Pugilist

This just kind of blew my mind. I tip my hat to you, sir.

Hahaha, thanks. If there is any universal truth in this world, it's that misery loves company. :)

Holy shit I love this so much! Thank you for sharing it.

Holy shit that beef looks good!

As a professor, I am very used to being treated like I am super ancient by my 18-22 year old students. I am 31. Who even knows anymore.

There's nothing a panther won't fix, is there?

I love stories about older folks getting tattooed. So great. I hope to be one of them someday.

Yes! Dude in the Bad Brains t-shirt who got a girl/bear head that matches @Graeme 's bear head? Small world!

"Things people do as a substitute for having an actual personality"

Bienvenue! Il y'en à quelque gens du Québec ici, principalement de Montréal. Toujours contente d'en voir plus! Are you doing your apprenticeship in Québec City?

You're harsh, @writerAZ - when I start mine I could tell that @Graeme was trying to be as gentle as possible, but there is not way to make those first few ointment sessions not suck balls. Augh.

I tend to sleep on my front or side, so sleeping is not a problem for me when dealing with my back. But my husband and I have definitely often joked that a back piece is really not something to embark on as a single person; one's partner is pretty damn key in caring for the thing. Don't know how people do it alone!

Yeah, when we go to New York for tattoos we usually stay with friends, and I live in fear of fucking up their sheets/bathrooms during the cleaning and healing process. The last time we went down, for work reasons we were put up in first-year dorms at Columbia which were fucking disgusting, and it was tricky to try and wash an entirely outlined back in a communal washroom! Not to mention the uncomfortable scratchy sheets that wouldn't stay put and... augh. Not fun.

Wow, really like that Mike Moses stuff, thank you for pointing him out!

Hahaha @Graeme and I were just talking about this thread (and how painfully we identify with it) and one of his things was being stunned when you see a tube of Aquaphor in the bathrooms of friends who are not-tattooed, because it takes you a minute to remember that it has other uses.

...you feel excited and wait to hear news about the upcoming tattoos of people you've never met ...your reaction to most of the tattoos you see is "they should've just gotten an eagle"

If there was ever anything to be competitive about, getting tigers from Tim Lehi would be it.

Yikes, @slayer9019 . Fucking yikes.

Oh yikes dudes. @David Flores you reminded me that minutes after I came home from having my thigh done, and sat down on the couch, one of my cats of course just NEEDED to sit on that thigh, and only that thigh. Jerk.

Of course they're totally worth it, it's not so bad, blah blah blah, but I thought it might be nice to have a space to bitch about one's healing in whatever stage it's in, as we all know that all there really is to do, beyond the basics, is wait. Today the tattoo I got on Saturday started flaking en masse. I have never quite seen anything like it with my other tattoos, which usually go from stage to stage much more gradually; it went from nothing to the entire thing (and it's the entire front of my thigh) flaking off at one time. It felt so dry and uncomfortable under my work pants that I kept locking my office door to secretly strip down and give it a little moisturizer. The inside of my pants looks like I'm some kind of dandruff hoarder. Oof. Whine away, folks.

While I imagine that most of the regular posters on this board are extremely discerning about the tattoos they put on their bodies (at least in terms of quality--perhaps not subject matter, haha), the idea of being a "tattoo snob" gives me douche chills. Most of my friends are not really into tattoos, and so they are likely to come to me for advice if they are considering one, and I am absolutely happy to help--I want folks to get beautiful work and I want the awesome artists in this city to get the recognition they deserve. But as long as they're safe and clean I have no interest in being some great arbiter of whether or not their work passes my muster. They have to live with it.

@eisen777 you have stamina to have made it through three days--we were there most of the day yesterday because my appointment was early and Graeme's was late, and today I feel hungover despite only having had a couple of drinks last night. We are also already talking about next year. :) PS - we saw a woman with a Hooper-looking chest tattoo and realized now based on the collar thread that it was probably your wife? That sounds totally creepy, but if it was indeed her tell her that it is stunning in person.

Love the texture on that snake so much!

Ok here goes. Goofy dragon by Marie Sena (who happens to be the nicest person in the universe) done at the Montreal tattoo convention yesterday. This takes up most of the front of my thigh and only took three hours! She is a wizard. It was a fantastic experience. Inspired by the 100-year-old piece of flash that I gushed about here.

It went awesome, but @Graeme only took terrible photos, so will post once we get a better one. :)