SeeSea

I got a horror short story published in a collection by female horror writers. Not been around much, as have been concentrating a lot on my writing.

I also have not been here much recently, but decided to cruise on by and say hiiiii guys! I'm super busy and kicking ass at my new gig and stoked to be doing something I enjoy that fits my lifestyle so well. Stoked to be getting tattooed by Shad in two weeks and then who knows what else is going to get done in October! I'll be back in SF for Halloween and Convention fun. :)))
Miss you, LST, and think of you often. (I'm on my work computer all the time now and *alarmingly* focused, so I never think to make it over here because who wants to be on another computer AFTER work? but truly.)

I can't explain why this one had such an impact, but it really struck me. By Troy Trujillo

First time I realised japanese/oriental doesn't have to be traditional

I'm a sucker for a well-executed munewari, and no one does them better than Horitoshi:

And my jaw hits the floor pretty much every time Brian Kaneko posts anything. Example:

Same goes for Drew Flores. The head he's working on is also a nice reminder that tattoos can still be shocking:

I ran across some of Julian Siebert's work today.

Gakkin and Guy Le Tatooer...the heavy black bodysuits are blowing my mind. Especially the recent one that Guy Le Tattooer is working on that French gal, with the dots, ornaments and big peonies. The layering is crazy, the results are beautiful.

I have never seen a thread for this anywhere on the forums, but sometimes I see a tattoo somewhere and it makes me go OH MY GOD THAT IS SO AMAZING and I want to share it with you guys, but since it isn't mine, I can't put it in the Lowdown thread. So, I thought I would make a thread for posting pictures of killer tattoos that don't belong to us, just to share them and 'oooooh, ahhhhh' over them.
...As I type this I'm realizing that probably 6 out of 10 rad tattoos I see on instagram turn out to belong to somebody here, so maybe this is redundant, but oh well! If it dies, it dies. :)
And I'm going to contribute something, because my regular tattooer just did a thing that made my eyeballs pop out of my head, and inspired me to make the thread in the first place, because I needed people to squee about it with.
Picture on greggletron's instagram
and, video: And here's a video.

Finally got to visit State of Grace and get my Molly Monmon Cat from Horitomo!
He did an amazing job. Just spectacular. I sent several pictures of her and some descriptions of her favorite things, her personality and her character. She *loved* shrimp sushi and got an entire order for her 16th birthday, right before we lost her to cancer. Horitomo created a picture of her in heaven with a halo and surrounded by her favorite things - including that she is surrounded by catnip! The face is perfect. I gave him a decent size square footage and told him he could expand beyond the cat and add other elements. Her face is perfect. When he showed me the sketch, my eyes just teared up.
It was neat to be tattooed on the platform in the shop. It is a little sanctuary with neat drawings, books and items on shelves. He is a quiet gentle soul.
I tried tebori for the whites and I probably would not do it again. For many areas, I didn't even feel the first 4-5 pokes. It just felt like a shoving pressure but there was *no* pain. Then the last several shoves were painful. But around my hip was bad all around. I'm glad I did it, though.
Crashing out now holed up in the hotel with mom. <3 <3 <3

You absolutely ARE allowed to be unimpressed. But your opinions would be given better consideration if you shared your thoughts and reasoning behind your conclusions. This isn't a forum where you drop the body and run. We'd like you to tidy up the grave, plant some grass and leave a nice floral arrangement. A better tack might be to ask why someone else is impressed by said giants. So much great stuff is hidden in the back story.
I'm pretty new as well. I recognize many of the names in this thread, but I had to look up a few. I admit for some, I don't know what I'm looking at beyond the basics. Some of the styles/artists really grab me, and other "big names" don't do much for me. But I'm very interested in conversations like this where people with a lot more experience than I have share the history that I know I'll never get from just surfing the internet and scrolling through Instagram.
I thought all bodysuits looked about the same. And why are all these white dudes getting Japanese suits? Then I read some of the threads that talked about the meaning, and I found myself surfing some of the recommended sites. And the stories are so unfamiliar to me, but I like that I can "read" more of the tattoo when I see which way a koi swims or if maple leaves or cherry blossoms are present. And damn I love the kitunes (thank you @Tesseracts for that awesome education with yours!)! I was never interested in anything Japanese, but when I read Horitomo's Monmon Cat's book and learned the history of cats and rats and tattoos, and I saw the depth of his work in these smaller tattoos and I'm much more "moved" and "impressed" than before. It sounds trite, but I have a much better appreciation for his work (both Monmons and not) and that has made it more desirable to me. Perhaps I wasn't "unimpressed" before but just "uninterested."
Of course anyone can disagree. But it's like flaunting ignorance not to have a meaningful conversation why you feel that way.
$0.02

Just put the lotion on the skin!

