Graeme

When me and @Pugilist went to Electric it was on one of their walk-in Saturdays, and they do everything. It's rad. I got a vajra sword from Tom Yak, the next tattoo he did was a sergeant's chevrons. We lined up before the shop opened to make sure we could get a spot, and it was really cool because the shop gets all kind of people wanting all kinds of stuff, from people who were specifically going to Robert Ryan to get his stuff, to names, flowers, standard walk-in tattoos. I was talking with Tom about it while I was getting tattooed and he was super into tattooing like that and just giving people good tattoos. I got the impression that even though some of the tattooers there are pretty well-known and that people (like us!) will travel to go there, that it's the good local shop and it's just where you go to get tattooed if you live in the area. Instagram really skews things. I've been tattooed at some really fancy big-name shops and even there very few of the tattooers there exclusively do "their style". I've read on here about tattooers who are super hard to book and will only work in their particular style, and then I've seen these same tattooers in the shop doing simple script on the ribs and that kind of stuff. The internet isn't real life.

As far as I know, there was only one poster who used the LST outage as an excuse to start on his back, but what a start!

Thanks for all the work you put into this site to keep it running, @steve1461686340.

Always heard nice things about Richmond VA.

A brief update here: @Pugilist was spending some time with her mom yesterday (who still doesn't know that either of us have any tattoos at all) and she was trying to push Anna to get me to cut my hair because I "look like a bum". Then she said that at least I don't have holes in my ears. Oh, how little she knows.

Honestly, it would be way cooler if you got a regular Jesus. In my opinion, that illustration already looks dated. Getting a more traditional Jesus head is timeless.

I can't recall the name of the blog off hand but a woman who had her back done by Stephanie Tamez kept a blog of it. Should be easy enough to find on google. There was another one I found a while ago from a guy who got, I think, a big koi from O'Donnell and ended up being killed a few years later in a bike wreck.

I hope you're going to keep us updated with pictures.

Agreed completely with this, especially about how placement is often the difference between good tattoos and GREAT ones. I think not only is it a hard thing to explain here, other than that it's one of those things where you'll know it when you see it, but it's something that really requires seeing tattoos in person because photos don't give a very good sense of placement, or of the movement of tattoos. Placement is something that is kind of irrespective of genre too. If you've seen Filip Leu's tattoos, I mean in real life, not in pictures, they way they sit is incredible. They look like they were meant to be there and that they were always there. My wife @Pugilist had her back done in a folky Americana style by Stephanie Tamez and it's the same, even though the style is totally different than Filip's. What was neat about seeing that tattoo come together was how immediately it looked like the tattoo belonged there.

@Colored Guy Civ is publishing a book of flash from S&W in February. Could be worth checking out. Here's the Instagram for it: Instagram

I think if I was to start over knowing what I know know and was tougher than I actually am (or at least wanted to give that impression) I would get a Curly body suit. Hands down the toughest look in tattoos. I love that heavy British tribal thing.

Great thread, Carolyn. Here's my perspective as a non-tattooer: I used to live behind a street shop that's been around for a long time. I believe it opened in the early 80s, and it probably hasn't changed a lot since then. They don't take appointments at all, and it still runs by the old system where you come in, take a number, and you wait until you get called: you don't get to pick your artist, you get whoever is available next. They will kick you out for using your phone in the shop. The walls are totally covered in flash. There's some really cool stuff there. You can see Jack Rudy flash in the racks through the window, there's great Zulueta stuff on the walls, they have rad old Chris Garver flash, they have Greg Irons flash that the guy who owns the shop bought off Irons in person on the Queen Mary. They also have a load of Cherry Creek pinned up on the walls. Anyway, I became somewhat friendly with the tattooers there and I'd chat with them when I passed by while walking my dog, and what I'm going to say partly comes from conversations with them, partly from my own observations. One of the tattooers said to me at one point that in the four or five years he'd worked at that shop he'd only had one day that he didn't do a tattoo. The tattooers there have also lamented how business used to be a lot better before a million shops opened up. Once when I was there looking through the flash, one of the tattooers said that nobody who gets tattooed there--and their clientele is very much the "lower-income working class people" mentioned above--looks through the flash and wants things from it, they want stuff they've printed off the internet or have on their phones. I was getting tattooed a couple of weeks ago at another well-established shop, this one was one of the first custom shops in the city, and a woman came in wanting to get the bird silhouettes. They didn't have anybody available to do the tattoo at that moment, but they happily booked an appointment at a later date with her. The guy who runs this shop used to work at the shop mentioned above and even though he's well-booked out and does a lot of large custom work, he still has that real street shop demeanor and will do pretty much anything the client wants. He's not limiting himself to "his style". I've seen tattooers at a lot of fancy shops, including ones I've seen mentioned on here as having a particular style (this is what happens when you think that instagram is real life, kids) doing whatever walks through the door. I've seen shops really pushing to be more open to walk-ins, not only because it brings in money, but also because it makes tattooers more well-rounded and just better tattooers. Though, thinking about it, the walk-ins the more high end shops are getting, at least from what I've seen, are more of the script on the ribs type of tattoos. I guess when it comes down to it, there's a class issue at play here. From my observations, most shops still get walk-ins, but the people going to the fancier shops are better dressed.

@kelzu That bums me out! It would depend on circumstance, obviously, but I would probably not want to get tattooed at a place that did that.

