push the art further?
A tattooer that I know told me about one of his visible tattoos. It was made by one of the absolutely biggest names in this part of the culture, someone I bet a lot of you look up too beacause of his art (so do I). But this experience was so bad, the big shot tattooer turned out to be really rude and bossy/macho-y and this was one of the reasons that this guy now gets tattooed by friends almost strictly. And this is someone who loves tattoos, who looks up to Theo Mindell as his favorite tattooer and who really struggle to improve his own work. After all it's just tattoos, and if the process is not fun for you, why bother chasing "collectors items"?
For a while I was really into getting only one piece per tattooer but this story made me loosen up a bit and now I get more work from people that I got a good vibe with. I kind of want to get something from Jelle Neleman mostly because he seems like such a PMA dude. His work is really nice but I can name at least 5 tattooers that do the same tattoos.
I don't know.. I hope you got something out of this rambling. Feel free to write down your thoughts and associations! Bless

I realized that besides for instagram photos in the Latest Tattoo Lowdown-thread, I haven't uploaded any proper hi-res healed pictures of any one the tattoos I've gotten since I first registered here 3 years ago. I'll make sure to get to that. Anyway, here's my twiggy pale legs at their current state:


Left leg, top to bottom:
Rose - Eli Quinters
Judas wearing devil mask - Iain Mullen
Heart factory-thing - Rudy Fritsch
Dietzel masked girl - Joel Albertsson
ACE-script - design by my friend, tattoo by Iain Mullen
Swampy horned skull - my friend Isabel
Crocodile bird - Joel Madberg SOOS
Man with birdcage head - my friend Isabel
Ancient aliens UFO with wings and bird claw - Iain Mullen
Gorilla in tower holding skull - Deno
Crossed bones RMA - my friend Isabel
Återkomst - some scratcher named Jens (traded for a small photo)
Badly healed heel tattoo - Iain Mullen
Upside down skull - my design, tattoo by Iain Mullen
Right leg, top to bottom:
Shaman and hyena - James McKenna
Rock of ages, upside down cross - Peter Lagergren
Girl sleeping in moon - Jaclyn Réhe
Human cuddled in egg shape - my friend Isabel
Whispering devil + indian symbol and three moons - Iain Mullen
Baboon head - Matty D'Arienzo
Saraswati/indian looking head - Adde Ramstedt
Behive - Knibbe Pallius
Upside down eye of providence and snake - Ville Prinsen
Big angry snake head - Deno
Cat reaper - Joel Madberg SOOS
Funky tiger coming out of flower - Cezilia Hjelt
Equaly badly healed heel tattoo - Iain Mullen (both to be redone in a few months)
Bum dreaming "C.R.E.A.M." - Frej Lind
Hårda Tider-band logo on toe - my friend Isabel
Edit: Oh wow, long post. Thought they were thin enough to go side by side in pairs. Well.. enjoy