graybones

Whoa, with all the awesome tattoos posted in the Lowdown thread recently I'm surprised no one's posted here yet. I'll kick it off! Here's my thigh by Seth Wood, started at Temple and finished at Saved.

Here's an update on my back piece - love it :-)

xccx

Finished my back on Friday night (well, Saturday at 5:30 am). It was a hell of a ride - it took almost exactly a year of sessions every 2-3 weeks. We'll do a final session after this heals to tie the bow on it.
This tattoo was made by Sean Zee out of Brick, NJ from pictures I've taken while scuba diving. I gave him 50-some pictures and a wish list, and he selected about 15 shots to create this scene. These pics were taken on 4 continents from 1998 through 2013 using (mostly) a Nikonos V underwater camera with an SB-105 strobe, UW Nikkor 35mm, 28mm, and 15mm f2.8 fisheye lenses, Sea & Sea (no relation) macro kit and Nikonos closeup kit.

Sean is a great guy, dedicated and amazingly creative. It boggles my mind how artists just "see" stuff like this and make it happen. He put up with a lot of questions and "what ifs" and "why nots" from this nearly virgin canvas (as he likes to say, "this woman only had lil kitty paw prints on her shoulder before this"), explaining to me all the ways this tattoo would NOT work, and ended up just putting it on the table that it really needed to be a full back if I wanted so many references. And to prove it, he designed the whole thing superimposed on a picture of my bare back and emailed it to me. I remember the moment I saw it for the first time and it shorted out my brain. I committed to the full back about 20 minutes after I got the email. (And I admit at the time I did not understand in the least what I was in for...)
Kinda funny, thinking back on it, how all the chatter and uncertainty and 14 years of wanting some sort of tattoo with my eagle rays were completely silenced and resolved in a heart beat. Anyway...
So, the critters making appearances, starting at the top right and going clockwise are: two moon jellyfish, two Moorish idols, two clownfish and anemone, a batwing coral crab and mustard tube sponges just behind him, a leopard moray eel, two squirrelfish hiding in red sea fans that cross my lower back, a sea snake in lettuce coral (very poisonous, which I didn't realize until after I'd crawled up in his face to take the picture and then been admonished by the divemaster after the picture was developed), a queen angelfish and a hammerhead shark. In the center are two spotted eagle rays and the broken mast of the Nippo Maru, a Japanese supply ship sunk during WWII by US forces in Truk Lagoon, Micronesia.
When I look at this, I don't just see a tattoo of fish. It's a diary of my favorite diving experiences. Each part has such different memories of the location, the people I was with, and the experience on that dive. (Yeah, poisonous sea snake. Whoopsie on that one. And the clownfish was actually guarding a little ring of day-old eggs. And trying to photograph moon jellies in a surge without being hit is like playing a 3D video game. And that I really really wanted my spotted moray eels but Sean said the pattern wouldn't age well, so with resigned sadness, my handsome spotted moray had to morph into a leopard moray. Sniff Sniff.) All of this flooding my brain at the same time.
And then I get this goofy grin on my face thinking about walking around with this huge awesome back piece that anyone I know would be shocked to learn I have.
He put up a little video where you can see the ribs, too: Video of SeeSea's Back. Healed pics coming to an LST contest near you. I want a T-shirt, dammit :D

Now that's what I'm talking about @beez!
- - - Updated - - -
I'm not to proud to say I lived in bikini tops and going braless while home while healing my back. I've only had line work done, but damn, healing it wasn't all that fun. I wear multiple layers at work daily (including thick coveralls) so healing blew. But bikini tops- I love you.
Oh, and ladies, I haven't posted a photo here. But here's the start to my shoulders to knees backpiece. Weee. Next sit in three weeks to finish lining my butt and thighs.

Remember how we were talking about Eagles earlier? BAM! I got an eagle fighting a dragon the other day. If y'all didn't see it in the latest tattoo lowdown thread, here it is! From flash originally drawn by Tom Berg.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

It's hard when someone you love is so negative about something important to you. IMO you don't owe anyone an explanation about what you do with your own body, but I can understand making an exception for family.
I like the idea of having your mom confront her reasons for reacting so strongly and explaining what tattoos represent to her, beyond just being "trashy". Is she worried her daughter has turned into a kind of person she doesn't like? Does she believe you are disrespecting her by getting tattoos, or is she hurt that you're disregarding her feelings/values/opinions? Once you know the root of the problem, you can address her worries and gently explain that her reacting that way does nothing but cause you both pain, since the tattoos are here to stay and there will only be more in the future.
Even so, she might just need time to come around. My dad eventually did... kind of... he's never going to love my tattoos but he sees past them now. I hope it gets easier for you!

