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I'm going to frame the print out of my appointment dates and the business card that says I put down a deposit!

My backpiece experience is scheduled to begin in February 2015. :D

Your feeling is correct.

Now I don't feel as crazy. I'm doing it.

I have a crazy idea in my head: tomorrow morning I should drive 4 hours down to NY to make appointments for 2014 with a famously hard to book artist... This is a good idea right?

I think the most important lesson I learned from LST is normal, "boring", everyday people are usually the ones getting the awesome tattoos from talented artists. Before coming here I had the silly idea that only creative types with interesting jobs and exciting lives got the best tattoos.

welcome! love the garver piece.

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.

looks like your comment was deleted.

@youthcrewalex I love awesome hand pieces, yours fills the space perfectly. Very jealous...

I want to attend the convention but I'm leaning towards saving my west coast trip until at least March so I can check out the Perseverance exhibit.

Welcome. I hope you have or are planning on getting an awesome traditional Rose of No Mans Land. Every nurse should have one.

It is funny that the 3rd picture even copied those two dark spirals on the shoulders that look like the might have been existing work that Shige had to work around. (please correct me if I'm wrong)

Finished my first 5k with very little training. Official time was 29 minutes 40 seconds. Ran most of the race except for two 30 second walking breaks during the last half of the course. I was very surprised to finish under 30 minutes! Going to try and actually train by running twice a week and see if I can beat my time in a race at the end of summer/ early fall.

Planning to watch this after work tonight.

I have significantly less money now that I have begun getting tattooed.

"damn tattoo collectors get off my sidewalk!!!"

"hey look at this guy's skin, its like instagram but instead of on my phone its right here in front of me."

@else I agree, sometimes it feels like a dirty word. I think it was used negatively in one or two of the last sparrow interviews and I would like to hear an artist's perspective on clients who travel to collect from a variety of artists. Are we a pain in the ass?

That is awesome. I love the bold powerful look of well executed large scale tribal.

Reminds me of a joke I heard once: What do you call a person who speaks 3 languages? ......... Trilingual What do you call a person who speaks 2 languages? ......... Bilingual What do you call a person who speaks 1 language? ......... American :(

How did you know Chris and Henning were on my list?! haha There style drawing peony flowers is similar enough to what I already have so I think either of their work would flow well with the existing stuff. But you are right the first step is to reach out to ask if they are interested.

Wear a water proof diaper.

Why are threads about bad tattoos so popular?

I think your situation is a little easier because both Mike and Henning are considered elite world class tattooers. In my situation I'm looking to extend my 1/2 sleeve by a relatively new/unknown artist to match the length of my 3/4 sleeve by Chris O'Donnell.