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Graeme

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Everything posted by Graeme

  1. The best tattoos are the ones that are tough and pretty. You got one of the best ones.
  2. I'm going to stick to things I've seen in person, but tattoos by the following have always been astonishing when I've seen them: Filip Leu Chris Trevino Henning Mike Roper Plenty of others too, but those four really stand out as being especially memorable. Instagram is cool and all that but for large scale stuff you need to see it in person to get the full impact. - - - Updated - - - I'm going to add Matt Arriola to that list thanks to @Avery Taylor and his wife Kim. They both have staggering work from him that they were nice enough to show me.
  3. Graeme

    Book thread

    @zetroc If you're thinking of starting with the Malazan books I would offer you some advice that I was given here before starting them, which is to give the series at least two books before making up your mind about it. I love the series now, but it took until a particular moment in the third book to fully convince me. The first book had enough interesting stuff going on to make me want to read the second, but just barely. I was introduced to the books in the context of "if you liked A Song of Ice and Fire, you should read this" and while I think these books surpass George RR Martin's in many ways, they lack the strong characters that he has (this is especially apparent in The Gardens of The Moon where it reads more like there are character classes than characters) so it's more difficult to build an attachment to the characters and their world. The writing gets much better after the first book, but I also think it's totally reasonable to not give a book thousands of pages worth of the benefit of the doubt.
  4. I've noticed a large increase in spam being posted to the #lastsparrow Instagram hashtag lately and I was wondering if there's anything we can do about that. I've been trying to flag the posts to Instagram when I see them because they tend to violate instagram's guidelines, but is there anything else that can be done about it?
  5. Graeme

    Book thread

    @RoryQ Thanks for the Malazan re-read blog suggestion and I'll have to check that out. I guess I've been working through the series for nearly the past two years and it's hard to keep everything straight because the story is so vast. I have been referring to the wiki from time to time. I've read a few reviews that say that it's a series worth rereading because you'll get a lot more out of it the second time around--I remember starting Gardens of the Moon and he's writing about mages unleashing warrens with all these crazy names and I felt so completely out of my depth, like I'd missed an entire volume of the book at least--but with the sheer size of the series, a second reading seems as daunting as the first one. A guide would be super useful in helping me to make more sense of it.
  6. Graeme

    Intro

    @ChuckJ Thank you for being forthright about answering our questions. I think the "least morbid as possible" approach is what doesn't sit right with me about this. On the one hand I completely understand why if somebody wanted to preserve their tattoos to give to their children, spouse, or whoever, that hanging what is obviously a piece of preserved human skin on the wall wouldn't be to every taste and disposition, but when it comes down to it, that's still what it is. The attempt to take the morbidity out of something that is intrinsically morbid just seems kind of weird, even if the reasons why you would want to do that are apparent. A corollary to that is that a tattoo isn't the same thing as a painted canvas in that it only has meaning as a tattoo once it's in the skin and is subject to the bodily processes of aging and decay, and to take the tattoo out of that context makes it not a tattoo. I prefer those wet Japanese bodysuits, or the preserved skin that still looks like skin with pores and nipples and all that in the Wellcome Collection. Those exist for very different reasons though, and again, nobody is putting those on a wall. Anyway, thanks again for answering our questions and welcome.
  7. If you really wanted to sound like a douche you could have said "I bet you still remember the scent of a first pussy you ate". Ick. What a creep.
  8. I'm a fantastic poster and I have contributed a lot to this forum. I get that tattoos mean different things to different people, but to me, part of the forum's motto of GET GOOD TATTOOS has to do with resisting the tendency to turn tattooing into another cheap and disposable consumer subculture, and somebody coming here saying that they are primarily interested in using this forum for research into an aftercare product that absolutely nobody needs is part of that. If somebody comes here wanting to learn and talk about tattoos, whether they are thinking about their first, or are well on their way to a full suit, and is interested in the community here, they are absolutely welcome here. If they're just here because they have a product to sell they can move along.
  9. Graeme

