Graeme

I realized a while ago at work that members of the general public are more likely to talk to me (I work a job that a lot of people think is interesting and that they are curious about) when I have my tattoos covered up than when I'm in short sleeves. If your tattoos don't deter foes then you're doing it all wrong. Time to toughen up, pals.

Welcome Michael. There are a lot of great shops and artists in NYC. I have personal experience with Saved, Smith Street, and New York Adorned and would recommend anybody at any of those shops, but there are loads more in the area who will give you a great tattoo. I'd also recommend checking out Flyrite, King's Avenue, Three Kings, Greenpoint, Fun City, Invisible, and that's just scratching the surface.

Come on, man. At least let me finish my back before you make plans to turn me into a trenchcoat.

Tattoos we're not happy with happen, but you really need to get over that one.

What, no books made out of real human skin?

Welcome Pete. In my opinion, you're going about it backwards and the first thing you should be thinking about is imagery, instead of trying to bend imagery to fit a meaning. You said that you're a decent artist, so think about how you engage with art: if you're anything like me, when you go to a gallery or a museum to look at art, there's an initial first impression, a gut reaction to what you're seeing. Then you might spend a bit longer with that work and look at composition, technique, and so on and so forth. The artist's intentions come somewhere after that. Maybe it's just my personal bias here, because I don't have a lot of patience for conceptual art, but if a piece of art can't stand on its own without knowing what the artist wants me to take from the piece, it's garbage art and I don't have time for it. The same goes for tattoos. Meaning is fine in tattoos--tattoos are also fine if they don't have any specific meaning attached to them--but don't make the tattoo subservient to the meaning. You'll end up with a bad tattoo that way. I also agree with @DJDeepFried about sleeves: if you want a sleeve, get a sleeve, don't start with something small with the plan to work it into something larger.

And a bonus Seth in the background. Looks great, I am stoked it worked out so well for both of you.

Placement is, in my opinion, the hardest thing about tattoos to understand, and it is also often the factor that distinguishes good tattoos from great tattoos. This probably isn't the most satisfying answer, but I think to really understand placement you need to look at real tattoos on people because pictures, especially the tightly cropped Instagram photos that make up most of what we look at these days, really give no sense of placement. Half the time you can't even tell what body part they're on.

My thoughts are that Internet drama is stupid and if there's a problem between them they should deal with it like grown ups.

@suburbanxcore I've heard good things about How Did This Get Made, I should check it out. What I've been listening to: Dan Carlin's Hardcore History: I'm new to this one but I listened to his five-part series on the Mongols over the past couple of weeks and it was worth the time commitment. It's pop history, sure, but he's engaging, entertaining, and does a good of working through some fundamental historical arguments. The Best Show: Three hours of mirth, music, and mayhem. You want the best, you got the best show indeed. Henry & Heidi: Henry Rollins has a podcast where he tells stories. What more do I need to say. StarTalk: I could do without the celebrity interview stuff, but listening to Neil deGrasse Tyson dropping science is always worthwhile. Radiolab: Always excellent. Love and Radio: This is people telling their stories, and seems to always involve a pretty high degree of intimacy and brutality. It's compelling.

@xcom can I ask why you're hashtagging pictures of your grocery shopping with #lastsparrow?

Congratulations on 25 years! It seems that you make good decisions both in tattoos and in life.

Welcome Jake, do you have any tattoos yourself?

I think being able to pay by credit card makes a lot of sense and I can think of more good reasons for that as a form of payment than cash-only, but I am somewhat attached to the idea of paying cash for tattoos. I guess it's mainly for symbolic reasons that I like cash: I am paying for this tattoo with money that I have worked for and saved. It's not on credit or on a payment plan. I guess a logical extension of this is that tattoos are a status symbol, and I'm not sure how comfortable I am with that idea personally, but it's a thought to add to the discussion.

