mblx

Hey guys I wanted to give you all an update on the situation and I am proud to say that I will have the chance of getting tattooed by John Sultana himself at Saved at the end of september! :D I did not quite find an artist in montreal that I felt as confident with as John to do the job so I decided to go the extra mile down to Brooklyn for this massive project I have!!

Thanks to all of you for the help and advice :)

Daniel Albrigo what about this guy?

Everyone and their mother in trying to dotwork or mandalas or whatever you want to call them, but I think the thing that most people miss is that Thomas Hoopers work is a lot more than a bunch of dots, lots of strong imagery, with the gemotric stuff in the background, I think it's that imagination and creativity and knack for layout and flow that set him, and the few others that do that style well , apart from people who are just doing a bunch of geometric shapes on people

That being said it is very frustrating when someone you want to get tattooed by is virtually unavailable. There are hundreds of people who do good traditional, Japanese, portrait work, not so much in this realm, but that doesn't mean there aren't people out there that are flying under the radar. I would keep trying to book with hooper, but keep your eye out as well.

Yeah I totally expected hooper to be very busy and I saw on his site that he wasnt taking any new clients before I even posted here. I was really looking for those guys who could be flying under the radar as you say. If I had the chance to pick ANY artist, I would be getting tattooed by Gerhard Wiesbeck actually but going to germany sounds like a lot of trouble for me :p. However I emailed Saved Tattoo and asked them to suggest someone at the shop for me who will be available soon and who could tattoo my idea for two half sleeves. I really like John Sultana's stuff too!

Do you mean like Thomas Hooper style? Just go to Thomas Hooper, he does it far better than all his imitators.

There's not really anybody in Montreal who does that style adequately. The only person I can think of who might, though I've never seen him do anything like that, is Jean-Michel Manutea at Imago though he seems to do more straightforward tribal. He is amazing though. Cory Ferguson in Oakville, Ontario does really nice blackwork/dotwork and I think he'll be at the Montreal convention. Mikel in Victoria, BC, same thing.

Yeah I meant like Thomas Hooper, that was my plan initially but he seems sooo busy. His site says he is not currently taking more appointments and he is so popular these days its understandable! I saw your tattoo in the other black and gray thread made by him, its so goooood! How long did it take you to get an appointment with him?

Does anyone know artists who have been working on developping this style in the Montreal area? My favorite that I have found so far is Christian Lanouette (Christian Lanouette tatouages). There is only like 3 peices of dotwork, I was thinking of contacting him to ask if he has been doing more of them.

So I have read something like 25 or more forum pages in various threads related to tattoos in the workplace and I have yet to see anyone mention the products on the market that are used to cover tattoos. You know, they're just make-up basicaly like this one called Dermablend which had a very successful video advertisement that went viral on the web. I've found one thread about it here: http://www.lastsparrowtattoo.com/forum/wtf-news/1504-zombie-boy-does-campaign-dermablend-tattoo-covering-makeup-video.html

What do you guys think of this for hiding visible hand and finger tattoos? It seems like a great solution to me, why don't people talk about it more? Obviously it wouldnt work for forearms or neck tattoos because of how time and money consuming it would be to apply every day though.

That last line of your post was really awesome and I had to let you know. :D Welcome!

I don't happen to know Nick personally, I was just entertained by this thread. But I"d like to point out how impressed I was by his commentary on Tattoo Reality Shows. Many tattooists have many things to say about the shows, but all these comments can be put into 2 very basic categories, POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE. Since tattoo reality shows debuted, most commentary Ive read by most artists has been overwhelmingly negative, to the point where I more often feel like shutting the critics down than the shows, because there have been many positive elements of tattooing brought to the public light by the shows as well as a lot of BS, and they have done a lot to increase foot traffic in shops all over the world, and that helps ke4ep the doors open and the lights on...but please take notice...Mr. Colella had NO negative things to say. He only had constructive commentary to give, and that little bit said showed me more class, confidence, and maturity than almost any other commentary I've heard from any other tattooist about the shows. Now please note, I haven't heard every commentary, by every artist, but I have heard A LOT. That says a lot for Nick Colella's character. BTW-the artist he mentioned that gave him his last tattoo...Eric Gillespie...of(at one point) Tomato Tattoo in Chicago...solid artist, and down to earth guy. Had to give that plug as well

Well the way they asked that question might have something to do with it also. They directly asked him "How could you improve tattoo tv shows" as opposed to "What do you think of tattoo tv shows".

The new "trend" is/will be dots.

Yea noticed this as well. Starting to see a pickup in dot tattoos.

