cltattooing

speaking of slugs...

by Jacek Minkowski at Mom's Body Shop in San Francisco.

Alright, I'm done blowing up this thread..... for today.

Deb, I know you write for the TAM blog, maybe you've read this article?

http://tattooartistmagazineblog.com/2012/08/07/larry-brogan-scheduling-appointments-and-taking-deposits/

This is from yesterday, really fun piece on my buddy as part of a trade before he moves to Australia. A little red and bruised, but I think I got a good picture.

be nice, I get really self conscious posting my work among so many amazing tattoos :o

(although I am totally open to constructive criticism if anyone feels so inclined!)

stole this from sonju's injungram

not an idea for you,this is just what I have.

my mom got sick with cancer in November of 1994,she passed away in January 95,you can see the date,I got the heart/banner/MOM while she was still alive so she saw it,then I added the RIP & date of course after she passed away,it took her fast. :(

it's very old & very traditional ,my arm taqttoos aren't "world class",but their mine and I like 'em.

aww, that's so lovely. I think mom tattoos are really special, I'm glad that she got to see it before she passed. And in my opinion, tattoos don't always have to be technically outstanding to be good tattoos. A lot of it is in the intention of the tattoo and the personal meaning that you are embodying. Thanks for sharing that (:

@guitguy she's 54 :p

Haha, thank you! It was really fun. I had her practice the design on pigs feet for a few hours to get a sense of how a machine runs and feels. It took about half an hour, she was really proud of herself and I could tell she enjoyed the experience a lot.

So since pretty much forever, I'd been bugging my mom to get a tattoo. She can be really socially conservative and definitely came from the "tattoos are trash" generation. After enough bugging, it became pretty clear that she's never going to be tattooed, so I started bugging her to come with me to get a mom tattoo so she can be a part of the process and get a feel for how rad the shop environment is. That kept getting pushed back farther and farther until I realized again that it wasn't going to happen. So basically, I gave her the "you're going to be part of tattooing whether you like it or not" talk, and told her that if she wasn't going to participate as a third party, she can participate as a first party and tattoo me instead.

So she did. :cool:

isn't it terrible? I love it so much. It's supposed to be a bear, looks kind of like a weasel, 100% precious and motherly. Moms rule!

At our shop, we take a $50-100 deposit depending on the size of the piece. I think it's pretty fair to take a deposit of one hour's time. Our policy is that the deposit is not refundable under any circumstances, it is credited toward the total cost of the tattoo, and changes in appointment date/time must be made 48 hours in advance to keep the deposit in effect.

Worked at this joke of a shop for two months:

oakland a’s - Oakland Tribune Outtakes -

Did 1 tattoo. I am truly shocked that I even stuck it out that long, I guess I did it out of respect or paying my dues for the opportunity or whatever.

The guy who owned the place also lived there, like.. literally in the back room with his dog. I would come into the shop and find piles of full garbage bags and scattered beer cans in the kitchen area(yeah.. an actual kitchen) along with piles of dishes from bbq parties they'd throw during the day. The place had zero walk-ins during the time I was there and it was a street shop.

And then other coworker homeboy occasionally lived/slept in the loft upstairs. Found a .45 tucked between the mattress and the bed frame, that was fun! I don't think I saw a scrub-room there the entire time and the place didn't have any kind of stencil machine. The last straw was coming in at opening with my client to seeing homeboy fresh out of bed in his basketball shorts and slippers taking bong rips in the work area.

So basically it was just this hack who was avoiding paying taxes by living at the shop and doing the whole "cool guy tattoo artist musician" thing. He claims to have been tattooing for 20 years, you tell me if you believe that after looking at this gem:

6 days after getting my elbow blasted, I've never experienced such intense itching in my life. Holy shit. Oh yeah, and you ingrown hairs can go fuck yourselves too :cool:

Cheaper hourly rates when I questioned him and he's satisfied with the work. Go figure...

Meh, whack...

everyone gets the tattoo they deserve, I guess?

My first tattoo was pretty dumb, just this little power button symbol behind my ear. It's covered now but at the time I had already been getting pierced on my own, so when my mom saw it, she just kinda looked at it, said "hm" and left it at that. I did overhear her telling our neighbor about it though, it was a very matter-of-fact conversation. I think my dad made fun of me, it was pretty good.

As I kept getting more, and eventually after I started tattooing, they've just accepted it as part of my life. Both of them are now pretty supportive, trust my tastes, and often look forward to seeing the new pieces that I have. I do know that deep down, it really bums my mom out that I will eventually be covered, but she also recently "got it" when it came to why people get tattooed/how much it changes your life in a positive light. So that's cool. I definitely feel like I could have it waaaayyy worse.

