spookysproul

I definitely wish I hadn't gotten tattooed as rapidly as I did for a period of about three years. I had a good relationship with a few good artists and that made it hard to stay away, but I really wish I'd fleshed a few of these ideas out a bit more before committing to them; there's a few good tattoos that had the potential to be REALLY good.

I'm about 60% to 70% covered, which seemed really cool a couple years ago but I wish I'd been a bit pickier.

for a while now you could customize your sports players to have tattoos. in nba 2k/live, youve been able to throw ink on your players since like 2003.

Are the tattoos in the game as bad as in real life? I don't know what it is, but professional athletes seem to get exclusively tattooed by the worst tattooers available.

What sort of upbringing do you suppose leads to someone craving attention so desperately?

I don't know, I think a lot of artists enjoy doing little filler pieces and don't mind calling it that. I also think the patchwork style of American traditional tends toward leaving little spaces that look weird empty, and it's fun to put little filler pieces in there. Obviously you wouldn't ask Rubendall or whoever to do something like that, but from my experience there are plenty of people out there who would enjoy the work and wouldn't feel disrespected if someone came to them asking for "filler"

I've met multiple artists - Henry Lewis is the first to come to mind - who referred to doing filler tattoos as just that. He seemed really excited about some of the ideas my friend was bringing to him.

I feel like it's a lot of witchy witchy stuff. I don't know. I love seeing these though.

This is my Mucha's The Moon done by Kyle Proia.

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I just realized that most of the color in her face and hair has disappeared over the years. That's a bummer. But her starry garment is still lovely.

Re: "Witchy witchy tattoos" - As a practitioner of witchcraft - and not a tumblr The Craft enthusiast - I gotta say that the "witchy" internet tattoo trend of recent has been most vexing and very "cultural appropriation", although not nearly as much as "white girl wearing a war bonnet" tattoo people seem so fond of.

Regardless of my e-opinion, you have a splendid tattoo. How old is it?

edit - in re-reading of my post, I was in no way trying to attack you or say you were perpetrating that in any way; your comment just reminded me of my feelings.

How bad is the pain in hindsight for a palm tattoo? I'm all for getting palms but having seen the Peck/Hopper video I dunno!

I'm putting my palm at #4 in my top 5 painful spots; worse than my stomach, but not as bad as my "flanks", knee-ditches, or toes.

What if a shop did that, as a sort of expansion of the "pick flash out of a hat" idea? Except you would get a fortune cookie with the flash inside. That would be fun to watch.

Well, this has been an absolutely fascinating thread to read with some great opinions in it.

A coworker of mine commented on how dark the black in my tattoos are and asked how I kept them that dark. This lead to her telling me about how she has one tattoo on her ankle and that she went swimming a few days after getting it done so it healed weird. Well, the three stars on her ankle were pretty faded (she's barely 21, if that) but there was also some nasty blow-out and real wild lines.

Apparently the tattooer who did it told her those were also because she went swimming. Classy guy.

If I'd gotten almost ANY of what I'd wanted SO bad when I was 14, I would be so sad about it now. However, my tattoos that I regret all came after I was 21, so I'm not sure an age limit would do much good. Unless we go with the 35 age limit suggested above.

I just got my first palm tattoo, an homage to the incredible motion picture Dark City.

Yes, it's supposed to look wobbly, lop-sided and uneven.

edit - sorry for how ginormous the image is. I'm less competent than anticipated.

I have script inside both wrists; the first wrist is upside down ("facing me," if you will) and the second wrist is the correct way. If absolutely nothing else, the amount of people I've had ask me what it says instead of just being able to read it numbers into the hundreds at this point.

As was mentioned before, that's a very visible location, so be prepared to go from having no discussions with people about what very well much have a deep and personal meaning for you to having a veritable cavalcade of people who enjoy watching sensationalized TV shows ask you about "the story" behind your tattoo.

I'm not saying don't do it, just be aware that your interactions with the general public will now include those.

I've got 3 Morrissey tattoos ("Viva Hate" on my wrist, "Trouble Loves Me" around a Dia De Los Muerte girl above that, and "Crash Into My Arms" around a coffin on the other arm)

1 Smiths ("Still Ill" on my foot)

1 Sisters of Mercy ("Two Worlds and In Between" on my left wrist)

2 American Nightmare ("The saddest songs make sense to me" around a heart with arrows inside my left bicep, and "I don't fucking care" around the bat/nail combo on my shin)

1 Clan of Xymox (an umbrella with "You keep the rain from falling down on me")

1 Prince/Cro Mags (a sugar skull with a pocket watch stuck at 5 with "Sign of the Times")

1 Skin Like Iron (a vulture with "Life will never be renewed" on my left calf)

1 Jawbreaker ("When it pains, it roars" above clouds with crying eyes in my knee ditches)

1 VNV Nation (kinda, I have the alchemy symbols for mercury and phosphorous on my thumbs)

1 Alkaline Trio (a ghost coming out of a toaster with "Good Mourning" on the back of my left ankle)

and my toes say "Out of Step".

