beez

Welp, I booked my first appointment (July 14) to start a full back piece with Kelly Edwards today ( https://instagram.com/kellyedwardstattoo ). I'm 56% so excited I probably won't sleep until the appointment, 44% scared shitless. I have a lot of general ideas for potential incorporation, but I feel like I'm going to annoy the poor man to death.
Most painful place I've been tattooed so far is collarbone and near the nipple... so this should be a riot.

after almost 7 years of getting tattooed i just finally got my FIRST eagle the other day... thanks to tony sellers while he was guest spotting @ tattoo marks for the week.

Can we all take a quick second to appreciate how awesome @Iwar's @livedintattoos account it?

I started following a couple people I found with the #lastsparrow tag, hope you guys don't mind. :)

Hope he doesn't mind :D should get some face tats and surprise him one day ahahha
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I agree all the girls I know, the more ink they get, the more stunning they become haha

@SeeSea @Fala +1 on loving my hips and thighs because of tattoos! so much! and I can't really speak to "aging" at this point in my life, but I know when my mom's friends saw my tattoos they were like "oohhh, I can see how that covers cellulite right up". (and in my personal experience, tattoos sure as hell do!) (also I find myself favoring my more heavily tattooed side in the mirror anyway...it's pretttttty awesome ;))

I hadn't meant that passive-aggressively. More that there's a lot a person could say about the tattoo you were referring to, but that I didn't have the energy to try to say it and it might've been sorta navel-gazey anyway.

Just a head's up, there are a bunch of work-appropriate (unless your workplace is very formal) cap-sleeve dresses at Uniqlo right now. (No white leggings, though...guess everyone else had the same summer leg-covering idea.)
As for the Megan Jean Morris tattoo above, not my style at all but who really cares. It seems to imply rape to me, though the other one with the air vent reminds me of tentacle hentai. Insert long and tedious conversation about fantasy and BDSM and feminism here.

A couple times now I've flown with (what seems to me) a largeish amount of cash, and it's made me nervous. I also have a pretty low maximum amount of cash I can withdraw from an ATM, so I need to plan ahead for a trip to the bank. I like having the option to pay with a debit card. I would feel weird buying tattoos on credit, though.
@Graeme, I've also struggled with the question of tattoos as status symbol. I work in a part of the state that's very much defined by status symbols, and while my tattoos aren't the "right" ones for this area, they definitely signal that I have disposable income. (On the other hand, my laptop is 7 years old and my car looks like shit, so: tradeoffs.)

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.

Or you could go with a big Raijin (God of Thunder) like this one by Kiku (on one of my oldest friends):

couple hours yesterday on my upper back / spine / shoulder blades
pretty bruised up ... holy fack bro lol

What about clouds and lightning to represent..... clouds and lightning? :cool: If I were you I'd consult a tattooer and tell him/her that you want a tattoo with a thunderstorm theme. Simple as that. Most important thing is to find the right tattooer for the job if you ask me. Plenty of talent in Austin though, so that shouldn't be a problem for you.
Come to think of it, my fellow LSTer @Flo Ania has an awesome tattoo with clouds and lightning. Check it out:

I'm not sure what brain bug got me started on tattoos in porn this morning, but somehow I got to thinking about it, and then I thought "well, maybe there are some good tattoos out there" and navigated over to (what looks to be) a well-trafficked porn site, and typed "tattoos" in the search box.
Sure enough, I see plenty of tattoos. I'm looking at this girl's thigh piece when all of the sudden: vagina! I blinked and resumed looking at the tattoos, and then: butt hole! This kept happening and annoying me for awhile before I fully realized that I was watching porn and not looking at a tattoo website.
Facepalm to the nth degree, because I totally knowingly went to a porn site to look at tattoos, and then got annoyed at all the T & A ruining my tattoo experience, and then realized T & A *was* the experience, and I had just trolled myself.
PS - I also read playboy for the articles. ;) <drops mic> Val out.

I know it's hard to not think like this especially if you are new to getting tattooed or prone to getting star-struck (me), but you shouldn't! Tattooers are just people with a specialized skill set. We owe our lives to the clients and have no valid reason to think that we are better than you. Don't get tattooed by people who think that you owe them something, can't stress that enough. You will find that the more you get tattooed, the experience is just as important as the art. Get tattooed by people who not only do awesome work, but who are friendly and humble people that you will want to spend however many hours in close proximity with. If you aren't comfortable in your tattooer's presence, you probably shouldn't get tattooed by that person. Hope that helps :)

@IzzyBizzy either keep it covered or use a barrier cream! something with zinc oxide or titanium oxide. badger balm makes a couple of good ones. just make sure it has those ingredients in it and it will be better than the neutrogena i think. but the best thing you can do for a tattoo that is that fresh is to keep it covered.

