beez

Lol.
Does this crack tat make my butt look big?

Bird bursts! Arrows! Infinity signs!

I don't care about nor pay attention to trends. If I am into something, I do it. Pretty simple.

I think the only tattoos that really become trendy are bad tattoos...

I think it's just a dig. They know that you are not mainstream so maybe they hope you'll stop getting tattooed or pierced if they use reverse psychology on you and call it trendy... I think my mom tried that too. Didn't work, I still like tattoos no matter what people who don't like them say!
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i would say the trendy side is the tattoo's people get, all the people getting the silhouettes of the birds and every one wanting mandallas, or getting thai unaloms and calling them spirals haha and getting them upside down. just like the tribal in the late 90's early 2000's or the celtic bands. Or my most hated tattoo of all ,the massive wall of text people seems to get with some bs quote or bible passage. People get the tattoo they deserve :D

Favorite quote:


"...over time I learned how to draw and tattoo a koi fish without it looking like a chopped off penis with a human eye and sprinkles, or a dragon so that it didn’t look like a barfing sock puppet, or a woman’s face so she didn’t look like a man, or lettering that didn’t look like it was done with your foot!"
I feel so bad for someone when I see one of those koi penises.

"Fear of a flash planet"
http://tattooartistmagazineblog.com/2012/08/01/jojo-ackermann-fear-of-a-flash-planet/
It's been posted before, but reposting it is easier than rehashing the argument about the role of flash in helping people get good tattoos. And Jo Jo Ackerman makes it better anyway :)
Classic or modern flash that is tattooed however many times (that army of crawling panthers) just isn't the same as someone copying what is clearly intended as custom work...

Yeh mines a right old mush mash of styles and quality! I'm lucky in that apart from the word destroy on my arm both my sleeves are good. I was about to get destroy covered by the lovely Lucy Pryor at in2u in London about 15 years ago...when Alex binnie stepped in and wouldn't allow it saying you shouldn't cover tats and that there a history of your life. I have a lot of stupid tattoo's that I got for stupid reasons or to commemorate acts I commited but as the great man Alex binnie said there a map to the history of your life. Even tho I'm pretty sure Alex can't stand me haha... I used to be that kid who would come in the shop off my nut and talk non stop ;)

Well, some of you pals already know, but it's relevant, so I'll tell you all.
I put in my resignation at my day job so that I could be at the tattoo shop more often. It's a big scary step, but you gotta start somewhere.
Also, I quit drinking after being a lush for the last 10 years.
Onwards and upwards folks.

Horitoshi family has you pull your knees up to your chest to really get that stretch and get in there when the time comes. Cannonball style!

@bongsau - Shad is super nice, and SO FAST! We got that snake done in 4 HOURS! 4!!!! Outline, shading, color!!! He does use bactine, as you mentioned, and that helps so much. He said he is going to be up in Canada, so I hope you get in to see him!
This was a really painful session, all in all. The upper back is like hot fire. Not fun! I am so stoked to get to this point in my tattoo, though, and I can't wait to continue the collaboration. We were talking about a dragon on the rest of the back of my legs looking up at the snakes. !!!!
Anyway, for those who might have missed it on IG, here is my new snake!

@hogg yeah mon a fix up!
(That would explain why I've never received a PM lol)
- - - Updated - - -
This is our rasta taxi driver Cappa and our tattooed pal Ali, they linked me with the latest in Dancehall

He accompanied us out one night. Nobody stepped to me that night!
Pretty rad though to be ballin around the town blaring dancehall from a dropped gold speckled Honda Civic!

