Hospitelli

Some awesome inner bi's here. I'm quite fond of skulls in this location.
Brian Bruno

Chris O'Donnell

Some awesome inner bi's here. I'm quite fond of skulls in this location.
Brian Bruno

Chris O'Donnell

Some awesome inner bi's here. I'm quite fond of skulls in this location.
Brian Bruno

Chris O'Donnell

When it comes to pain and tolerance I think it's important for you to find your sweet spot. The longest I've ever been tattooed was roughly 5.5 hours and I realized right afterwards that I never wanted to go through that again. It wasn't bad but unless your getting tattooed by an artist that isn't local or traveling great distances there is no need for it. For me I've learned that 3-4 hour sessions are the sweet spot depending on location of the piece. It isn't too short and it isn't too long.

All healed; done by Chris O'Donnell. I couldn't be any happier with it and can't wait to start on my back in 2015.

also posted this in the ladies thread
Here are a few names to get you started:
Jill Bonny
Junnii
Katja Ramirez
Gill Gold
- - - Updated - - -
also Darcy Nutt

Junii Salmon
Jill Bonny
Katja Ramirez

In the interests of completeness, @Cork and I survived the tattoo contest so I'll answer my original questions here for posterity and other potential contestants.
A couple pictures are attached - the three from @Cork in the http://www.lastsparrowtattoo.com/forum/lst-get-togethers-tattoo-conventions/6245-philadelphia-tattoo-convention-2015-a.html thread. Aside from the awesome photo bomb from Brian O'Halloran from Clerks, you see @Cork waiting for his turn to show while a girl is illustrating one clothing option and showing how to "assume the position." I also included a picture of my contest slips and of what it looks like trying to see the stage from the crowd - I had my camera held up over my head.
Well before the contests start, you head to a table by the stage and enter as many of the contests as you want. Sign up, pay your $10, and you get a slip of paper with the category and your number in the category. You hand/show it to the judge when you get up there - it's supposed to be anonymous.
There were about 30 of us entered in the backpiece contest. It was on Sunday, which apparently has fewer attendees. For comparison, there were fewer in Extra Large Color (which I was gently ragged-on for also entering). There were about 5 for Overall and around 10ish in categories such as hand and neck. There were many more than 30 for small and medium color and black and grey.
The announcer presented a girl with an underboob tattoo and announced it as "The New Tramp Stamp." <cringe> Sigh. There were mutterings that there should be gender classes for the "chest" category.
Anyway...
There were two judging tables - one on the stage (which was elevated about 2-3 feet - the same stage that was set on fire by this genius: Caught on Cam: Fire Breather Catches Fire During Tattoo Convention | NBC 10 Philadelphia) and one table on the floor just in front of the stage.
They ran both at the same time with different categories at each (for example, at the start, they ran all black and grey from the left at the lower table, and color from the right at the upper table). We went right up to the table and turned. The three judges sat behind the table and didn't come around. For thigh pieces and the like, the entrants backed up a couple feet to allow good viewing.
Not very, other than when they call your category, you had better get in line. And because they were running two tables, the categories got out of sync and didn't go in order - they called XL Black and Grey which is listed AFTER XL Color, and I thought I missed it!
So a category is announced like this, "Backpiece, line up on the right of the stage starting with Number 1, Bob, Number 2, @SeeSea, Number 3, @Cork, through to 30, and you all have numbers so figure out the rest on your own." The line is not behind the stage or behind a curtain - see the pic of me standing in line for XL Color. The first person waits to be called and they go up the steps. You tell your number then turn around and stand there, looking at the crowd, which is somewhat paying attention but often just chatting among themselves. Then you look back a couple times because you have no clue if they are done, and eventually they will nod or say, "Thank you." Most people didn't turn to show the audience - I remembered to for XL Color but forgot to for backpiece. No one is announced - after the person in front of you finishes, wait a short moment then head up and lather/rinse/repeat.
Some time later, when those scores are tallied, the announcer will just announce the results over the loudspeaker while judging of other categories continues. Somewhat controlled chaos. And boring. Because you can't really see anything, everyone is just standing around waiting, wondering if you can get through the line at the bathroom in time.
I saw all kinds but no pasties. Many girls wore halter tops or bikinis of some sort, and untied them or pulled them aside. This is what I did. My halter covered a bit less than the pictures show - I used those heavy clamp paperclip things to pull back the sides on the bottom so the entire tattoo showed. There were a few girls who had hoodies or jackets turned around and unzipped them. In the picture where @Cork is walking up to the stage, you can see the girl in front of him doing just this. Then there was this girl who was right in front of me in line. She had on a string. Just a string. And she looked great in that string. She had a black and grey astronomy tattoo that went down one cheek so it was a good outfit to show the entire thing.
Obviously for the dudes, shirtless was easy. @Cork dropped trou, weighted down by his belt they slammed down BAM right on the stage, drawing a quick look of surprise from a female judge. Good times. Then he crunched up his boxers to maximize visual impact for the judges and maintained a strong look of decorum, staring straight into the crowd. I don't recall fundoshis for Backpiece, but I saw some for Overall. Wearing a fundoshi and then waiting to drop pants/shorts on stage facing away from the judges would have been just fine for those concerned about public displays of cheekage.
Nope, not for backpiece or any contest on Sunday. On Saturday, there are gender classes for many but they don't do backs on Saturday.
Apparently this is the case from what I hear. Second place was a black and grey Ben Franklin theme. We were in Philly. Go figure. Although, the three trophies went to a back-to-thighs new school odd evil fish with teeth organic things with extra eyeballs that was pretty cool, black and grey Ben, and then back-to-thighs Japanese. So it clearly wasn't restricted to a particular style.
Overall, it's an experience and you'll see a wide variety of styles and quality wandering around in the crowd that is waiting to be judged. There were some really great tattoos there, and some less fortunate ones.