I'm not sure what brain bug got me started on tattoos in porn this morning, but somehow I got to thinking about it, and then I thought "well, maybe there are some good tattoos out there" and navigated over to (what looks to be) a well-trafficked porn site, and typed "tattoos" in the search box.
Sure enough, I see plenty of tattoos. I'm looking at this girl's thigh piece when all of the sudden: vagina! I blinked and resumed looking at the tattoos, and then: butt hole! This kept happening and annoying me for awhile before I fully realized that I was watching porn and not looking at a tattoo website.
Facepalm to the nth degree, because I totally knowingly went to a porn site to look at tattoos, and then got annoyed at all the T & A ruining my tattoo experience, and then realized T & A *was* the experience, and I had just trolled myself.
PS - I also read playboy for the articles. ;) <drops mic> Val out.

I'm not sure what brain bug got me started on tattoos in porn this morning, but somehow I got to thinking about it, and then I thought "well, maybe there are some good tattoos out there" and navigated over to (what looks to be) a well-trafficked porn site, and typed "tattoos" in the search box.
Sure enough, I see plenty of tattoos. I'm looking at this girl's thigh piece when all of the sudden: vagina! I blinked and resumed looking at the tattoos, and then: butt hole! This kept happening and annoying me for awhile before I fully realized that I was watching porn and not looking at a tattoo website.
Facepalm to the nth degree, because I totally knowingly went to a porn site to look at tattoos, and then got annoyed at all the T & A ruining my tattoo experience, and then realized T & A *was* the experience, and I had just trolled myself.
PS - I also read playboy for the articles. ;) <drops mic> Val out.

I'm not sure what brain bug got me started on tattoos in porn this morning, but somehow I got to thinking about it, and then I thought "well, maybe there are some good tattoos out there" and navigated over to (what looks to be) a well-trafficked porn site, and typed "tattoos" in the search box.
Sure enough, I see plenty of tattoos. I'm looking at this girl's thigh piece when all of the sudden: vagina! I blinked and resumed looking at the tattoos, and then: butt hole! This kept happening and annoying me for awhile before I fully realized that I was watching porn and not looking at a tattoo website.
Facepalm to the nth degree, because I totally knowingly went to a porn site to look at tattoos, and then got annoyed at all the T & A ruining my tattoo experience, and then realized T & A *was* the experience, and I had just trolled myself.
PS - I also read playboy for the articles. ;) <drops mic> Val out.

@SeeSea @Fala +1 on loving my hips and thighs because of tattoos! so much! and I can't really speak to "aging" at this point in my life, but I know when my mom's friends saw my tattoos they were like "oohhh, I can see how that covers cellulite right up". (and in my personal experience, tattoos sure as hell do!) (also I find myself favoring my more heavily tattooed side in the mirror anyway...it's pretttttty awesome ;))

@IzzyBizzy either keep it covered or use a barrier cream! something with zinc oxide or titanium oxide. badger balm makes a couple of good ones. just make sure it has those ingredients in it and it will be better than the neutrogena i think. but the best thing you can do for a tattoo that is that fresh is to keep it covered.

I'm not sure what brain bug got me started on tattoos in porn this morning, but somehow I got to thinking about it, and then I thought "well, maybe there are some good tattoos out there" and navigated over to (what looks to be) a well-trafficked porn site, and typed "tattoos" in the search box.
Sure enough, I see plenty of tattoos. I'm looking at this girl's thigh piece when all of the sudden: vagina! I blinked and resumed looking at the tattoos, and then: butt hole! This kept happening and annoying me for awhile before I fully realized that I was watching porn and not looking at a tattoo website.
Facepalm to the nth degree, because I totally knowingly went to a porn site to look at tattoos, and then got annoyed at all the T & A ruining my tattoo experience, and then realized T & A *was* the experience, and I had just trolled myself.
PS - I also read playboy for the articles. ;) <drops mic> Val out.

I'm not sure what brain bug got me started on tattoos in porn this morning, but somehow I got to thinking about it, and then I thought "well, maybe there are some good tattoos out there" and navigated over to (what looks to be) a well-trafficked porn site, and typed "tattoos" in the search box.
Sure enough, I see plenty of tattoos. I'm looking at this girl's thigh piece when all of the sudden: vagina! I blinked and resumed looking at the tattoos, and then: butt hole! This kept happening and annoying me for awhile before I fully realized that I was watching porn and not looking at a tattoo website.
Facepalm to the nth degree, because I totally knowingly went to a porn site to look at tattoos, and then got annoyed at all the T & A ruining my tattoo experience, and then realized T & A *was* the experience, and I had just trolled myself.
PS - I also read playboy for the articles. ;) <drops mic> Val out.

Sounds like a good coverup in theory, but I have a feeling nobody would believe me.
"No, no, I'm just looking at the TATTOOS."

Li'l Horitoshi frog by Junii :)
Very hard angle to photo!