Just got home after 2 weeks in Jamaica!!
I will spare LST the pain of having to hear about how awesome our holiday in the sun was or how crazy of a place Jamaica was or about how I chain smoked spliffs for 2 weeks straight.
I got the nickname "Colouring Book" during our last trip (everyone in JA has a birth name and a street name, my wife and I happen to be "Colouring Book & Rolling Stone" lol). There are a nuff tourists on the beach with tattoos, but as some Jamaicans I was hanging with said, there is only one Colouring Book pon di beach and that's me haha. There were cats that remembered me from 2012 on the beach, or had heard about a tattooed Canadian who was schooled in reggae, a Kartel fan and "socialized with the local people". The average tourist can deflect the hustle, but when you're a white guy with a rainbow bodysuit in a country that is 95% black people you are going to attract attention wherever you go.
This big fat rastaman came up to me one morning and said "Wha gwan Colouring Book! You the man with the big monk on your back, we cyan see it yesterday from across the beach yeah mon. Whole heap a tattoo, sick tattoo dem!"
Tattoos...you had your beach tourist staples: tribal, polynesian style, fairies, pinterest birds, philosophical rib essays, etc. There was the bro here and there with an unfinished arm sleeve and plenty of gals with sugar skulls. There was the wigger bro at the airport with a tweety bird on his neck. We saw a 50yo woman with a pretty wicked panther head (looked a couple years old) which re-affirmed how awesome panther designs are. I knew what her tattoo was of from across the beach bar.
I met this older guy from Montreal who had a bunch of older tattoos. He said some old guy did it. I'm like "wait Montreal? whoa, Tony D'Annessa?" And him, his wife and his buddy suddenly got super excited, as did I, and they started telling me PSC tattoo stories. Got to see a 45yo D'Annessa swallow tattoo (off the wall, to match his Dads!) among a bunch of other cool things like old panthers, dragons and skulls and a brilliant wolf head that D'Annessa did 3 years ago!
Also met this big black dude who had maad coverage. Jesus portrait, crosses, script, a two giant panthers on his back. Street style tattoos, intriguing and some were very well done. He was super friendly to me and was stoked on my tattoos. He gave me a branch of ganja, we talked tattoos. Said all his tattoos were done in the Arizona penitentiary!
The Jamaicans for the most part are fascinated and get stoked on tattoos and in many ways having tattoos in Jamaica, as explained to me, is a sign that you are successful (money), somebody who commands respect (status) and somebody you don't fuck with (pain, sign of tuff-ness). NAH FI RESPONSE A MAN was a Kartel lyric my homeboy Romie quoted, implying my arm, my leg, my body, my life and I do what I want, I don't have to explain myself to anybody. I repeated that quote when a hustler was giving me a hard time and my homies were like yeah mon, Colouring Book a boss, take no shit. Tattoos became popular in JA because of dancehall artists like Kartel, so if you have tattoos and are down with Kartel than you are going to make some pals and get some respect on the beach in Jamaica.
Some of my JA friends had tattoos like skulls/snakes, nautical stars, script. Typical fare. But they all lamented (and laughed) how you can't see the ink under their black skin. I would tell them, white skin, black skin it doesn't matter. A tattoo is a tattoo, you put it under your skin, it's yours and babylon can't take that away from ya. They liked that.
We ended up at "Scrub-A-Dub" afterhours one night which we found out was a go-go (strip) club that the locals go to after last call at the beach bars. Intense, pretty crazy experience. Lot of pretty ruff looking characters, guys with thugged out tattoos and some with bleached out skin. The women had a lot of the ink, mostly breast, neck and butt/thigh placement. A lot of it was scratchy, but nevertheless still interesting to see.
Sunburned a stripe across my backpiece (lol) I guess we missed a spot with the sunscreen on the day I happened to think I was part dolphin and stayed in the sea for 3 hours. I'm not too concerned though.
@hogg I don't know you offline, but I do know you like reggae! I got a stack of latest dancehall tracks (CDRs) like Kartel, Movado, I-Octane, etc. PM me your email I'll add you to a dropbox I'm setting up for my pals once I sort through and rip the new music. Although I was warned not to play some of the music in front of the children or older Jamaicans, it gets pretty nasty and slack.
And yeah, Kartel is still in prison yet somehow keeps releasing a maad amount of new material. I guess he's got a backlog of unreleased stuff and (so I'm told) uses a cell phone from inside the prison to get his voice out to his people. Crazy! ...voice of the people in modern day Jamaica...

I got my underside fully filled in February.
Mine goes deep i.e. <1" radius around the asshole, no white skin with my legs together or apart. I think it looks better if you go as deep as you and the tattooer feel comfortable with. Because it enhances the natural shadow of the body (booty).
It is very intense. The spot where the ass meets the thigh under the cheek is one of the most painful spots albeit one of the most thrilling sits you can have. Both in terms of physical pain and the mental block of spreading your ass for another person to perform the work in the area. You really need to embrace the vulnerability of the session to get through it. And once your ass and crack is tattooed you will have exponentially increased your no-shame quotient! I could care less now if my tattooed ass is hanging out of my shorts! Kiss my black ass!
I was told the skin is very different to work on in this sensitive area. The shading appears to be cross-hatched and I do recall multiple passes, likely because of the type of skin, swelling/sensitivity, hair follicles, etc.
I was face down with my ass in the air, like the sexy-wife-pose lol. Thigh hanging off the table at some points to give my guy some more room to work. I got electric shocked a few times too haha.
I've got my session-report in the Full Back Piece Experience thread (Crazy Tattoo Stories).
In summary, bring a towel or wooden spoon to bite down on.

@beez @Avery Taylor
Shad was going to be in Edmonton this week but had to cancel plans, I found out yesterday. Word is he will be back in Edmonton in the fall.
No problem (haha I just got back from Jamaica), I'll just get back on track with my backpiece.

Thanks guys. You are all right - and I knew that already, but the reinforcement is good. I appreciate the love, all! Thanks!

Horitoshi family has you pull your knees up to your chest to really get that stretch and get in there when the time comes. Cannonball style!