Don't tell me that people walked into a shop or picked up a phone, talked to a human being, looked through a portfolio and then made up his or her mind and booked something (or not), because that's obviously crazy.

Just for clarification's sake, I didn't mean "Brooklyn" in terms of any attitude there. From my very limited experience of the shop, both from me getting tattooed and seeing other people getting tattooed there, some of which were "normal", ie not collector-type, people, they are friendly, professional, and make everybody feel welcome there. I meant "Brooklyn" more in the sense that things are very carefully and deliberately put together a way that you often see in Brooklyn.

@marley mission I got a walk-in from Eli in 2011 and it's a cool shop. What they do isn't really what I'm looking for anymore, personally, but it's a neat place, the flash is gorgeous, and it's totally the sort of place you can go without having anything in mind. That's what I did and I ended up with a cool wolf head. There was a sheet up that I believe Dan did that had the headless Acéphale man on it and I've toyed with getting that at various points over the years, but the idea doesn't sit totally right with me. Anyway, there's a LOAD of great stuff on the walls ranging from tried and true classics to stuff that's pretty far out there and still looks classic. I'd also recommend that you check out Electric Tattoo in Asbury Park. I haven't been to the new shop, but the old one in Bradley Beach is one of the neatest shops I've been in. It has walls covered in hand-painted flash too, there are great tattooers there (I got tattooed by Tom Yak, my wife got one from Robert Ryan), but it feels far less "Brooklyn" than Smith Street is. There's really good vibes at Electric.

I wonder about this myself, and it's been more present as a question since I've been working on my back. There's something about getting such a huge area of my body tattooed in a relatively short period of time that makes running out of space seem like a very real possibility. I still have a lot of space left, and I've found that I find more and more gaps on the spaces I previously thought were filled, but I need to be thoughtful about what I do get and not just get tattooed for the sake of getting tattooed. That said, I'm finding that more and more for me that getting tattooed is only partially about the tattoos. I want to get stuff that looks great, that's going to age well, that has that intangible quality that gets me super excited, but it's also about a larger experience. I think when you say, @CABS, that you're sure that your taste in tattoos will change, I completely agree, but not just in terms of aesthetics. My tastes have changed somewhat since I started getting tattooed, and part of that is understanding that I can appreciate some tattoos and kinds of tattoos without necessarily wanting it on me, but I also want different things out of tattoos now than I did when I started. I feel really fortunate about how much getting tattooed has enriched my life: not only do I have some really beautiful tattoos, but I've also met some really great people, made friends, traveled, heard stories, learned about art, and so many other things, and that experience is as much a part of it as the physical tattoo is. A large part of that comes through getting tattooed pretty regularly and filling up those empty spaces. I don't think there is any single right or wrong way to get tattooed, and everybody wants something different from tattoos.

@Mick Weder @ChaosDani @marley mission Thanks for the support. The picture is pretty silly, the life-sized cardboard cutout of me is even sillier. Maybe @Pugilist will post a picture of it.

When I'm not getting tattooed, I work as a brewer, currently for a chain of brewpubs. Right now, the company is having a brewing competition between the brewers in all the restaurants worldwide where we had to create, brew, and market our own beers to be sold in our individual restaurants. When I got into brewing professionally nearly eight years ago I wanted to gain a little bit of experience and eventually get into writing beer recipes, but it turns out that outside of small brewpubs with very little brewer turnover, the reality of commercial brewing is that you're brewing the same recipes over and over and over (which is a challenge in its own right because you want to same results every single time even though you're working with raw materials that can vary pretty greatly). So it's been a really cool opportunity and challenge to be able to think up a beer, write a recipe for it, brew it, and then serve it to people. Though that last part is a little bit stressful, especially when your peers are drinking it. I'm really happy with what I brewed though. I brewed a Belgian-inspired brown ale--it isn't brewed to any particular style, but I used a Belgian yeast and Belgian malts so I'm calling in Belgian--with a low bitterness that is balanced out with sour cherries. It turned out really well: it has a nice fruity character without being sweet; it's complex without sacrificing drinkability. Anyway, as this is a competition, I'm also asking for your help and support here. The first round of the competition is decided by public vote and then the finalists then go to France to have their beers evaluated by a panel of judges. The winner then gets to go to the Great American Beer Festival which is being held in Denver, CO (if I win, hello Lifetime Tattoo!). While I would love for all of you to come to Montreal and taste my beer, you don't actually have to try it to vote for me, so if you are so inclined you can vote up to once per day until the end of the contest via this link: http://maitrebrasseur.les3brasseurs.com My beer is called The Belgian Cherry. I am the worst at coming up with names. There is a hilarious picture of me in there though, if you need an incentive.

Better to ignore trolls

I don't have any tattoos with tattoos but I have a couple of tattoos with some very small, very detailed bits. On the book I have on my arm, Seth Wood tattooed in a tiny little Baphomet on one of the pages. You can cover it with a quarter. It's super crisp a couple of years in, and I'll let you know how it ages. I'm sure it'll get all blown out eventually, like all tattoos will. As I see it, the really tiny stuff I have is all a bonus to enjoy for however many years it'll last, but the overall strength of the tattoo wouldn't be compromised by losing that detail.

Nothing against either of them, but Chris Trevino is the man in Austin for Japanese.

Nothing says "I'm never going to regret this" more than getting a tattoo making fun of a passing fad.

Also drinking a beer while getting tattooed.

The real trick is to just get tattooed a lot. You'll figure out eventually what works for you.