Excuse my ignorance but what do you guys mean by dot tattoos, are you referring to something like this? I remember seeing a lot of that kind of stuff on Thomas Hooper's designs.

Also I am wondering, how well do you think these tattoos age with time compared to other tattoos? Sorry if these are dumb questions!

The first one!

she someday hoped to have an "LA Ink style" shop staffed completely by "hot tattoo chicks".

That made me cringe.

Na I don't think they need to stage cases of phobia like this, I can absolutely believe it wasnt staged. I remember seeing a show on TV of some old man who had a phobia of PEACHES. He ran off stage crying when they brought a big bowl of peaches near him hahahha

I love all the digital art inspiration, your sleeve is like a big photomontage :D

Creating a Vector Composite Effect from a Photo | Psdtuts+

I think I might have just found the inspiration behind this one! :p I used to be a photoshop tutorial madman and I totally remember this one. I never thought about turning it into a tattoo but that's a cool result.

Wow! The whole sleeve is amazing but I especially like the piece of your forearm with the crown of thorns.

The first episode with Thomas Hooper is still my personnal favorite for sure.

I'm in the process of just trying to figure out where I should start, I have so many ideas floating in my head and in some folders on my computer. I just don't know where to start because I want all the tattoos to feel like one big piece. :p

I'm a pastor, so my tattoos get stares quite often. I'm a talker and my profession also demands that I be one, so typically when I see the stares I say hello and hope that a little dialog ensues. If the outcome is that their outlook on life broadens a bit; great. If they get super offended; I say a prayer that God show them the error in their judgmental ways and that they come to the realization that my tattoos are awesome.

Where are your tattoos exactly, are they easily visible? Also, do you ever get negative comments about them because of your job as a pastor?

Maybe you could watch the Markus Kuhn series to help you get inspired to find your inspiration.

Okay I actually watched the 4 episodes and I thought it was amazing...I went to sleep 3 hours later than I should have :p. Thanks a lot for the recomandation

Welcome to LST. Looks like you've already received some great responses. Keep us posted and let us know where you're located.

Yes! I am impressed by the good responses I've received already from my introduction thread, I totally expected to have nobody look at it haha. Like I said earlier I have asked the same question in other tattoo forums and 75% of the comments were about how dumb they look because there's no shading, so obviously I wasn't impressed :p. I am actually in Montreal right now but I am willing to travel to get the best results possible. This is a long term project, I am not ready to get anything done yet and I have a lot of planning to do. I'm thinking in 2 or 3 years is when I'll be ready to start.

Maybe you could watch the Markus Kuhn series to help you get inspired to find your inspiration.

I was actually planning on watching all of these interview videos! So far I've watched the one with Stewart Robson, I thought it was cool to see him reply to my thread right after I watched it. :p

@mblx If you're in the States, go see Thomas Hooper at Saved Tattoo in Brooklyn.

If you're in the UK, Duncan X at IntoYou, London.

I think someone at Blut & Eisen in Berlin, Germany does stuff a little like that too.

Look outside tattoos or tattooing for reference images.

Good luck.

I really liked Thomas Hooper's portfolio, he seems like he would be perfect for some parts of the tattoos I want. Brooklyn is really not that far away from Montreal so I will definitaly bookmark his portfolio. As for reference images, right now I am making a list of ideas of the things I want to get tattooed in that style. So it's just a list of things, like I know I want the main chest piece to be an owl surrounded by small stars that would cover my entire upper body to represent a night sky. I will go into more specific details and post pictures of reference images I was planning on showing the artist when I get back from work in a couple hours, then you guys can tell me what you think!

Actually after reading my original post again, I made it sound like they're something extraordinary. In reality I've even been told once on another forum that they look horrible. I love them though. Anyways, here's three pictures:

ImageShack® - Online Photo and Video Hosting

http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m5kwtfct8z1ryzcneo1_500.jpg

ImageShack® - Online Photo and Video Hosting

I have looked at a lot of portfolios of black and gray but I can't seem to find artists who do tattoos like these. How do you think should I go about finding the best possible artist for this type of work? I also want to see more of that style so I can get some inspiration and come up with my own concepts.

Hey everyone, I decided to register here because I want to gain knowledge about tattoos in general so I can better prepare myself for my big tattoo project. I have a very specific style in mind for my tattoos, I have been told that it is a very unique style and that it may be unreasonable to ask another artist to replicate it. I thought it was interesting to hear and made me want to get them even more! :p If anyone is curious about the tattoos I'm talking about, I'll post some pictures in this thread. Thank you!