MrToby

Love seeing these pieces and great theme for a thread.

My contribution is this eagle I had done by Bert Krak at The London Tattoo Convention a few years ago. Such fast work and I love how it came out.

@Lance I saw that on IG a few days ago and was very impressed. Great piece!

So after my trip to Berlin a couple of weeks ago my new chrysanthemum is pretty much healed. Super happy with how it came out, and it was a great experience getting tattooed by Toshihide.

Going to be in Berlin next week and going over to Fur Immer to get a palm sized piece from Toshihide whilst I am there.

First time getting a tattoo whilst travelling in about 7 years so really excited about it.

@ItsNewport the Oni looks great man. I had a bit of a chat with Stewart later in the day and compared Ian Flower dragons and bought a couple of prints.

I've been getting mine through gentlemanstattooflash.co.uk they still had a few copies left at the Brighton show. I have managed to get hold of all of them so far except issue #1. They are a lot of fun and a really cool change from the standard tattoo magazines.

No plans for getting tattooed just yet, but if you see me wandering round with my shiny new back piece feel free to say hi.

Thanks very much all @Graeme @9Years @polliwog. I was walking around work and just remembered and smiled broadly. I think people thought I was crazy. I'm so happy with how it came out considering all I said to Ian at the start was that I wanted a Japanese dragon full back piece.

I will always remember the day I walked in to the studio and Ian asked "How do you feel about Tibetan skulls?" It worked out well.

And relining those waves... not fun on the last session but it made such a difference so I am super happy we went for it.

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Thanks very much all @Graeme @9Years @polliwog. I was walking around work and just remembered and smiled broadly. I think people thought I was crazy. I'm so happy with how it came out considering all I said to Ian at the start was that I wanted a Japanese dragon full back piece.

I will always remember the day I walked in to the studio and Ian asked "How do you feel about Tibetan skulls?" It worked out well.

And relining those waves... not fun on the last session but it made such a difference so I am super happy we went for it.

Having started 21 months ago I am unbelievably happy to say that my back is done. It took 59 hours, at least a dozen tubes of bepanthen, lots of cups of coffee and bacon sandwiches, and at least one ruined set of bed sheets. Thank you very much Mr Ian Flower.

I think as long as your ass is an extension of whatever is around it then it looks quite good, and that works for most styles. I am really happy that I included it as part of my backpiece. The linework was horrible and I ended up clenched tight enough to hold on to almost anyhting. The shading and colour has been alright though, until we go anywhere near the tail bone that is. For such a small spot that is no fun at all......

I saw this piece by Mike Rubendall a few days ago and every time I see it it still floors me. I think the thing that catches me is the head of that snake. The purple is crazy...

Second session this month. Scales are now all done and every little thing we do is just making the whole thing pop a little bit more. Super happy.

I have recently been working on a series of narrow panels based on a variety of outdoors pursuits. Super fun to do these and figure out how to capture a scene through a series of windows.

So... not been on to post anything in a little while. I had to miss a session last month for medical reasons. I would absolutely have preferred being tattooed for 3 hours compared to going to the doctors. Anyway I made up for the missed session yesterday. We did the blue on the back of the left leg and then started to put some green in the leaves around the blossoms. I have another session in a couple of weeks time which will complete the scales. We talked about maybe slowly fading the blue towards the tail so that it ends up super pale, almost white, which I think could look amazing. We are then definitely going to be on the home stretch. After 45 hours it is really coming to life and I am incredibly happy with it.

I saw that Julian Seibert front piece of the cowelled skull and cat being tattooed at the London Convention this year. I was astounded by both the client and the tattoo. The guy sat for 3 days straight to get it finished. Totally incredible...

The first tattoo I ever saw that had that effect on me was this incredible hannya by Mike Rubendall. It still amazes me. It's probably the first tattoo that made me realize the possibilities within tattooing.

Also that Viking head is incredible. I saw it on instagram the other day and it definitely made me stop and put my eyes back in my head.

Awesome weekend at the London Convention. There were some awesome tattoos walking around and being created, not least on some LSTers. Congratulations to everyone that got some work. Everything I have seen so far looks great. I didn't get anything big or dramatic this weekend. Just this little guy by Len Leye at Clan of Tusk in Belgium. Really nice guy and fun time getting tattooed. It you don't know his work then check out his instagram.

I got here at 10:50 with an advance ticket and had no queuing troubles. The queue for gate sales didn't look huge but I didn't really spend a long time looking at it. Turn up between 10 and 11 and I think you'll be OK but please don't hold me to that if I'm wrong. Tomorrow will be busier than today I reckon though. Not sure if that was a particularly useful answer...

Well that's just killer @hellamuch you must be stoked even though it's not finished just yet. How much more have you got to go?

@Cork It's awesome to see the progression of your back in a collection like that. Going through these forums I forget what I've seen sometimes, and having your comments to accompany it is really interesting.

@cltattooing that is a great start to your back as well. Who is doing it out of interest? Apology if you've already mentioned that some where else.

@Cork I have been doing the same as we have been going along. I have a whole folder on my laptop just with pictures of my back progressing session by session. It is amazing to see the gradual change and those sessions when it suddenly seems to jump ahead. Really interesting, but as you say a lot of ass... none the less... share it.

Hello all! Not been on for a little while so thought I better jump on and give a bit of an update. Firstly @Graeme your back is looking great. I'll be that far along soon. Ian reckon's we could be done in 3 or 4 more sessions. In the mean time this is the progress from the last couple of sessions. Reposted from Ian's instsgram.

I've been having fun doing a couple of different paintings recently. Inspiration and reference from a few different places. All Japanese.

It depends what you want. For Japanese style work Len Leye at Clan of Tusk in Bruge is pretty good.

Thanks a lot @jimmyirish

It's been quite interesting finding out who has worked with Ian, or who he has worked with at various times. The walls of his little studio are covered in great bits of flash and paintings as well by people like Wido de Marvel, Alex Binnie, Thomas Hooper, Jondix and Valerie Vargas. It helps quite a lot when having sessions on my back to state at something cool.