graybones

I'm from Florida. Born and raised, there my first 23 years of life. God I miss those afternoon thunderstorms. Huge thunderheads, violent lightening and thunder, rain so hard it hurt. Do you guys have any examples of really strong thunderstorms in tattoos? I'm pretty much a bright/bold/traditional guy...

I don't think I'm going to get much else done after 4pm launch.

Sneaked this cheeky filler in today with Nicholas from Blue Arms, Oslo. Nice little warm up for the back piece session tomorrow!

Just got this beauty from Josh Peters at High Tides in Saint John, New Brunswick.
So stoked! Im a little paranoid about the healing atm, like I am with every tattoo I get, but We'll see when its healed haha

More badassery for you. Starting to see the finish line on this one. By Dave C., PSC Tattoo.

I love doing that.
Don't think I posted this on LST, but I am 90 percent done with my left arm now. Filler by Tim McAlary at Port City Tattoo LBC, CA ALL DAY.
Great experience getting tattooed by Tim. Highly recommended. Port City has some heavy hitters.

I wish I'd gotten something from Mike Malone other than tribal rosettes (in green, at that), but I was a young idiot. I've since cured myself of the young part.

I had the inside scoop that Capilli was coming to the Bay Area, so I emailed him right away. This is end of May 2013 and around this time, I also had made some friendly wagers that I could hold off on getting tattooed for 7 months (till the end of the year). My friends didn't think I could hold off because I had been going pretty nuts getting multiple tattoos a month. I wanted to prove them wrong. A free prime rib dinner, a couple free lunches, free beer, and a "winner gets to choose the loser's tattoo" were some of the prizes being offered.
I finally get an email back from Capilli saying I had first dibs. Had to regretfully decline the offer and not get tattooed. Still bums me out to this day.

Did you ever have the chance to get work done by someone and passed it up for one reason or another? You shake your head in disgust every time you think about it? I don't mean a wishlist, but actual stories of the one that got away.
Mine was Ed Hardy around 1992 @ Tattoo City. I had already traveled out to S.F. twice and had work done by Eddy Deutsche, Dan Higgs and guest artist Henk Schiffmacher. Both times I hung around the shop for 2-3 days solid and stayed with Eddy and Alex Herman. Saw my first lungfish show then too....
The third time I went out to get work done by Marcus Pacheco and have Eddy finish my sleeve, Ed was around the shop for a couple days, which i hadn't seen on my previous visits. I asked Eddy to introduce me if possible. He did, and told Ed I was his old (Eddy's) friend from "the mean streets of Detroit" which wasn't really true. Ed was cordial but all business as he looked up for a second, shook my hand, and went back to his business. I mentioned to him "I would love to get some work done" by him and I was travelling to S.F. a couple times a year to get tattooed. Eddy told me "every once in a while, Ed will come in a do a few walk ins and leave. As I was staying with Eddy, I got invited to go to the movies "with a bunch of guys from the shop". That night Eddy and I went and met Corbin, Higgs, Igor Mortis and a few others at the theater to see American Me. As we were hanging around outside bullshitting, Ed Hardy walks up and we all go in and see the movie.
The next day, As Eddy was finishing my sleeve, I noticed Ed in the shop again. I went out of my way to say Hi when he came over to see what Eddy was doing. He was polite and hung around for a few minutes,then vanished. Later, when we were done, I saw Ed again. This time he said to me " I have some time later (when he got back from an errand or something) if you wanna get tattooed". I nearly shit myself..... I said, I would talk to him when he got back....
I was simultaneously flustered/excited/nervous. This was my shot to get tattooed by one of the greats and I had almost NO MONEY! I had already withdrawn all the money in my bank account and my 1 credit card was maxed. I asked Eddy if he would give me back the money I just paid him with the promise i would repay him in a week or two with interest..he said No, he needed what I paid him. I called my mom to wire me money and was again told "NO"!
When Ed got back to the shop, I had to embarrassingly tell him "thanks. but can't do it this time". I told him I would be out again and would DEFINITELY love to get some work done. He smiled and said "nice meeting you".
well, you can guess the rest.......... Share your stories about the one(s) that got away!

I've been tattooed by dozens of people, and I wouldn't trade those experiences.
That said, after seeing this arm by Paul Dobleman, I wish I had given him a full limb:

RHW bicep club represent! Haha. It's quite tricky to take a photo of my own bicep but here's my fox:

I'm trying to plan my 3rd arm tattoo around this and my bird and it's been a challenge. I sometimes wish I'd thought ahead a little more with the placement but I'm sure the tattoo artist I choose will able to come up with something.

