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@ironchef who did your sleeves and that thigh koi?

For a few seconds I thought he was actually going to tattoo the host at his kitchen table then I realized it was just a marker holder that looked like a machine.

slightly off topic but did anyone else see Nick on HGTV's Kitchen Crashers?

...you get stressed thinking about what you will do when you have no empty space for new tattoos even though you still currently have plenty of space.

based of the bolded words you should get: pattern = mandala sweatheart = heart or rose stab = dagger boyfriend = japanese penis monster (aka a poorly drawn koi fish)

@Mike Panic looks great! Barely visible and I bet you can't even notice it when your leg hair grows back.

@Dan S I think you've mentioned in other threads that most (or maybe all?) of your tattoos were done at CTC, will you follow Nick to his new spot or start getting work from another artist at CTC? or do both?

My parents have seen my koi 1/2 sleeve on my right arm but they haven't seen my in-progress hannya 3/4 sleeve on my left arm or the panther/snake and rose/dagger on my right leg. They weren't very thrilled with the 1/2 sleeve so the reaction to all of my new work could be interesting... but I'm 26, financially independent, and have a successful career so they can't get super upset and disown me.

the quality of the website design matches the quality of the tattoos also reminds me of my elementary/middle school days of logging onto AOL via dial up modem and searching for cheat codes for Doom and Mortal Kombat

All will be forgiven when you get a good tattoo.

You can't expect this community to offer you any advice if you can't even bother to read and follow some very simple guidelines.

Wow...

I think these are two of the top reasons why people end up with bad tattoos. They can't wait and they don't want to pay. If you get on his waiting list now you will have at least a year to save for it.

Recently made my instagram profile public after months of only using it to creep on tattoo artists. I am harryb714 on there. So far i post mostly tattoo related stuff and try to limit it to one post a day because i dont think i am interesting enough to need more than that :)

@Kahlan unfortunately every new person that reads this thread is going to point out that your first few posts in this thread had an entitled vibe. but if they read your later posts they will see that you were just venting some frustrations and now have an improved perspective on the issue. but you should brace yourself for a few more people calling you out.

@Deb Yarian made a well written post related to this topic: http://www.lastsparrowtattoo.com/blogs/deb-yarian/312-not-my-gift-you.html

I wouldn't worry too much about the "meaning" of any of the traditional tattoo images/designs because if you dig deep enough you will find that a single image can be tied to numerous groups and/or causes, some that you agree with and others that you want nothing to do with.

Thanks for clarifying, at first I wasn't sure if it was an ass or an elbow!

welcome and pictures please!

@Joe Stratford outstanding!

I just emailed kings avenue to ask about mike's availability that weekend... but I think I'll wait until I start seeing announcements on each artist's instagram before I email any others.

I might make the trip. When is a good time to start contact artists to make appointments at the convention?

I wish people would stop posting crappy tattoos on this forum.

@Dhopper thanks again for all the info! I think the plan is to stay 4 nights (Wednesday through Sunday) in Austin. My girlfriend grew up 3 hours north of Austin so we will be staying there in that area another 2-3 nights prior to going down to Austin. I don't plan on renting a car while staying in Austin so we will be cabbing it to the different areas of town. Based on the above recommendations I think we are going to stay in one of the hotels along 35 (south of the river and north of 71) so we'll be about 3 miles from the E 6th bar scene and downtown area, 3 miles from Rock of Ages, and about 2 miles from South Congress area. Any recommendations on a good place for a pre-tattoo appointment meal near Rock of Ages?

nice clean bold outline.