MrToby

Yeah absolutely. Complete background from collar to the back of the knees. So as you say a long way to go but now that it's started I am very excited to continue and see how it develops. Next session is in mid July. I will be counting down the days and trying to find plenty of mirrors in the mean time so I can remind myself that it's really there.

Well then. Session 1 complete of my back piece with Ian Flower at New Skool Tattoo in Surrey. Nowhere near as bad as I was expecting and my back is not feeling too bad all in all. Next session in 3 weeks.

Obviously I'm also drawn more to the 'simple' design, a more 'new school' very detailed design can be very cool from close-by, but imho a japanese suite should have the 'wow' factor from across the room, not from 30cm away.

And what doesn't work with a samurai, a dragon and a ho-o?! You can put just about anything on your torso :) (but perhaps that part of the problem, soooo much to choose from :) )

For myself i'm still not sure about what to do with the torso, if i should continue with a munewari style front, with maybe something like a Kirin and a Baku on either side (perhaps going down onto my legs), or something like a yurei and a baku or something, or just do the whole front with one big piece

I'm a big fan of the Kirin and Baku combination since I have it myself. One on each thigh and they look cool. They're sort of eyeballing each other and that simple touch ties them together quite nicely rather than being totally separate pieces.

So just one week til the first session of my dragon back piece with Ian Flower. Definitely getting excited, but also wandering what I should be expecting. Does anybody have any advice on how to prepare before a back piece session?

Right then... First three appointments booked in for a dragon back piece with Ian Flower. Only got to wait under two months to start... Let the excitement start to build...

Yeah for sure @Iwar. I am gonna go talk to Ian Flower at New Skool Tattoo in Surrey in the hope of getting a full dragon back piece. I've always wanted one and after he did a grammophone on my ribs and Dragon-Koi half sleeve a couple of years ago I decided that when it came time to start my back it had to be him to do it. He has done some amazing back pieces recently and they just make the whole idea more exciting

It's amazing to see so many good back pieces in this thread. I am just at the start of this process. Arranged some time that I can get off work to go and have a consultation. A little over 2 weeks til that and then we will see where it goes from there. Right now though it is an equally exciting and terrifying prospect.

There are some great suggestions for unbelievable artists right there.

The other thing I would say is how much do you want to stick to Japanese tradition? The only reason that I ask is that if you want it to be totally traditionally then a Dragon-Koi and lotus flowers are a bit of a contradiction as the fish is meant to be swimming up stream through some pretty fast flowing water, like the waterfall you mentioned, and lotus only grow in very still water like ponds. Flowers that would traditionally go with a Dragon-Koi would be things like chrysanthemums, blossoms or maple leaves. If you are more concerned with what the Dragon-Koi and lotus specifically mean to you or just the simple aesthetic then obviously that doesn't matter so much.

Just another bit of information for you. I hope that you love whatever you ultimately get.

As has been mentioned by others here the two obvious changes for me are that I have less money and am now much more colorful. But it definitely goes beyond that personally. It has become a huge part of my life, from the magazines and websites I read to the art I choose to put on my walls and the conversations I have with people. I have had some totally fantastic conversations with people just because they see I'm tattooed and open up with "I've been thinking of getting [this or that tattoo]". I've found these conversations really interesting. And then the random comments that I get from people are more often than not great. Just yesterday I got on a bus and the drivers first comment before "Where are you going?" was "I would be walking round in a t-shirt too if I had tattoos that good." It's little things like that which make me smile and make my life more colorful now than it ever was before.

I got my first tattoo whilst I was living in New Zealand so my parents had no idea for ages. When they eventually came over for a trip a few months later they spotted it on my inner arm and the first question was "Is that real?" For some reason that question still amuses me. But I kept a relatively straight face and answered yes. I don't think either my parents were particularly happy but my Mum reacted worse than my Dad. She eventually came to me about three days after she'd first seen it and apologised for not talking to me about it and basically ignoring it. I'm not sure she's ever really gotten used to the fact that I have tattoos. My Dad on the other hand now looks through some of my books and seems pretty interested in the purely artistic side of it.

Absolutely! Doctor Who is cool.

Very cool there @passive jay

Here's a few other as well.

Firstly some planets by Tim Kern and Gerry Carnelly respectively and then a Hammerhead with the Tree of life by Jason Corbett.

A quick search around on the forums here produced nothing so I thought I would start this thread.

Basically let's see all your geek tattoos from fossils to crazy lizards as well as computer games and circuit boards to the tree of life. Anything that could be counted as geeky/nerdy or anything in between. Unashamedly I am a bit of a geek about a few things. Anyone that knows me will tell you how excited I get about rocks and I think it's something to be celebrated. So I will start off by referencing my own ammonite tattoo that I have up in my gallery. Interesting and cool tattoos of any sort are always fun.

@scubaron I have to confess I am not aware of any in the same style as what Haeckel did. The only things that might be similar would be biological text books and identification guides. If anyone else has other suggestions then throw them up because I would love to see them as well. Anything as good as Haeckel would be great to see.

Always love a good eagle. Such a classic subject for a tattoo and a lot of people do them killer. Here is mine by Bert Krak done at the London Tattoo Convention last September. So happy with it and such a cool experience.

I have a bunch of Haeckel tattooed on me. Art Forms in Nature is an amazing book.

