polliwog

I just said I wanted a frog and told him I liked the one he did recently at Skull and Sword. I suggested flames, waves, anything else he wanted to add, but he came up with this with almost no input from me. I think if you give him a lot of freedom, he'll do something cool.

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@marley mission you have to catch him when he's in New York.

Funky frog courtesy of Eddy Deutsche. Picture stolen from him. He pretty much read my mind. It's really angry here because inner thigh tattoos are a dumb idea.

It looks fine. The slightly bumpy texture of the skin should go away in time. I have a 2-month old tattoo that has some areas that look roughly the same. It's still settling. I'm prone to really small, harmless granulomas in my newish tattoos, but they're not a sign of anything going wrong, ultimately.

Can I just say that I love seeing badass torso tattoos on thicker ladies? Makes me feel fired up to eventually put something on that part of my body. Especially in aplace like Instagram, it's a real relief when pictures not only show the tattoo in the context of the whole body, but also show a variety of body types.

Seeing Eddy Deutsche in a couple weeks. Really fucking excited.

Each new tattoo requires an awkward conversation. I feel kind of like a freak but he always says get what I want. I never quite believe him though, which is part of my problem I suppose.

This sounds familiar. My dude tells me to get what I want but there's always a lot of heavy sighing and grimacing. Hasn't left me yet, though!

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Each new tattoo requires an awkward conversation. I feel kind of like a freak but he always says get what I want. I never quite believe him though, which is part of my problem I suppose.

This sounds familiar. My dude tells me to get what I want but there's always a lot of heavy sighing and grimacing. Hasn't left me yet, though!

@bongsau gives great advice

I had a brown-out after my first tattoo (I wound up sort of crumpling to the floor on the Boston subway, which, eccch) because I had been too nervous to eat a substantial meal beforehand. I didn't vomit or feel nauseous. Now I try to eat something bland that my body will take a fairly long time to digest, a combination of protein, grains and vegetables or fruit. (If you have to sign a waiver before getting tattooed, they'll probably ask you if you've eaten in the last 2 hours.) A tattooer told me that hot chocolate is a much better source of sugar to consume immediately after a tattoo than a soda or a fruit juice, so the last time I was tattooed, I had a hot cocoa with cayenne powder post-tattoo and it helped a ton; I didn't get any of the usual crappy sickly feeling. Beer usually just makes that feeling worse. I don't know if you are prone to hypoglycemia, but I am and this is what has worked for me. The key seems to be keeping my blood sugar as level as possible. I also have low blood pressure.

https://occultvibrations.wordpress.com/2011/06/14/nibble-and-sip-tattoo-nutrition/

There's charming shitty tattoos for sure, but a lot of shitty tattoos are not that exciting to look at. I don't even know what you'd call the style I see at sports bars in the Boston suburbs.

Holy fuck! The whole thing is unbelievably beautiful, but those waves are especially blowing me away right now, just on my tiny crappy laptop screen. This is reduced-to-incoherent-drooling-level good.

I love Nomi Chi's stuff, I've been following her on instagram for a while now. I don't have a passport right now, but might be worth registering for one if I think I could get in to see her.

She's at this year's Montreal convention, too. https://www.instagram.com/p/BCDOe4RJ-7T/?taken-by=arttattoomontreal

I love how well that fits with your older tattoos.

maybe take what we say in that other thread with a pinch of salt, everyone needs to vent and I'd say most of us know deep down we're some lucky fuckers to be doing what we love for a living

I like this and I'm sure plenty of "civilians" here can relate this to something in their own jobs, too...yes, it bothers me when customers come into my bookstore asking if we sell Kindles, but I can't expect everyone who comes into an indie bookstore to care about the same things I care about, or to understand the animosity that a lot of us feel towards Amazon. Venting in private is sometimes what we need to do so we can get behind the register again and be polite and helpful and free of eye-roll-induced injuries.

I've never overheard tattooers talking about other customers while I'm getting tattooed, though, and I'm grateful for that--but at the same time I'm okay with a little off-color discussion etc. (as long as not super homophobic or racist, as mentioned before) because it would be weird if that weren't sometimes part of being in a shop. So far I've been met with nothing but kindness and it has been one of the coolest parts of this whole thing.

Love that. Everyone here who's been tattooed by him has gotten an amazing tattoo.

That's an interesting idea...another issue is tattoos that get posted at the start of the month having a better chance of winning. But this isn't exactly objective...

Check out the Needles and Sins blog.

I love the eye makeup! I got a tattoo from him a couple weeks ago (will post pictures when the red settles down) and love the details he adds to eyes and noses.

Cory Kruger is in Chicago now and works in black & grey and color. Still bummed I wasn't clued-in enough to get tattooed by him before he left MA: https://www.instagram.com/corykruger/

Not sure what tattoos have to do with a multinational company's "healthy" lifestyle brand.

This is a walk in the park compared to hands, but getting an area of pretty solid red on my shin and calf, in the middle of a New England winter, is the perfect recipe for the ITCHIEST TATTOO EVER. Arrrrgghh. I'm thinking of driving to a Lush in the middle of a snowstorm to get Dream Cream since that's been the only thing that's helped, so far.

Thanks for uploading photos of your tattoos--you have a lot of fantastic ones.

His oil paintings are phenomenal.

I'm sure a bunch of you guys follow Curly in various places, but I love seeing him often add new black work on top of old. It looks fantastic and makes me smile.

Re changes in attitude. I'm way more inclined now to want to stick with a tattooer who I have a good rapport with than to worry about who I won't get to see.

I'm glad I had a 6-month break last year, after joining this forum, buying books, getting super excited and getting 6 tattoos (from zero) in somewhat different styles over a year and a half (though not wildly different, mostly variations on traditional). I think I feel a little more unhurried and at ease now, like this interest hasn't turned into a passing one. I really need to get my shit together and plan a larger tattoo that isn't a one-shot, though. And to leave some room in more visible spots for people who might feel inaccessible to me right now, but won't always be that way.

@marley mission you have been on such a great tear recently, it's fantastic to see. I also really love what @taaarro said earlier in this thread. Lots of respect for people with large, beautiful and tasteful tattoos that are thoughtfully planned out, but I am so not like that. I already spend way too much time in my head; impulsive-ish tattoos let me tell my brain to fuck off.