JoshRoss

So it's been a couple of months since I last updated the progress on my back. The shading sessions are just so much nicer for me than the outline. I think I May have even fallen asleep at points during the session in January. There was no chance of that this week though as the studio was pretty cold despite the heater just next to the bench. I ended up putting half my jacket back on the side that wasn't getting tattooed.
Anyway enough rambling this is how it is looking now:
p.s. @SeeSea your back piece has come out great. Congratulations.

Jason Colehour, Lifetime Tattoo Denver
Last Friday my girl and I drove down and got some walk ins, I got this fun filler, she got a panther. Fun times

Franz Stefanik, The Okey Doke, Toronto, Ontario

Cross posting from the back piece thread, this is after session 2 with Marius Meyer yesterday.
Yesterdays session was all the scales, all the shading in the skull and all the yellow. Looking to get the next session booked in for around the beginning of April, hopefully.

Marius Meyer started this one a couple of weeks ago. Gonna add more dragon next time.

Got this last night in Philly from Mikey Holmes. Inner forearm hurts.

Got this on the same day i finished my sleeve. lol.

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. :-)

Progress on my skinny ass. Been a long break since last time due to the tattoo studio moving premises - Back to regular sessions now so hopefully some more updates coming! Looking to finish the whole thing by summer. The sessions never get any easier...
By Mark Armstrong, Sacred Art tattoo studio, Manchester UK.

Here are a few. the whole half sleeve is by Mark Stewart. The arrow through the chest is by Tim Gillman. Don't have a lot of pics available of my other stuff.

here it is. was a great time. really funny guy. i also think im having the best healing experience with this one from something i read in this forum a while back. i left the bandage over night and washed all the goop off in the morning. thing is minimally scabbing now
http://imgur.com/8JFjxRJ

This topic came up in the shop the other day, I'd like to get some perspectives from tattooed folks who live in other areas of the country and the world.
It was Friday, I had just gotten to work and it was just me, Carlos, and Sean that day. Our 14th anniversary party was the following day and the shop had just painted 10 sheets of over 120 original designs for people to come in and pick from at the party. Between expressing our excitement about getting to tattoo fun designs all the next day, and mentioning how glad we were that it was so busy this January after a slow December, we got to wondering! How does a shop full of flash affect the flow of business?
FTW is located at the very tip of North Oakland, just a couple of blocks south of the Berkeley border on Telegraph Avenue, which runs all the way down to Downtown Oakland. We are just across the bay from San Francisco, and in Alameda County alone there are over 200 shops. 200 tattoo shops! Is it a coincidence that the 3 busiest shops in Oakland, one of which is ours, is a street shop with flash, paintings, and classic tattoo iconography covering every inch of space?
The bay area is undeniably changing. If you are looking for a place to live in the bay area, asking rent changes on a monthly basis and it's definitely not going down. With the sudden and dramatic influx of money to the area, it seems as though tattoo shops are gentrifying as well, becoming more like salons and art galleries, and less like street shops. With that being said, there is still a very large population of lower-income working class people who I would easily say are still the majority of folks here. Anyone who has worked in a street shop is familiar with what the "money makers" are as far as designs go. Usually, you will make a lot more money in a day if you tattoo several smaller designs over the course of the day versus the regular hourly for one or two longer pieces. Largely speaking, unless you are a known name in tattooing and booked steady, walk-ins pay your bills.
So as tattooers do, we catch up with our friends in other shops from time to time, often inquiring about work and whatnot and it seems like most people are working by appointment these days.
This was our theory:
Are gallery shops losing walk-ins on account of image? Do the blue collar people of Oakland go into a tattoo gallery and feel intimidated by fine art on the walls and think that nobody working there wants to do their tribal armband or kids' names for them? Are street shops more relate-able and comfortable for people who aren't necessarily looking to get a sleeve done?
I'm not saying that either way is right or wrong or even that my thoughts on this dynamic is totally correct. A lot of business comes from the internet for most tattooers here and now more than ever is it easier to be tattooing the subject matter and style that you're interested in doing, for that I am very grateful.
Is this something that you have experienced or noticed? Looking forward to hearing other perspectives.

Here are some recent ones for me...

Got this guy from Alan Berg

Started this with Mat Welch

and snagged this Bert Grimm horse from Miguel Olascuaga

Done, 2d sleeve by Shige :
View image: IMG 5047
Next is back in November (or maybe earlier) to complete my mandala.
Cheers

Brought a drawing to Sacred Tattoo today with plans for getting a walk-in, after meeting the shop owner a week or so back. Niño was kind enough to redraw my doodle an this is what we came up with. Great way to celebrate the last few months of living in Oakland. Pic lifted from Nino's Instagram.
Also, I visited Umami Mart and saw @CABS and that Felix and lady head in person. Great to meet you, Chris. Thanks for the directions to The Trappist!

Beautiful lady arms!
Here's mine, along with some unasked for lady back and butt (in progress). All of mine are done by the same tattooer, Gemma Pariente at Full Circle.
I don't think sleeves are masculine on a woman, get what you wish, epic tattoos are for everyone.

My arms are still in process but here's the 1/2 sleeve so far

whatever...

Jamie Sawyer
Immortal Ink
Clinton NJ
first time with Jamie
awesome and fast artist
great convo
does it get better on a 'sick day'

drove down to portland to get this. underrated tattooer.

Finally get to post in this thread!! Screen capped right off Instagram.
Karl Lark/Bert Grimm? lady head flip by Jason Phillips at FTW in Oakland, CA. Ribs are brutal. But I'm stoked on the end result.
Felix by Adrian Sanchez at FTW in Oakland, CA for their 14 Year Anniversary Party. I've always wanted a Felix tattoo. It fit perfectly in the spot.

Wil Murray banged out a filler on my arm this past Saturday.:cool:

Today I capped my other knee with a demon head by Franz Stefanik at The Okey Doke in Toronto. Its always a great experience with Franz. Interesting conversations with a great guy who also does amazing work. I'll have to update my legs in the Squidpants thread soon. I'm really looking to forward to getting some filler work around some of the larger pieces on my right leg now.

Not sure how well this will upload from my iPad, but Grez posted this one today.
Edit: should be more clear. This is not on me. I wish!!

Got this lil lady from Shawn VanOven! Thanks for lookinh

I'm not sure I get what your talking about but I'll hazard a response. Yes there's Horitoshi I that we all know. There's also a Bunshin Horitoshi. 2 different artists and differing styles. I don't think it's a case of the latter trying to make himself being thought of as being THE Horitoshi. It's just a name. "Hori" being the usual prefix. The latter half usually being part of the person's name. In this case "Toshi". "Bunshin", may be something added to further identify that artist from others. Just a guess. A little different, but not unlike "Gifu" Horihide, "Asakusa" Horiyasu, "Yokohama" Horiken. In those instances, they've added locations as part of their names to distinguish themselves. I know there's also another Horiken in Japan. Also a Horizakura, other than the one from The Horitoshi Family too. There's actually 2 Horitakas in California come to think of it. One from State Of Grace and the other at Onizuka Tattoo, who's part of the Horitoshi Family. I don't think there's any disrespect in any of these cases. They're just names each is entitled to. It just happens that's the way each name played out and in this case one Horitoshi is perceived to be more well known than the other. It does not always make it easy on potential clients however when there are artists around with the same names.