Thanks man! When this is all said and done and nicely healed I'm going to try to get some good pictures of it because these iPhone photos don't quite cut it. I love the rocks and waterfall too, though you don't get much of them on a front on (back on?) picture like this. They add a sort of prettiness to the toughness of two fierce animals battling to the death. My favourite tattoos are the ones that are simultaneously tough and beautiful and I think this tattoo achieves that. There are really a lot of super cool things about the tattoo, like how the water ties together with the water on my arm (again not visible when I'm covering my junk in the shop) and how the waves carry over from one leg to the other. I am stoked that this is on me because otherwise I'd have to be jealous of the person with this tattoo.

Guys, this guy isn't worth arguing with.

Icing your tattoo over the bandage once you get home helps a lot with the swelling. I'll usually ice for about an hour. I actually didn't do this on my latest session (mostly ribs and back of thigh) and it turns out that I should have because legs swell and it's made healing especially uncomfortable. Taking Advil, Aleve, or Extra Strength Tylenol or some other mild pain reliever and/or anti-inflammatory before bed helps as well.

The best way to do this is to see tattoos in person. I would recommend going to the tattoo convention you mentioned above to see tattoos in real life. You'll learn a lot more that way because, like you said, most pictures of tattoos are just pictures of tattoos and don't give much information about flow and placement. Seeing tattoos in real life is also going to help you to find out what you like because you'll see them healed and aged and you'll again get a much better idea of what they look like than you would just from pictures.

Dave is amazing. There was a guy in the shop when I was there who was getting tattooed by Will and he had an almost complete Dave backpiece of a Tengu fighting a Nue and it was amazing. You should really make the trip sometime to get something from Dave, he's such a good tattooer and it's been the best experience.

Thanks! It's been quite the experience so far and I am absolutely in love with how it's coming together.

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

Nice! I love her tattoos, and I can't wait to see it with colour. Is she going to do something crazy? How is the new Electric? I thought the old shop in Bradley Beach was one of the nicest shops I've ever been in and I hope they brought that vibe with them when they moved.

@polliwog I saw The Fall in 2006 or 2007 and they were great, but after seeing them I genuinely have a hard time understanding how Mark E. Smith hasn't been punched out by members of his own band more often than he has. I can't think of any band I've seen where the frontman is so openly antagonistic and hostile to the members of his own band. During this set, he would repeatedly wander over to the bass player's amp and turn it off. It's no wonder people don't last long in that band. I loved his autobiography, Renegade, and I'm sure you've read it, but if you haven't you certainly should.

I don't really know how to answer that. I have tattoos over both collarbones and I don't recall them being especially bad, even though I know that collarbone is a notoriously bad spot. I remember during one that there were bits where it seemed that my entire skeleton was vibrating and that was distinctly unpleasant, and I hadn't felt that on any other tattoo until I started my back. The inner arm skull I would rate as the most painful tattoo I've ever had--I would say in all honesty that it was worse than getting my back lined--but that had everything to do with me not being prepared for it. When I got the tattoo I had just finished working a week of twelve-hour long night shifts at a very physically demanding job and I was never in good shape after my work week during the best of circumstances, plus the appointment was at a convention so in addition to being excited about getting tattooed, I was also excited about being at the convention and seeing all the awesome stuff going on, which meant that I got two or three hours of poor-quality daytime sleep prior to the tattoo. And because it was at a convention everything was running behind, and that wasn't great for my physical well-being. Basically you know how during the first few minutes of a tattoo before the endorphins kick in you start to question your sanity and your motives because it turns out that a machine driving needles repeatedly through your skin really really hurts? That's how the entire tattoo was. It was miserable. I've been tattooed a few times by Ron: he also did one of my collarbones, and a good sized tattoo on the side of my lower leg, and I don't find him especially painful to get tattooed by (he's also a tremendous guy, for what it's worth), it was just that I was in bad shape. That tattoo ended up healing pretty badly because I babied it and I was pretty cagey about getting it touched up because of how it felt initially, but at one point he said he was going to do it and I got ready to grit my teeth and get it done...and it was almost painless. So who knows.