AverageJer

Rad @Iwar ! Thanks for sharing. Who is the music by? It totally reminds me of this...

Marius Meyer was kind enough to let me shoot some video while he put the finishing touches on my friend @Wilhell's back piece. Hope you enjoy it! (Sorry German LSTers! This unfortunately won't play in your country due to the licensing restrictions of the soundtrack)

My daughter is named Sydney- one of the naming books warned us that kids might call her "Squidney" so we cut it off at the pass by calling her that ourselves. Last summer my wife had Nick Colella tattoo a squid across her knee. It's awesome.

My daughter is named Sydney- one of the naming books warned us that kids might call her "Squidney" so we cut it off at the pass by calling her that ourselves. Last summer my wife had Nick Colella tattoo a squid across her knee. It's awesome.

My daughter is named Sydney- one of the naming books warned us that kids might call her "Squidney" so we cut it off at the pass by calling her that ourselves. Last summer my wife had Nick Colella tattoo a squid across her knee. It's awesome.

My daughter is named Sydney- one of the naming books warned us that kids might call her "Squidney" so we cut it off at the pass by calling her that ourselves. Last summer my wife had Nick Colella tattoo a squid across her knee. It's awesome.

My daughter is named Sydney- one of the naming books warned us that kids might call her "Squidney" so we cut it off at the pass by calling her that ourselves. Last summer my wife had Nick Colella tattoo a squid across her knee. It's awesome.

My daughter is named Sydney- one of the naming books warned us that kids might call her "Squidney" so we cut it off at the pass by calling her that ourselves. Last summer my wife had Nick Colella tattoo a squid across her knee. It's awesome.

I did! Kind of. I made it to Three Tides in Tokyo where I had a wonder experience all around and ended up with a nice little dragon head by Ganji.
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You need to be confident in the imagery you choose for something as powerful as a backpiece IMO. The tattoo will give strength because of that personal connection to the imagery or it may end up making you feel uncomfortable and awkward after the novelty wears off. I think it is great that you are having this dialogue - on this forum - but more importantly with yourself. You need to listen to yourself if you are feeling conflict about the idea, because that conflict could become greater when you are in the midst of the project.
To relate to my own experience. I am about to start my backpiece journey. We are doing something chinese themed, I've been training kung fu for a decade and have many experiences to compliment the image we are choosing to work with. I feel it represents my passion, loyalty and devotion - to both my kung fu discipleship and my commitment to tattoo. On the contrary I have a new student at my school. Super nice guy with a fresh looking dragon sleeve, some very nice work. He told me he is starting his backpiece of Guan Yu (sic). We were suspicious of him understanding Guan Yu's history or the weight of having a tattoo of the chinese diety "God of War" on his back after training kung fu for only 1 month. After all he called him a warrior-guy-with-a-guan-do-blade. But in the end it it is his journey and his tattoo he has chosen to wear. And the sketch he showed me looks great, going to be an awesome tattoo. So you can either "own it" and live, breathe the tattoo, aspire to the imagery or you can just have cool wallpaper art on your back. I think both trains of thought are ok, but *you* need to be ok with it. And the tattooer needs to agree to put it on you in the first place.
Sometimes a tattoo, is just a tattoo. But for something big and bold on your back, well I for one just don't want any old tattoo, I want something powerful with a personal connection.
I stumbled on some excellent info re: japanese style tattooing on Clark North's website. There is some excellent insight here on wearing a big powerful tattoo image that I think can be extrapolated beyond the japanese style and about tattooing in general.
THE JAPANESE STYLE TATTOO EXPLAINED - Clark North Tattoo & Art - Las Vegas

This is a great idea! I will remember this one! I was thinking (if/when we get around to young'uns) that I would abuse my power as a parent and just indoctrinate my offspring with the idea that tattoos don't turn out right until you're 25...as though it is some mystery of developmental skin chemistry. I am hoping that if I start them young enough and am matter of fact enough, it will just become a part of their world view.

My daughter is five so I have some time before this becomes an issue but considering how much time she has already spent inside our local tattoo shop I will clearly need a strategy when the time comes. I'm thinking that if she wants a tattoo as soon as she turns 18 I will pay her to wait. But I will pay her in money towards whatever tattoo she ultimately decides on. The longer she waits the more money she will have to spend on getting an awesome tattoo. Of course this could backfire and she could end up with a full back piece of an infinity sign exploding into a flock of birds. Life is full of risks I suppose.