I had the pleasure of meeting Matt Gone aka Checkerboard Man recently at the Edmonton Tattoo Show.
He was super friendly, charming and with a nice dose of crazy...I mean who isn't crazy to go the lengths we all do to get the tattoos we want to express ourselves!
I recall reading about Matt Gone in the early stages of my tattoo journey, I think it was an interview in Skin & Ink and he was on the cover (I was/am really into ska so I was stoked on anything checkered haha). That led to find out more about the checkered fellow and I found his stories, tattoos and motivation to extensively tattoo his body inspiring. It showed me what was possible with tattoos. It also echoe'd my sentiments about tattooing as a way to express myself, assert control over my body and love myself. I also liked how he wasn't simply a circus freak but a dude who was stoked on tattoos and committed to the process, working hard to reach his tattoo goals, no matter how insane they may appear to the average plainskin and tattooed individual alike.
Here's a really cool article about Matt Gone where he talks about his tattooers...he's had some heavyweights do his tattoos like Stell (!), Roy Boy, Sailor Moses, Gil Monte...list goes on.
https://www.bigtattooplanet.com/features/artist-profile/an-interview-with-matt-gone

I really appreciated how candid Matt was about his tattoos and stories. As well as how encouraging he was to get people to strip down, not be shy to show off our tattoos. It was a tattoo convention after all!
I connected with him on facebook this week. I guess one of the event organizers was there when I stripped down to a smile and got this photo taken with him. That exchange along with the spectacle we had at Matt's booth with my buddies with the Paul Jeffries works, had the organizers hire/invite Matt Gone to upcoming Alberta tattoo events. This was his first time in Canada and now has more visits planned for the future.
more info (NSFW)
MATTGONE.NET
- - - Updated - - -
still buzzing from the exchange I had with him, really fun

Here's what I got on my NYC trip a few weeks ago.
Eli Quinters

Steve Boltz (didn't get a very good photo)

Dan Nelson

Got an appointment with Jeff Zuck at the Rochester convention tomorrow! Can't wait.

Done by Bradley Tompkins at Frith St. Great guy and great shop
(borrowed his IG pic)

Some awesome inner bi's here. I'm quite fond of skulls in this location.
Brian Bruno

Chris O'Donnell

One I did. The wearer has one sleeve already. Started this one from the bottom up.

Here's a shot of inside of my left thigh. Purple is my underwear. Bottom is the backpiece and top is the front thigh piece. Hope that helps in getting a sense of how "deep" things can go:

Mine goes in deep enough so that when I am standing normal, no empty butt crack skin is visible. That seems to be how Dana does all his backs. Also upon close inspection of my butt, I made the comment here that my wind bars are appropriately scalloped in that area. I'd rather not put my special collection of tattoo pictures on the internet. Just kidding I don't have any like that, but they're on my computer.
Regards to social comfort, it's very awkward, but if your guy just plays it professional, you'll both finish with dignity still intact.
Regards to body comfort, for me there were a few tweak spots where you can't help but twitch. It hurts as much as you'd expect, but it ends.
I wish this was a bigger picture. I don't actually have a nice one of the heal product, so I stole this from Dana Helmuth's website.

@dcostello I was the guy who came in around 2 and found out I got double booked. Your knee looked killer when it was finished, have fun healing that beast.
Here's what Chad put on me just a couple hours later:

Matt Arriola pantherized my last big spot yesterday at Spotlight. He couldn't quite get it to fit, so he decided to add flames. Always a good call.


I have some inner thigh/tenderloin spots and a few tiny spaces on my legs, but if I said "I'm done" now, I don't think anyone would fault me.
But we all know that I'm not done.

Hokay, cross-posting by request, cos SeeSea is such a flatterer. I was going to wait until Greg posted the pictures he took of the new stuff, but he may not. Sun came out today when I was about to head to the gym, so I tried to get some myself.
I got a diving girl, and we started a cobra, though we didn't finish it. They're looking a little bit foggy/chalky because I peel fast; they'll probably start flaking by tomorrow. It makes it hard to see the blue details in the diving girl, sadly. Sorry for the terrible angles!


These links are just an overview of the whole thing, before we added the cobra.
https://instagram.com/p/1gugZ7TBPK/
https://instagram.com/p/1guZOxTBO-/

No suggestions, just wanted to say how much I adore your arm. Looks so good.

Today Greg and I sewed up the two major remaining blank spaces on my arm, leaving two or three small patches that could comfortably contain some sort of fill. My homework assignment is to think about what I might want to put in there.
We can always default to flowers and leaves -- I don't think I'll ever feel like I have too many flower tattoos -- but we both feel like there might be another option out there that's fun and slightly different. I just...have no idea what that might be. I haven't spent much time thinking about filler! Maybe bugs, or something...? The only thing we know for sure is that we don't want to introduce any colors beyond the ones already on my arm.
He took some pictures of my arm today that don't suck (before he did the cobra on the upper back of my arm), and I am including the links here. Any suggestions?
https://instagram.com/p/1gugZ7TBPK/
https://instagram.com/p/1guZOxTBO-/

RHW bicep club represent! Haha. It's quite tricky to take a photo of my own bicep but here's my fox:

I'm trying to plan my 3rd arm tattoo around this and my bird and it's been a challenge. I sometimes wish I'd thought ahead a little more with the placement but I'm sure the tattoo artist I choose will able to come up with something.

RHW bicep club represent! Haha. It's quite tricky to take a photo of my own bicep but here's my fox:

I'm trying to plan my 3rd arm tattoo around this and my bird and it's been a challenge. I sometimes wish I'd thought ahead a little more with the placement but I'm sure the tattoo artist I choose will able to come up with something.