My buddy jaie came to town so i had him stick this dagger on my shin.

If I were in your shoes, I would try to truly understand why your mom hates them so much. She hates them just because they are trashy? It must be more than that for her to act so serious about it. I'd sit my mom down with a bottle of alcohol, and I would force a clean answer out of her (my mom prefers avoidance of issues).
And you have to ask the right questions too. This might seem silly but root cause analysis is a valuable life tool, use the "5 Whys". "Why don't you like tattoos?", "In your mind, what makes them trashy?" I'm not going to role play this whole thing out, but I hope you get the idea. Then explain your side, why you like tattoos, how tattooing in this day and age is very different than tattooing in hers, etc. In my own experience, I see a lot of it come from pressure from our parents own peers. If your mom's friends hate tattoos, then that makes her look horrible as a mother that she raised some miscreant that likes tattoos that would embarrass her in front of her friends. You have to see it from her side. If you were on her side of the fence, what would it take to change your mind?
I can tell you, sure as shit, if I were to go to the beach with my mom, she would immediately be fearful of what the people around us would think about my tattoos. She can't help it, she is a mother. She wants all her kids to be seen in a respectful light, and that is her opinion of what respectful means. My older brother rocks a mohawk. It looks good. My mom hates it and it embarrasses the hell out of her because her friends see her son with a mohawk and she feels ashamed.

I finally get to give this a shot!
Dana Helmuth, 95% completed at Read Street Tattoo in Baltimore, the rest done in his private studio.

Got this from Horimatsu in October. It was a great experience, he is such an awesome dude with some pretty cool stories to tell.
Also I got this cattoo on a caturday so I kind of won the internet that day :D

edit: can't figure out why the picture is all wonky but if one clicks it again for full size it looks like it is supposed to...
edit2: oh, and it's located on the outside of the calf.

got this beauty from nick oaks on his visit in toronto @ the okey doke

beyond happy with the turn out

Finishing my thigh with Seth Wood on December 1st! Looking forward to it.

Just booked in with Ron Henry Wells when he comes to Lombard Street Tattoo in January, now I just need to decide what I want...

Finishing my thigh with Seth Wood on December 1st! Looking forward to it.

Finishing my thigh with Seth Wood on December 1st! Looking forward to it.

Finishing my thigh with Seth Wood on December 1st! Looking forward to it.

Finishing my thigh with Seth Wood on December 1st! Looking forward to it.

Finishing my thigh with Seth Wood on December 1st! Looking forward to it.

Got the ladyhead by Max Kuhn yesterday!

Not the best pic. It wraps a bit!

On Saturday I was back in Kincardine to finish up the lines. Starting background Dec 12 I'm booked for the whole day so hopefully get a lot done

@Cork - nearly done - 3-4 sessions and he wants it done by the end of the year. FML. With much trepidation, I'm booked every other Friday through Jan 2. Through the Thanksgiving and Christmas seasons. I think it's quite insane, but we have a dive vacation at the end of Jan and he feels very strongly about not going more than 3ish weeks between sessions. UGH! I think I'll be burning some sick days trying to stay healthy.
Red and irritated at the top, and some of the marker is showing through. We have to fade out the sides around my ribs (joy) and a few more little critters below my waist to come.
Aside from final whites and highlights most of this is done, EXCEPT for the eagle rays in the very center. It's pretty obvious they are still the first coat of paint. Those eagle rays were the reason I wanted a tattoo - I may have described this elsewhere, but that was a picture I took very early one morning right off the dive boat, and their beauty and strength I wanted to capture with a tattoo on my back. (Every critter here is a picture I took scuba diving and my tattoo artist created the scene from my photographs.)
So, in the tradition of bringing the dragon to life by filling in the eyes last, we are saving the eagle rays until the end to bring this around full circle and bring the ocean scene to life.

Got this from Timothy Hoyer last month. Really stoked about getting a tattoo from one of my absolute favorite tattooers.

Yesterday did four-plus hours of blasting black on my arm with Seth Wood, guesting at Memoir this week. Three more sessions to go. Can't wait for color. I like getting tattooed, the pain and everything. Is that weird?

Side of my head is tattooed!
For me it was the most painful tattoo I have gotten.....but I hear others say it wasn't bad at all!
Mine was done in two sessions and the lining was not too bad.......the second session of shading and blending was horrible!
Pink Tibetan Snow Lion
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_Lion

its already on the site so i guess i'll throw this in
from jeff rassier last week