ironchef

Finished the majority of my sleeve with Gre Hale at Rain City, Manchester, UK. Extremely happy with it, Gre is an awesome bloke, and the shop is great; packed to the brim with talented artists and character.
What do you guys think?
Just the 'pinchy' inner bicep to go.

I've just returned home from a trip to Berlin. Brought this one home with me:

Done by Uncle Allan at Conspiracy Inc, Berlin.
I'm pretty excited about this one. A rose by Allan has been on my wishlist for a loooong time, so it's amazing to finally check it off the list.
(Picture respectfully borrowed from Allan's IG account: http://instagram.com/unclea)

RAWR!!!

Psychedelic Road Kill Falcon :cool:

Third Eye Russian Criminal tattoo inspired :cool:

Tell me of this island called Staten :p

I'm a moron! You are of course right.
The winner of Tattoo of the month June 2015 is @Kinglambert with this amazing back piece by Fil Wood. Congrats man!!

Should really have thrown this in over the last couple of months but i'm a lazy fucker, so here it is now.
By Marius Meyer, completed in May of this year (started in December of last).

This is my latest tattoo. Done by my girlfriend, on me, after I tattooed her. The technical application obviously needs some work, but I think she did ok for the first time running a machine. Haha.

Jeff Rassier flying Cobra. Done at Blackheart in January. Pics taken Yesterday. Tough to photo...wraps around the arm a lot.

Got this about a month ago from Jeff Zuck of Name Brand in Ann Arbor. Definitely going back!

Got some healed pictures of this one recently:

Lighting isn't great but but you get the idea. And to think I told myself I wouldn't get more band tattoos.

Started some dot shading last weekend. Quick 2-hour session with Thomas Hooper until next time, which will be in August. I need to take a month or so off so I can swim with the kids over their summer break. Once we're done with shading this section, we're gonna hammer out whats going on in the lower belly area and right ribs.
crap...sorry the pic is loading horizontally. I'll see if I can fix that.

Done by Greg Woodrow, Taunton Tattoos - Oshawa ON Canada

From last Saturday at Great Lakes Tattoo in Chicago

Nick Colella -big-ass eagle (chest)

Mario Desa - rose of no mans..tribute (ankle)

Frank Willian - pocket knife filler (inner arm ditch)
It was a good day.... besides getting 3 killer tattoos, I got to hang out and bullshit with Chad Koeplinger and Robert Ryan and the rest of the GLT crew plus it was Robert Ryan's "The Radiant Name" art opening downstairs. GLT is probably the nicest shop I've ever been in and everybody was super nice and fun.....

Healed photo of my back that was finished last year in September, and a fresh one to the left. Both by Marius Meyer

This was last Saturday's progress on my back. We're getting close.
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Hello all,
So I haven't put up any progress shots on my back for a couple of months. In all honesty it was a lot of cherry blossoms. Anyway after the weekends session at the Bristol Tattoo Show I thought I better put up a full progress shot. Apologies for the slightly blurry pictures these were taken with my slightly rubbish little compact digital camera. I'm stoked with how it is coming along though now and am super excited to see it coming together with the colour in the dragon over the next few months.

Chris Conn, done yesterday.
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Shaolin Session #9 - 3 hrs (32 hrs total, wtf?)
This was actually a very difficult session.
It began with some drawing on the detail patterns in the monk's robe trim.
Tattooing started with a 7 liner.
Followed by a really tight shader for all the edging.
The trim ended up being these lil singular flames going from a rich green to black to a rich blue, light blue flames. Very tight details.
Then white in the sleeve cuffs.
And finish it off with skin tones, the shaved head and the expression in the eyes!
It was a very sharp session. Steve had to jump all around a lot and he is quite heavy and his machines hit hard maan (I like it !). These remaining spots were direct spine hits and bbq back ribs. Felt like he was tattooing my lung at one point. Brutal, but hey, keep your feet relaxed and the body will follow, find the clarity. Yeah man, this tattoo shit friggin hurts now, I've used up a most of my 'tattoo credits' over the years.
So...my back tattoo is substantially complete. A bittersweet feeling, however I'm so pumped at how it all turned out. Size of the image, the blackground, the fine details, the colour palette, the butt waves. Nailed the expression, especially the Shaolin eyes. Most excellent. Steve Batt is the god damn guru.
Full donburi bro !!!
Pictures will come once the bruising and redness in the skin tones and white come down.
Now time to relax, heal, enjoy the summer sunshine and lakes.
I'll be back on the table in September for Session #10 to re-hit all the black and saturate the shit out of it and clean up the transitions into the other tattoos in my suit. Then the mini-banger and tattoos over tattoos begins. Booya!

@ironchef - Hard to say. Outlining had some brutal spots for sure. Tebori doesn't hurt anymore in my mind, but it can be mentally trying when you lay there for 2 hours and then look in the mirror and think to yourself "that's all we got done today!"
One thing I will mention is that I highly recommend wearing headphones when getting tebori done. I found the squishing sound to be unbearable after while.

@a1steaks Was it worse being lined with a machine on the torso or is the tebori beating you up more?

@Killercook76 That's comforting, I think. I have a lot of open space on my front :( Haha @polliwog I'll probably post some progress shots if I get permission! But to provide some level of satiation to the curiosity, here's the reference I gave him. Kind of a bad photo because it's an actual painting I own and I took the picture with my phone at night in the living room

@Lance Kahlil Rintye :)

:)
made a trip to belgium last weekend and got this funny thing from https://instagram.com/burtonursaeminoris/ (stole the picture).

Made the trip up to Davis to see George Hernandez and came away with this fun one:
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Here is a photo of the latest updates on my front. The owl/roses/skull have been healed are almost three years old. The goat on my stomach was lined about a year ago with the shading being freshly done (other parts in various stages of healing). The rose/flames/bones on my right side are fresh also in this photo. I'll work on the other side later in the year but, in the meantime, I will be picking up a little banger from Tomas Garcia in July.