Hogg, your snake may or may not have ended up in my reference pile ;). I'm flattered!
Polliwog - I have no idea how in the HELL he did that in four hours. Even though I was there for it I can barely believe it. He said that since he had drawn and colored the snake completely already on a picture of my back, and then he drew it again on me in marker before we started, that because he had drawn it and colored it in he knew exactly where to go and that's why it was so fast. <throws up hands> he's a mad genius! I have never been tattooed by anybody who is particularly slow, either! But the other half of my back definitely took multiple sessions of AT LEAST 4 hours each, so this was soo fast!
The one thing that may have helped was that he used bactine after the first 1.5 hours, and the lidocaine in bactine kept me nice and numb. But once I was numb he went for it and started digging in there - I could DEFINITELY tell I was being worked on. I don't know if I could have handled it without the numbing.
On numbing: I used to be sort of anti-numbing, but I got numbed for the last 90 min of the eagle/dragon thigh piece and then for this, and I don't feel like I really missed out on the tattoo experience. I was definitely there for all of it! And the numbing may have removed the "hot fire" element of it, but not the continuously working over chopped up skin feeling. So that's it!
@cltattooing that hector fong piece is sick!

Edmonton! For 1 day! That's all I know! He is going to Arizona after this and then Canada. I know that he told me when, I just can't remember!!!! I'm so sorry - tattoo brain made me spacey.
I think today is his last day at DC - maybe give them a call and find out? I said "I know someone in Canada (from the internet) who wants to get tattooed by you," and he said that wherever he's going, the shop owner said there were a couple of people who wanted to talk to him about his next visit there.
He's gonna be in AZ for a few days so you might try hitting him up on instagram or something to see exactly where he's gonna be.
@ironchef you FLATTER me!

@bongsau - Shad is super nice, and SO FAST! We got that snake done in 4 HOURS! 4!!!! Outline, shading, color!!! He does use bactine, as you mentioned, and that helps so much. He said he is going to be up in Canada, so I hope you get in to see him!
This was a really painful session, all in all. The upper back is like hot fire. Not fun! I am so stoked to get to this point in my tattoo, though, and I can't wait to continue the collaboration. We were talking about a dragon on the rest of the back of my legs looking up at the snakes. !!!!
Anyway, for those who might have missed it on IG, here is my new snake!

... I'm new here and have been lurking a while. I'm so sorry Beez, that someone was so awful and didn't put your feelings first with the hurtful words. Ugh. As for this post, I am married and my husband has no tattoos. I only have 2 AND am getting a new one this week (Yes!!!), but he has always kind of had a gentle curiosity about them but no desire to get one in a serious capacity. He says he might if he found something he really wanted but I doubt it. It hasn't really made the least bit of difference to me or him that I know of but I wonder if deep down he doesn't understand why I'm getting new tattoos at 40. I think maybe he lives vicariously and is just content to let me be the tattooed one. Either way I know he would never tell me not to get one and I wouldn't ask... it's my skin and it makes me happy and that's something he loves so it's a win-win. Lucky I guess.

So sorry @beez. This was incredibly insensitive and shallow, and it must have been heartbreaking coming from someone you “thought” you knew. He could have let you down easy without playing the tattoo card. He could have politely declined your offer for a date. Or, he could have respectfully said said, “I’d like to keep our relationship on the friendship level.” But instead he stuck in the knife, choosing a rationalization that basically slammed every door to the future. If he had thought about it for 15 seconds, he had to know he statement would hurt you deeply.
Perhaps the sting of the tattoo thing that you are feeling could be because he didn’t just reject you, he also chose to attack something that is central to your being, part of your physical body and your persona, that you can’t - and wouldn’t - change.
I tend to be super-analytical, so here goes…
My theory is that although plainskin people know that tattoos are permanent, I don’t think they fully understand the psychological meaning of that. To many of us, our tattoos are not just pictures on the body; they are our body, no different than our hand, or ear, or breast. And in some ways tattooing may be even more meaningful than those “natural” body parts, because we chose to make them part of our body, forever. I think that untattooed people may have difficulty understanding what that means to us.
Perhaps they think that since we chose to put them there, they are not really legitimately a part of us physically or psychologically, and thus fair game for for criticism. This is consistent with the classic insensitive comments many have heard, ad nauseam.
Consider the statement that your “friend” made, but change one word (I hope I don't offend, but I’m trying to make a point). Most (but sadly not all) people would never say “I could never marry you because you breasts aging would be a problem for me.” But they will say (as your friend did), “ I could never marry you because your tattoos aging would be a problem for me.” But to we tattooed women, our tattoos are as much a part of us as our breasts.

Horitoshi family has you pull your knees up to your chest to really get that stretch and get in there when the time comes. Cannonball style!

@SeeSea i spend a lot of time in coffee shops and parks when traveling for tattoos (in SF)!! the only thing i would caution is to make sure you know exactly where you're going when the tattoo is done. My post-tattoo brain gets spacier and spacier each tattoo it seems - and I have a helluva time getting anywhere. So if I don't have a set point of where I am going next, I'm in all sorts of trouble.