Hi guys!
There is a quirky little antique book store near me that is open like twice every 5 years, and today happened to be one of those days!
I walked in too see if they had any tattoo books and walked out with this cool book I am about to post pics of here!!
It's all in Russian. If anyone has any info about this book, or speaks and reads Russian, please let me know!! The barbed wire on the cover evokes a prison yard; perhaps it's about prison tattoos? I asked the bookseller and he said no, just tattoos, but he doesn't speak Russian either. :p
Here are some pics I snapped! I will snap or scan more if there's interest.
Also: I no can without womans.

Haven't entered one of these in a while so thought i'd enter the ring with my parrot by Chad Koeplinger from the Amsterdam Convention earlier this year. Looking forward to seeing everyone elses entries!

My daughter is five so I have some time before this becomes an issue but considering how much time she has already spent inside our local tattoo shop I will clearly need a strategy when the time comes. I'm thinking that if she wants a tattoo as soon as she turns 18 I will pay her to wait. But I will pay her in money towards whatever tattoo she ultimately decides on. The longer she waits the more money she will have to spend on getting an awesome tattoo. Of course this could backfire and she could end up with a full back piece of an infinity sign exploding into a flock of birds. Life is full of risks I suppose.

My daughter is five so I have some time before this becomes an issue but considering how much time she has already spent inside our local tattoo shop I will clearly need a strategy when the time comes. I'm thinking that if she wants a tattoo as soon as she turns 18 I will pay her to wait. But I will pay her in money towards whatever tattoo she ultimately decides on. The longer she waits the more money she will have to spend on getting an awesome tattoo. Of course this could backfire and she could end up with a full back piece of an infinity sign exploding into a flock of birds. Life is full of risks I suppose.

My daughter is five so I have some time before this becomes an issue but considering how much time she has already spent inside our local tattoo shop I will clearly need a strategy when the time comes. I'm thinking that if she wants a tattoo as soon as she turns 18 I will pay her to wait. But I will pay her in money towards whatever tattoo she ultimately decides on. The longer she waits the more money she will have to spend on getting an awesome tattoo. Of course this could backfire and she could end up with a full back piece of an infinity sign exploding into a flock of birds. Life is full of risks I suppose.

I find myself staring at people who have good tattoos whenever I see them, which is actually pretty rare in my area, sometimes I'll ask who did them, etc, but I try not to pry or anything. I'm not heavily tattooed enough (yet) for people to really stare at me because of them.

Pretty bad article. It seems like he is going out of his way to create a conflict between people who have tattoos and people who don't. There are way too many people here in Minneapolis with tattoos and without tattoos to divide along those lines. I still prefer to create the divide lines more like "people who are assholes vs people who are not assholes" and this writer makes it pretty clear which side of that cultural divide he resides on.

Dude was about to get a watercolor tattoo and AND YOU'LL NEVER BELIEVE WHAT HAPPENED NEXT!

I've never heard the term clickbait, but now it all makes sense. I cannot articulate myself nearly as well as you guys, but I agree on the general consensus that this article sucks balls. :D
CLICK HERE TO LEARN THAT ONE TRICK THAT WILL TURN YOUR LIFE AROUND

Thought I would throw in this little tatty from Kirk Jones.

Social media being what it is, my mom saw a picture of the outline of my backpiece and while she wasn't as upset as I expected her to be (she doesn't like that I get tattoos, but she seems to respect that I get them because I like them), she wanted to know that this would be my last tattoo...but after a certain point what does it even matter?

Here's something I've noticed from reading a variety of articles similar to this one recently, that assume it's edgy to trash tattoos now that they're everywhere. It's OK to display your uninformed attitudes with pride, as long as the subject is tattooing. This is weird to me, the idea that you can decide not to educate yourself about something before spouting forth on it - because you've already determined that it's beneath you - and that this somehow enhances your argument by making you look like more of a badass contrarian. I guess it's the way that a lot of clickbait is written but it sure is disheartening. I find Simon Doonan intermittently amusing, but this article is not, and he mentions aging as if he's being forced to pick up a dead mouse. I would much rather read an article on the pros and cons of tattoos' popularity by someone who's been getting them or making them forever.
At least we can agree on Joan Rivers.

Pretty bad article. It seems like he is going out of his way to create a conflict between people who have tattoos and people who don't. There are way too many people here in Minneapolis with tattoos and without tattoos to divide along those lines. I still prefer to create the divide lines more like "people who are assholes vs people who are not assholes" and this writer makes it pretty clear which side of that cultural divide he resides on.