Absolutely agreed. Haeckel's Art Forms in Nature is just brilliant. I've regularly considered getting something tattooed from it. Being a geologist I am constantly interested in some of the fossils he's got in there but can never decide either what to get or where. Maybe it will happen one day. Who knows maybe even a jellyfish...

I think Jellyfish tattoos a pretty cool. A lot of them that I see though remind me of Ernst Haeckel's paintings. For those who don't know who on earth he was, he was a biologist/artist and whole load of other things around the end of the 19th start of the 20th century. Anyway I've put some of his paintings below so that you can see what I mean about the similarity in between his work and jellyfish tattoos. It might just be me seeing similarities that aren't really there but especially the picture with the coloured jellyfish on it I feel has been referenced a lot. Which is great because it's awesome.

In answer to the original question I have never, to this point, really planned out the placement of my tattoos. I've decided what I wanted to get, researched and talked to artists about the piece and picked the most appropriate spot. So I don't think it is necessary to plan the whole thing, or even particularly far ahead. Some other people have given some really good advice on here already and it really does just come down to what you and the artist you're working with think will work best.

Thanks a lot @Gregor. How is your skull from Emma looking?

I agree with @SStu, blackwork is more of a generic name that covers a lot of different styles. The important thing for me is that it separates the style more clearly from more traditional black and grey work like chicano and realism. Tribal certainly I feel should have its roots in the imagery of countries like New Zealand, Samoa, Borneo and various others. Obviously there are modern interpretations of these by people like Leo Zulueta, Chris Higgins, Brent McCown and others, but it has its roots in ancient cultures.

It's one of those things though that the more you look at various artists work the more you will get used to what fits where.

This is a style of tattoo that I really like. Obviously there are those who do it phenomenally well and those who seem to jump on the band wagon. For those who are looking into the style for the first time and don't know where to start then the artists mentioned in previous posts are really good but also the Black Tattoo Art books by Marisa Kakoulas and published by Edition Reuss are fantastic. Looking through them I found a lot of really interesting artists and ultimately went and got a calf piece done by Patrick Huttlinger who is now based in Germany. There's a picture of the piece in my gallery or below just here:

@MrToby I've wanted a Kirin on my opposite thigh for a long time to balance my Baku. It's awesome that you have done the same.

Oh nice! Yeah it's a cool combination of images and I'm really happy with mine. It took ages to get the positioning of the Kirin's head right so that it didn't look like it was staring at my croch. Thankfully we managed to achieve.

http://www.lastsparrowtattoo.com/forum/tattoo-tv-shows-documentaries-media/4760-horithoshi-i-full-documentary.html

The Horitoshi documentary is fantastic. I got it a few years ago on DVD. You can get it here:

LA VOIE DE L'ENCRE Lardux Boutique

In terms of which Traditional Japanese artists I like the most it's kind of like trying to pick your favorite sweet in a candy store. Obviously Horiyoshi III is very high but I feel that kind of goes without saying. Beyond him I love the work of Horiyasu. The black that he gets is so dark and smooth and the colors are incredibly vibrant to go with it. Horitoshi is obviously very good as well. I would also mention Horimasa from Isesaki. He did a phoenix on my lower right leg a couple of years ago at the Brighton Tattoo Convention. He worked incredibly quickly and produced an amazing piece. I am thinking about getting something else big from him in the future but that depends on time and money. This is the phoenix I got though.

I got both my thighs tattooed this year by Ade Stacey at Nine Tattoo in Brighton. Awesome guy and I love the pieces that he did for me. Baku on one side and Kirin on the other. Something a bit different. The picture of the Baku has come from Ade's own website as you might have guessed from the water mark. In terms of the twitching I got a bit of that towards the bottom of the muscle near the knee but otherwise it wasn't too bad for 5hours+ of tattooing each time.

guy wearing tattoo sleeves, saw my arm and was telling his buddies, that his didn't hurt to get..

pull on ones like this...

i mean, srsly, who wears these things???

The only time I ever actually see people wearing these things is as some sort of fancy dress. If it is someone that knows I have tattoos then this often results in them asking, tongue in cheek, "Do you like my tattoos?" What do you want me to say to that... I mean really? It's a stretchy bit of fabric with poorly drawn designs on... It's about the same as asking if your fake water transfer tattoos are cool... I can only shake my head and chuckle at it.

I am up to about 13 tattoos now and I still get the brilliant comment from un-tattooed people of "I didn't expect you to have tattoos" or "You don't look like a tattooed person." Which makes me beg the question is there a specific combination of piercings, ripped jeans, and t-shirt from an obscure 80's rock band that I need so that people aren't surprised I have tattoos. It just baffles me as a comment.

Also I work with kids and quite often have entertaining conversations that simply start with them stating "You have a tattoo." This opens up a world of fun and mildly sarcastic responses from shock that I have two half sleeves and pretending I didn't know they were there to convincing them that I wake up early every morning and draw them on with Sharpies. I probably shouldn't, it's a bit cheeky of me, but it is great fun.

Another thing that confuses me though is when people seem to think that they can demand to see my tattoos in full. This has on occassion resulted in some un-tattooed people requesting, quite politely, that I take various items of clothing off. Most recently this happened at a wedding when the mother of the groom demanded I take off my shirt so she could see my half sleeves. Very awkward in the middle of the reception and it was probably a good thing I hadn't had more to drink at that point or who knows what would have happened.

There are always the normal questions though of "Did it hurt?", "How much did it cost?", "Don't you think you will regret it?" etc. They are always fun to answer sarcastically as well otherwise it just gets repetative.