graybones

Not the finished product. But this is a peek at my latest piece.

Well I was waiting to post a healed pic of my finished Seth Wood thigh, but since I can't seem to take a decent pic of my own leg, here's when it was half-fresh:
http://s16.postimg.org/lelsgz5qt/Untitled_1.jpg
I started it at Temple in Oakland in June and finished at Saved in NYC in December. I live in North Carolina so both locations meant a trip for me. Really awesome experience getting to see two different shops and travel all across the country to get this done, made some awesome memories, hung out with friends new and old, and just overall had an adventure. Seth is an awesome dude as well and I hope I can get something else from him in the future.
(posted this in the contest thread too, hope it's okay to post it twice!)

Here goes. Head tattoo by Jesse Roberts. 3 sessions about 3-4 hours each, then one quick touchup session. Completed in about 2 months.

Ok @Iwar, si I'm your first contestant! Here's my thigh piece done by Mikael De Poissy last year (hard to take a photo of the whole piece)

I saw Chad Koeplinger while he was in town the other day for rose #4.

Done at Rock of Ages in Austin.

The entry here is the knee demon done by Franz Stefanik at The Okey Doke in Toronto. This is the best pic I have of it, so please filter out the surrounding work.

Appropriately posting this one on Easter. I got this one from Matt Arriola a few weeks ago at Spotlight. Photo stolen from his IG:
For reference, it's on the back of my thigh:

wow great pics everyone. @Graeme "squidmitts"! Hah!
I don't generally seek out dotwork so those Jondix, Weisbeck, and Hooper hands are completely blowing my mind right now. Amazing!
Unfortunately if I am ever able to get my hands done, it won't be for several decades. But in the meantime, here's a couple more on other people.
Rich Hardy

Grez

Sure man.

I'd like to add Andrea Giulimondi to the list. He works at The Family business in London. I love this girl in particular!

Great hand tattoos!
Can't remember if I've posted mine here, so fuck it, just in case I haven't.

I also have the same obsession with hand tattoos.
Here are mine !

All right. For those who've seen it all ready, for those who've been waiting, for those who don't know what the fuck I talking about, for those who don't care: here is my back now.

Finished this Saturday at the annual Scottish tattoo convention in Edinburgh. Iain Mullen and Rudy Fritsch converged for the first time since we did the lines in June, to do some two machine shading on the lower part and add some extra detail. One more touch up session with Iain in Stockholm and then this experience is over. It's been a great ride on so many levels and if I were to explain how happy I am about the result I would have to invent some new words. Both Iain and Rudy rules and everybody who has the chance to get the chance should really consider getting something from them.
I will post a longer write up on this thread full-back-piece-experience-thread.html shortly, perhaps tomorrow. Right now I have a bad fever to pull through. One good thing about getting tattooed is that, if you do it right, it teaches you how tough you really are. Peace!

I don't know how to share this type of Instagram post, and certainly can't from my phone, but here's a link to my chest tattoo, done today by Steve Byrne at Rock of Ages.
http://instagram.com/p/0i-naeNBEe/
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Ok, this is my fat back after 7 hours. It is just roughed in and needs a lot of work still, but it's a great start! Go big or go home.

Horitomo September 23rd! Woohoo!!!
:: happy dance ::

So I finally got my chest piece. So happy with how it came out. By Valerie Vargas of course.

I know she's been mentioned before but I think Kim-Anh Nguyen (https://instagram.com/kimanh_n/) deserves a little more exposure.
She works out of Seven Seas Tattoos in Eindhoven, The Netherlands.
Here's a couple I stole from her facebook (https://www.facebook.com/bleakandblue):

I did my first tattoo.
I have been in my 2 year apprenticeship for around 7 months. Apprenticing has been one of the most challenging and humbling experiences of my life... until today. All of the grapefruit, melons, and synthetic limbs in the world could not have prepared me for the intensity of tattooing a person. In the words of my good friend, Albie Rock, "that first line is a real gut-check, m@therf#$er!" With the support of my teacher, and the confidence of an amazing client, we all made this Ohm symbol, together. My head is still spinning and I have yet to fully process the reality of what happened today. The highlight was receiving this picture from the client, thanking me for choosing her for my first tattoo and saying, "I love it! It's perfect!"
I mean, we both know it's not perfect, but, in a way, it is. I learned so much about myself as a person today. It's not always about completing a flawless piece, it's about being a part of someone's journey. It's about being real with someone for a moment in time. Anyway, I don't know if this is appropriate for the Introduction section, but this is truly my introduction. I have so much more to learn... but that ever crucial tattoo #1 is in the books. Here's to many more. Thank you for reading. I'm spent!

Another one by Brian Via, picked a drawing off his wall of stuff he wanted to do. Inner bicep and it hurt like hell, especially the stuff by the top near my armpit. So happy with it though.

First off, congrats on your first tattoo!!
I've read through the whole thread and I have to say that some of these replies have kinda pissed me off. As a tattooer, I see a couple of sides to this thing. From a responsible professional standpoint, I would never do someone's first tattoo on their neck for all of the reasons that everyone has already been so quick to mention.
From a personal standpoint, fuck yeah!! That's really cool to me that you went with what you felt like was right for your first tattoo. The only reason that getting your neck tattooed off the bat is so heavily frowned upon in the tattoo community is because of the prejudice and general hassle that it will cause you on a practical level from regular people in the daily world. So to see the same sort of prejudice and heckling coming from folks in the tattoo community toward another person who is now in the tattoo community, is like a major fucking bummer. Like obviously the tattoo may (or may not!) make the dude's life more difficult in some ways, do we really need to be compounding that too? Like is everyone trying to make the kid hate his first tattoo? Yeah I definitely think that was a quick and heavy decision, but I also think about where tattooing would be without people like the Great Omi who left the Royal Navy to file down his teeth, tattoo his whole body, and join the circus. All because he wanted to and didn't give a fuck what people thought about it.
And this post isn't directed toward anyone, just my thoughts on the scenario.

I've been avoiding my ditches as long as I could, but a few sundays ago I decided it was time. jason ochoa at greenpoint tattoo put this rose in there and now that it's healed, I'm stoked to do the other arm. it didn't hurt nearly as bad as I expected and it was pretty much healed within a week or so using tegaderm. definitely a believer in that shit. if there's a thread discussing that stuff, let me know and I can share my experience.
anyway, here's a healed pic:

Not baby related (but congrats, everyone)...
Got this rainy dude from Tron last week when she was at Atlas in Portland. Awesome experience and glad to fill this weirdo spot on my leg.

this is a great quote:
"I have two cats. I'm the furthest thing from a gang member."

@Mark Bee you can't seem to go wrong at The Pearl! Love seeing your already impressive collection grow.
- - - Updated - - -
I can't believe I haven't posted these here! I got my butt snake colored in at the beg of feb. Basically I got home from my tattoo trip, and my dog had a big sudden health issue that had to be dealt with STAT! So I didn't even think about it.
Pics attached. I'm booked for more at the beg of Apr too!