A friend of mine who's got some decent tattoos told me straight out that the artist he goes to is super lazy and doesn't like to draw his own stuff out. If he had an appointment, he was told to show up early and described what he liked and the artist would search around the internet, present him with a couple of options that the artist found and then basically copy it out and tattoo it. The work is good but guess it left me kinda of puzzled as much as @Diehardonvhs

what confuses the beans out of me is why your friend keeps going to the same person knowing that he's getting copies every time???

Ha! I watched the whole thing and thought to myself "Man, I wish there was subtitles". I never was one to read instructions thouroughly lol. I figured it out eventually and watched it again. Fascinating stuff. Thanks for posting.

The man's words on tattoo becoming commonplace kinda bummed me out because we can see that happening here in a big way. It seems everyone and their little sister is tattooed nowadays and it has really taken that beautiful dark edge away from it. I know I'm restating the obvious, but this vid brought it to the forefront for me and sometimes I wonder if I should continue getting tattooed. I usually snap out of it though. It is after all a personal journey and the young lady serving my food with a full sleeve of flowers and song lyrics really has nothing to do with me still wanting a crawling black panther or homeward bound ship or whatever. For me, it is less about "Hey people, look at my tattoo" as it is me looking at myself and saying " I love my tattoo".

Pardon the digression. Awesome vid. Thanks again for posting.

I thought that was a really interesting part of his philosophy as well. I'd agree that it's kind of a bummer how tattoos are becoming so demystified, but I also think that that mysticism can never really die as it's a very intrinsic part of tattooing. What I see happening now is more of a divide between the people who "get tatted" and people go "get tattooed." The former category is generally composed of people who like the idea of getting tattooed and do so to embody the counter-cultural status quo/because it's cool/because wiz khalifa has tattoos. I think that the latter category falls more into people who do their research on good tattooing and solid artists, those who follow a path toward the right tattoo. The people who have a certain reverence for the process and go about it almost ritualistically, and I believe that's what Horiyoshi III-sama was talking about. I don't know if that will ever really die...

This is an interesting topic with a lot of grey area. As a tattooer, it's pretty disheartening and insulting when someone blatantly rips off your work. As a client, well.. I was talking to Mr. Campise about not putting my piece online as to skate around the biters and he laid it out pretty simply. Nobody is ever going to do the original justice, and it's pretty much just free(albeit really obnoxious) advertising. Nothing can ever outshine true authenticity, and whoever ends up with the copy ends up walking around with a permanent bummer. So that's kind of where I sit on that matter... It sucks, it's inevitably going to happen, don't do it if you tattoo, and don't get down on it as a client.

Wow, thanks for posting that! Made my night, I am kind of left speechless cause I don't know what I could possibly say to follow that up. Cool dude :cool:

I've never heard of anything like this, but the website describes the process as "escharotic," so I looked that up and it makes me nervous...

Eschar - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

seems like the procedure is an injection of their patented chemical into the tattoo site, causes the cells to die and reject the ink. Makes me think of what happens when injuries happen at tattoo sites and the ink falls out of the traumatized area.

Check out the rasta lion thing on page 2. Brutal.

Arrrghhh this makes me so upset!! I truly believe that anyone who is in tattooing "for the money" should get their thumbs broken and be forced to wear a necklace of garlic for the rest of their lives cause fuck vampires. Like.. tattooers possess an incredible amount of power over people, and it really isn't something to be taken lightly. Facial tattoos change peoples' lives in a very significant way, and to me, the idea of being like "yeah I'll do that, never have to think about it again, walk away with $500 tonight" is pretty disgusting.

Like, really.. can breaking thumbs be a thing again please?

Pretty much just throat and face, I'm not much opposed to anything else except for tattoos that are expressly meant as crotch pieces. No beef, just not for me.

Why does it bother you? I find it kind of endearing, as it usually means that said client gets tattooed by the same person consistently. We don't own our friends or our coworkers or our dentist, but we still say "my friend, my coworker, my dentist."

I don't see much of a difference?

Man, all of that texture freaks me out. Laser removal is no joke, makes you appreciate getting good tattoos to begin with. Cool video, I definitely enjoyed watching this!

I didn't even think to look on the website, that smells even fishier

There's already some seriously stiff competition, but here's my entry for this month. Done yesterday by El Monga.

This may just be the coolest motherfucking tattoo I've ever seen. Holy beans.

One of my favorite pieces that I have. By Darl Gnau of Charmed Life Tattoo & Gallery in Baltimore.