You guys should facetime or skype during your sessions. It would be magical.

Seth Wood today!!!

booked in with tony hundahl for Oklahoma convention! thinking tiger head and cobra but could just do big cobra

Booked in with Eddy Deutsche in a couple weeks at Marius Meyer's studio, and I'm getting a small one from Grez at Blue Arms Tattoo in May. So pumped that more and more great tattooers decide to visit Norway when they're out traveling.

here is screenshot to make it even less complicated :)

Ha! I sat with Garver last Thursday for this.

That big torso devil from Theo Mindell is on me! We have finished everything now except the last bit of fire/flames. Next/Last appt coming up in April to kill the beast.

Wowzers! Awesome legs everybody. Here are mine,

Bit of a long break from LST but I am still alive and slowly chipping away at my backpiece.
Had a decent break from tattooing over xmas which was great but back to the grind now.
The snake has taken quite a while but almost finished now. Each scale of the snake has 3-4 different shades of green so has chewed through some time.

Big reveal in the wild. Diving in the Maldives. On this trip, I saw several of the creatures on my back, which was pretty cool.
The response from my dive buddies was overall pretty positive, and it changed a few attitudes towards tattoos. I had been chatting with three of the women before I let them know I had done it, and unrelated to my tattoo, they all spoke down on tattoos, including the "Why would someone do something permanent - your tastes will change over time" and the "What will it look like when you get old?" Sigh. One of these women really liked it and said it was the best she had ever seen, and she is in the medical field and has seen a lot of bare skin. A lovely woman from Austria was just in love with it and gushed about my "sea" that I can take with me. :-)

@bongsau Awesome session! There is nothing cooler then seeing a back peice come together; it's just poetry in motion. @Graeme I believe the next session I have on my back will be in that general region and call me crazy but I'm looking forward to it. <--- May regret saying that.

@bongsau Awesome session! There is nothing cooler then seeing a back peice come together; it's just poetry in motion. @Graeme I believe the next session I have on my back will be in that general region and call me crazy but I'm looking forward to it. <--- May regret saying that.

@bongsau That looks like a heavy session! Those blacks and greys are so smooth, they're going to look really nice when the red fades out of them and they settle in a bit. You're in for a real delight with the lower back and ass cheeks though, really glad that we're done with the black in there on mine.
I'm taking January off working on my back and I find that I actually miss getting tattooed. I got a little one on my leg in the meantime and that was super fun, but nothing quite compares to the feeling you get after a heavy back session. There's something deeply satisfying about enduring the session even when your body is all FUCK NO for those first few minutes. The back is such a trip, it's a whole different world of tattooing compared to everything I'd had done before.

Session #2 - Did a 4 hour blast pounding the black into the perimeter of my Shaolin back yesterday!
First half of the session was lying down, second half was getting tattooed sitting upright which I really enjoy, makes the tattooing feel alive. Heavy black in all the clouds, full across the shoulderblades and down to the love handle on the left hand side with a needle that looked like a metal paint brush. Machine was roaring like a tractor, the way I like getting tattooed! Unfortunately I got a little beating on the ribs/lower armpit to border my existing dragon. Zouch. It is a gnarly amount mileage for a session and I'm feeling like I took a bat across the back, a little loopy today. Built up the borders around existing tattoos on both arms, necks, and ribs tattoos. Pretty cool actually having Steve connect to the tattoos he did on my in 2003, 2005 and 2007. Despite sweating through my long johns, felt pretty strong when we called time yesterday, this morning however I woke up with a red hot back, had to shower to unglue the shirt from my back and wrecked my wife's nice towel (LOL). Once again a great experience from one and only TheGangOfOne (Steve Batt) in Edmonton, AB.
I'm going to heal this up for a few weeks such that I can participate in Chinese New Year demonstrations with my kung fu school, then will setup the next rounds on the lower back and ass cheeks for February. May the Buddha be with me.

this is my back, done by Russ Abbott, I think right after it was finished, roughly 5 years ago now I think.

This is something I've given a lot of thought to as well. I love the idea of having one artist who is *my* artist and who does all my work, but I have yet to find an artist who's equally good at everything. I'm planning of getting my next tattoo done by a guy whose color work is gorgeous and who's a great artist in general, and I think he could do a great job on most of the work I want to get done. But let's say I wanted to get a photorealistic lady portrait tattooed on me. Those are really tough to get just right; while this particular tattoist is a fantastic artist, I don't love all of his portrait work, and I'd be uneasy with the idea of having him put one on me. On the other hand, I know an artist who bangs out portraits perfectly - he's like a machine - but I asked him if he could do a colorful semi-realistic owl, and he told me he'd only do it if he could make it a black and white photorealistic portrait. So it seems to me that sometimes you just have to work with artists' specialties and go with an artist you know will be able to do a great job with that particular tattoo.

Let's not stand on ceremony here @Graeme. I'm curious to know if this is in reference to the rose morph I got from Grez?