    Book thread

    I'm about half way through Midnight Tides, the fifth book of Steven Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen series which I started reading because of recommendations on this thread. I am in awe at the scope and audacity of this project, and that he actually seems to be pulling off what he set out to achieve: if anything ever deserved the adjective "epic", it's this, and the depth and complexity of the world he created is, as far as I know, unparalleled in fantasy and he's done it (so far) without really any of the expository world building that tends to weigh down the genre. That makes it a challenging, sometimes frustrating read--like in the first chapter of the first book where he's describing a sorcerous battle and is getting into things that he doesn't explain and only gradually reveals over the following thousands of pages--but I think the effort is ultimately worth it.
  10. Nice roses. Who is the artist? I would suggest a snake because it would fill the spaces nicely, flow great on your arm, give a nice contrast to the roses with scales and/and patterns, and snakes and roses go fantastic together.
  11. Why are you asking me? I'm not a moderator here.
  12. @tattooscience, if you're going to come here wanting to get people to take a survey to do market research on an aftercare product you're developing, just come out and say it instead of being secretive about it on private message. As somebody who has great results healing tattoos using the time-proven method of soap, water, time, and patience, I'm going to say that there's no actual need for any new aftercare methods, and attempts to develop them have less to do with offering a better way of healing, and more to do with people with a tenuous at best connection to tattooing trying to find a way to cash in on it. Further, I'm going to say that coming here with the intention not of being part of the community of tattoo enthusiasts and artists here, but rather treating this place as resource to "gather valuable information" that in the end only furthers your shallow self-interest, is corrosive to the community a lot of us have worked hard over the course of years to build. I can only speak for myself here but I don't think you have found the right place.
  13. I'm sorry you've been going through such a hard time but I'm glad that you're starting to see some light. Next time we're in Toronto we'll have to grab a drink with you and Erin.
  14. Welcome, but if you want to "gather valuable information" I hope you're going to post pictures of your tattoos first. Nobody likes an interloper.
  15. The snake's element is water though so if you're doing tiger v. snake it would work thematically. In any case, I've seen tiger tattoos by Japanese masters that have water in them so I don't know how strict the rule is about what animal should be paired with what kind of background, or when/how it is appropriate to bend rules and conventions. But, like I said before, I'm not an expert on any of this. Agreed about it being difficult if you want to do things right though, and my advice to you is to take your time, do your research, and learn as much as you can and don't rush into getting the tattoo until you're ready. It's worth spending the time and effort into deepening your knowledge and you will get better tattoos as a result.
  16. I'm not an expert on this, but chrysanthemums bloom in the fall so they should work with maples. Tiger versus snake is an excellent subject. My back is of a tiger fighting a snake with falling maples and water, so I totally think you're on the right path here. Have you found an artist to do the tattoo yet? Your ideas are great and I think should work really well but if you want to have things done close to the rules, it's absolutely essential that you go to somebody who knows how to properly do Japanese or Japanese-style tattoos because the rules to this stuff are complicated and, as you said, if it isn't done well it doesn't look nice.
  17. Graeme

    Hey guys

    Oh nice. I cannot recommend that you check out Inksmith and Rogers highly enough. They have a few locations throughout Jacksonville and Jacksonville Beach. Mike Wilson at the I&R in Jacksonville Beach is in my opinion one of the best tattooers in the world and excels in pretty much any style worth doing, but everybody working at those shops in exceptional and more than capable of giving you an excellent tattoo. Also, I forgot to welcome you, so welcome and I'm glad you're on the mend.
  18. Graeme

    Hey guys

    Your best bet is to do a lot of research on different artists and once you've chosen one, ask him or her about it. Generally speaking you can't cover darker with lighter, but there are a lot of factors involved in this, and the skill and experience of the artist is paramount here. - - - Updated - - - Here's an example of why skill and experience matters. Jason Minauro who tattoos in the Tampa area in Florida put this on his Instagram over a year ago and it's nothing short of spectacular. Before: After:
  19. Welcome Jeff. As far as I can tell from the pictures it looks like your tattoo healed up nicely and those greys look really nice and smooth. Greys always heal up much lighter than they go in so it doesn't look like there's anything either you or your artist did to compromise the tattoo. Welcome to the forum.
  20. I made the comment because I don't like you, but you're right and it was uncalled for and I apologize for it.
  21. I don't know, to me the two pictures side by side emphasizes how huge of a gap there is between Hooper and a handful of other tattooers who pioneered that kind of tattooing and the generic expression of it that has come since.
  22. Graeme

    Intro

    Welcome Chuck. I gotta say that looking at some of the supposed examples of preserved skin on the savemyink.com website that they don't look like any tattoos I've ever seen but they do look an awful lot like coloured pencil on paper. I'm thinking especially of that "new school" flower. What do you say to a skeptic?
  23. Graeme

    Hi, I'm Zeke

    Last Sparrow Tattoo - Forum Rules
  24. Welcome. Check out this thread: http://www.lastsparrowtattoo.com/forum/tattoo-designs-books-flash/818-tattoo-silhouette-negative-space.html
  25. @SStu It has nothing to do with age and everything to do with how the best tattoos are impossible to photograph. Needless to say, but I'll say it anyway, your leg is spectacular and I know you earned it.
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