There are so many different options in terms of color, as well. If you have primarily black and grey and don't want to go straight into big and bright colors, remember you can always look for someone who sticks to using primarily muted and cooler colors.

A coworker of mine has a simple fly on the bottom of her foot... and it looks very much like one of the black spots that gum turns into after it's been on the sidewalk for a few months. From what I understand that is the standard result of the bottom of the foot tattoo.

Just to reiterate what a few have already said, it's on you and no one else. If you want to keep it, then keep it. If your partner is giving you shit for it and can't just accept that it's your decision and not her's, then perhaps there are larger issues at hand.

@spookysproul I don't have another city to compare it to, really, since most of my healing has taken place in Seattle, regardless of the city that I have been tattooed in, but I will say that I am in the habit of pre-conditioning the area to be tattooed for at least two weeks (or as long as you have!) pre-tattoo, and the condition of my skin while healing improved substantially once I started doing that. It might help! Give it a try :).

Welcome to Seattle, btw!

Thanks for the tip! Pre-conditioning has honestly never occurred to me. I just got zapped a week ago, and it peeled very quickly and I've just been applying Aquafor twice a day to keep it from drying out while the skin goes back to normal. However, I'm excited to try pre-conditioning next time.

And thanks! We're very pleased with it.

this has definitely been a problem for me in the winter. I live in toronto, and it gets cold as shit here. scabs form and start to crack badly.

I hate putting lotion on thicker scabs, but it seems to be the only way to stop the cracking and let it heal.

Yeah, putting lotion on scabs always gives me the heebie-jeebies, but it seems to do the trick.

Any I've seen were tasks given to apprentices as drawing lessons. For the most part, what more can you expect for your $13?

Rob

Most of the time I've seen it recently was for shop minimum, and I'm not saying I want a whole backpiece for shop minimum, just that I think it should be more "13-oriented" flash, and not just flash with a 13 stuck onto it, y'know?

This gives me hope. So many are saying to me "it hurts SOOOO bad" but they're the type of people that would whine about breaking a nail. I'm getting both of mine done the same day too and probably about 4 hours total for both feet. Oh and the other people that claims it hurts so bad don't have their feet tattooed (or very unimpressive tiny tattoos).

For what it's worth, I know some people who've reported excruciating pain on their feet and said the whole story about having to wear slippers instead of shoes for a few days, yada yada yada. I, on the other hand, was able to loosen the laces on my vans for a few days and that was that. I didn't think they hurt worse than my shins, which was barely at all. So, hopefully yours go more along those lines.

I'm always excited when I see a really good sheet of "13" flash. Conversely, I'm always a little disappointed when it's a sheet of just normal flash with some 13s thrown here and there.

What are some good ones people saw this time around?

I just tell a different story most of the time, but my favorite is:

-Oh you know, I love beef and onions pie. So this one stands for beef, and this one onion. Now I'll remember that I love it for ever!

Ha! I knew a guy who - during the heigh of the Kanji craze - decided he wanted some, so he brought in the menu from Lee's Chinese and got "paper wrapped chicken" on his wrist.

I'll put my wolf permanently in this thread. Chris O'Donnell, NYC:

Well, THAT'S insane. Consider me salivating.

I've always found really inconsiderate when people ask this question. Assuming the recipient of the question hasn't thought of it yet, and the above-mentioned response isn't known, then all it really accomplishes is ruining someone's day. People are so thoughtless.

Alternatively, a friend of mine was carrying his daughter in Best Buy when someone pointed to his arms and said "What are you going to do when SHE'S old enough and SHE wants tattoos??"

To which he responded, "Well, obviously I hate them." and walked away.

I have "Still Ill" in script on my foot, and while Nervio was drawing it on he goes "How does that "E" go? Like this?" and mimed a few swooshes.

Nervio is a native Spanish speaker from Mexico and it took a few passes to realize that he meant "How does the "I" go?" and we got it sorted.

In retrospect I shouldn't have had the quasi-heart attack I had, but it's that much funnier for it.