Graeme

Part of it is practical. I try my best to protect my tattoos from sun damage and putting on sunscreen is much more of a pain in the ass than it is to wear clothes that cover them in the first place. Part of it is that I like tattoos better when they're secret or partially secret.

@Devious6With respect to body hair, I say get what you want, body hair or not. We have only limited say in what our bodies look like, but with tattoos we can adorn them how we choose. I think one of the real shames with the instagram era of tattooing is that we are inundated with these tightly-cropped pictures of fresh tattoos. It doesn't give you a very good idea of what real tattoos look like on real people: tattoos are for any age, body size or type, amount or lack of hair. You don't need to start shaving your body unless you want to. Unless it's the hottest part of the summer and long sleeves and pants are too uncomfortable I try to keep my tattoos covered up while I'm in public, and them not being visible doesn't change how my tattoos make me feel about myself. If you just want to get your arms tattooed because that's where you want to keep them, that's cool! Just don't think you have to stop there because you have body hair.

Yeah, I had an appointment with him that I had to cancel because my son decided to arrive into this world a few weeks early. I don't have anything booked yet but I intend to try to get tattooed by him again and get something with good vibes.

If you want to get tattooed by somebody specific, make an appointment, but there will always be opportunities to get a walk-up. I wouldn't expect some local tattooers to be completely booked and there are a lot of tattooers here making quality tattoos: check out Arno Schultz, Nick Oaks, or Joel Marlo to name three. In my experience the Friday is probably the best to get tattooed because it isn't as busy as the Saturday, but it's all good. Honestly, I would rather get tattooed in a shop if there was the option, but this is an opportunity to get tattooed by people locally that I'd otherwise have to travel for, so it's fine. It's cool getting to meet and talk to new people and there's a good energy at the convention. There are so many good restaurants in Montreal. It's an amazing food city. If you want fine dining check out Park (I heard about this place when I got tattooed by Chad, he said it's the second best sushi he's had in his life, I don't have as much dining experience as him so it's the best I've had), Maison Publique, Joe Beef, or Au Pied de Cochon. We also have smoked meat and the best bagels in the world. Plenty of vegetarian and vegan options if you're into that too. There are also some great public markets well worth checking out. I know the food here better than I know the hotels but there is plenty of accommodation in the city. Think about it!

This year I actually hope to make it!| It will be good to see you again.

I just looked at Airbnb for the convention weekend and it looks like there are a lot of inexpensive options there too.

One year @BrianH stayed at a place that had a secret passage. Like you pulled a book on a shelf and the passage opened. I say "had" because the place got rid of it, which is the dumbest business decision I've ever heard of because who doesn't want to stay at a place with a secret passage.

The Montreal tattoo convention is coming up in September and it's always a fun time and an excellent opportunity to get a great tattoo. The lineup is always incredible: this year's convention is going to feature, among others, Henning, Mike Rubendall, Guy Le Tattooer, Steve Byrne, Paul Dobleman, Bert Krak, Robert Ryan, Mario Desa, Nick Colella, Andre Malcolm, Ron Wells, Chad Koeplinger...and this is only scratching the surface. There are so many good artists working it. And if you needed any other incentive, if you've never been to Montreal, it's a great city to visit. If you have been to Montreal, you're probably looking for a reason to visit again. Lots of things to see and do, great architecture, world-class dining, and for you Americans, the Canadian dollar sucks right now so you can stretch your money. Who is thinking of going? Closer to the date I will plan some kind of LST meetup because it's always fun hanging out with the people from this forum. You're a great bunch of people and it's always nice to meet up and talk tattoos and share our tattoos in real life. http://news.arttattoomontreal.com/ https://www.facebook.com/Montreal-Art-Tattoo-Show-9786505473/ https://www.instagram.com/arttattoomontreal/

"Consistent properly executed work" Nope.

I mean to come across as a jerk here, but looking at your Instagram, I'd suggest getting the fuck off the Internet and learning to draw and tattoo properly because your shit is fucking horrendous. You should be ashamed of what you're doing to people.

Welcome! Great tattoos!

Depends on what you mean by high movement areas. Here's my elbow, done about three and a half years ago which isn't long enough to tell you much but it's still completely solid. On that arm the parts around my elbow and ditch are simple compared to the rest of the tattoo which is pretty intricate so it should age well. I don't think hip should be too bad as far as movement goes.

Looks to me like it scabbed up while healing and pulled some of the ink out. It happens, I have tattoos that have bits like that. Honestly, I wouldn't bother getting it touched up. I see what you're talking about but it doesn't compromise the tattoo at all. I'd also think that getting it touched up a couple of years after you got it maybe isn't a great idea but talk with an artist about that.

They would be on two very different parts of your body so clashing isn't really an issue. When I see tattoos on real people I often see a lot of different styles of tattoo sitting together. I think it looks cool, personally. I'd also suggest going bolder because I prefer bold tattoos and they are going to last a lot longer and age a lot better than delicate tattoos, but that has nothing to do with clashing styles. Get the tattoos that make you excited about tattoos.

You're approaching this the wrong way. Don't look for people who do a lot of food tattoos, look for people who do excellent tattoos, and approach one of them with your idea. I would suggest Dynamic in Melbourne.

I'll show you next time I see you. He put so much nice detail into it in the patterns and textures in the wings, in the branches. I'm going to have to stop wearing pants just so I can look at it all the time. @Devious6 You can never go wrong with an eagle.

@Rob I @Mark Bee @oboogie Thanks! It's such a beautiful tattoo. I'm taken aback by how beautiful it is.

I got this little one shot eagle yesterday at the Quebec City convention from Trevor McStay. It wraps a lot because it takes up most of my thigh so here are a couple of pictures.

It's an electric snake. One of the things that I love about Dave's tattoos is that when he does Japanese there's always this influence of skate graphics there. The blue in the snake is intense too.

Fixed your post for you too. Sheesh.

Welcome Kitti! My advice to the above question is to get high quality tattoos from good artists. Thomas Hooper did one of my arms and my back is Japanese and I think it looks great together. I don't have many good pictures of how they work together, though parts of my back were designed to tie together with my arm--there's a continuity between the water on my arm and the water on my back, for instance--but this gives you an idea:

Talking about how much tattoos hurt is about as interesting as talking about how much tattoos cost. It isn't. I'm getting a thigh done this weekend. It's going to be fun. I'm excited.

That may have been me. It was actually at Saved in NYC and there was a woman there wearing a top with a low cut back and she had a Kiku backpiece that was incredible. I want to say it was of Kannon, but it may have been of another goddess. Anyway, that back was super influential in making me go huge and bold on my own back. As as far as regret goes, it can be complicated, but koi and cherry blossoms is a timeless design, you want a great size and placement for it, and you're going to a world-class artist for it. I'd say you're as good as you can be.

If you have proper winter gear, bone-chilling cold is okay. Those -40 days are brutal, sure, but there aren't many of them in a year. They can be endured. Whereas with the heat there's only so much you can take off before you start getting into reverse Hellraiser territory.

The best tattoo you can get is two animals fighting. Unless you get three animals fighting.