Do you do lampshades?

FaceTime'd with the granddaughters and watched them blow out birthday candles from 250 miles away. How awesome is technology?

@SeeSea - I almost fell asleep getting tattooed by Horizakura a couple years ago. I liked the sound of it, and the quietness. It's made me rethink how I want to continue getting tattooed: more tebori!!!

FaceTime'd with the granddaughters and watched them blow out birthday candles from 250 miles away. How awesome is technology?

Online campaign wants 95-year-old Wang-Od to be recognized as a National Artist | Kicker Daily News
"A campaign pushing for Wang-Od (Fang-Od) to be recognized as a National Artist has been circulating on social media sites.
"Alongside Wang-Od’s portrait is a text which reads: “Whang-Od is the last Ancient Kalinga Tattoo artist. In the past years, the silence of this ancient art was broken because people from around the globe pay homage to this remaining artist and take pride that they were tattooed by her.
“'It is my personal advocacy to let the Filipino community realize that it is now time to recognize her world-class contribution to the art of tattoo-making that is genuinely Filipino.'
“'She deserves to be one of our National Artist,' it said with a hashtag #WangOdNationalArtist."

Finally got to visit State of Grace and get my Molly Monmon Cat from Horitomo!
He did an amazing job. Just spectacular. I sent several pictures of her and some descriptions of her favorite things, her personality and her character. She *loved* shrimp sushi and got an entire order for her 16th birthday, right before we lost her to cancer. Horitomo created a picture of her in heaven with a halo and surrounded by her favorite things - including that she is surrounded by catnip! The face is perfect. I gave him a decent size square footage and told him he could expand beyond the cat and add other elements. Her face is perfect. When he showed me the sketch, my eyes just teared up.
It was neat to be tattooed on the platform in the shop. It is a little sanctuary with neat drawings, books and items on shelves. He is a quiet gentle soul.
I tried tebori for the whites and I probably would not do it again. For many areas, I didn't even feel the first 4-5 pokes. It just felt like a shoving pressure but there was *no* pain. Then the last several shoves were painful. But around my hip was bad all around. I'm glad I did it, though.
Crashing out now holed up in the hotel with mom. <3 <3 <3

a belated reply...so awesome @SeeSea, saw this on instagram...glad I peeked in over here to see the full story, a wonderful tribute!

Session two with Dave C. Got a lot done in about 2 1/2 hours. I was nervous going into this sitting as we had just done the outline last week. I was a little worried my psych wouldn't be there, but in the end it went pretty well. Glad not to have more ribs after this though.

Yeah, I see what you mean about the streaks in the orange. But I don't see what is missing or needs to be finished. I think it looks great. Not much you can do about the areas in orange unless you wanted to make some big changes, or get in there with some accents in a darker color to distract from them. Although that could make the overall tattoo design look worse. It doesn't sound like you've had it for very long - I'd suggest giving it some time to heal and see how it turns out. It could settle in better, who knows. But I do like it!

Finally got to visit State of Grace and get my Molly Monmon Cat from Horitomo!
He did an amazing job. Just spectacular. I sent several pictures of her and some descriptions of her favorite things, her personality and her character. She *loved* shrimp sushi and got an entire order for her 16th birthday, right before we lost her to cancer. Horitomo created a picture of her in heaven with a halo and surrounded by her favorite things - including that she is surrounded by catnip! The face is perfect. I gave him a decent size square footage and told him he could expand beyond the cat and add other elements. Her face is perfect. When he showed me the sketch, my eyes just teared up.
It was neat to be tattooed on the platform in the shop. It is a little sanctuary with neat drawings, books and items on shelves. He is a quiet gentle soul.
I tried tebori for the whites and I probably would not do it again. For many areas, I didn't even feel the first 4-5 pokes. It just felt like a shoving pressure but there was *no* pain. Then the last several shoves were painful. But around my hip was bad all around. I'm glad I did it, though.
Crashing out now holed up in the hotel with mom. <3 <3 <3

Session 6 done, just the shark mouth, some more detail in the shark itself and dropping lower down my ass to go...hopefully be wrapped up in one more session.
Photos not as flash this time sorry folks...

FaceTime'd with the granddaughters and watched them blow out birthday candles from 250 miles away. How awesome is technology?

@bongsau - love that book and immediately recognized the page! Pissed-off bee is so cute!

Online campaign wants 95-year-old Wang-Od to be recognized as a National Artist | Kicker Daily News
"A campaign pushing for Wang-Od (Fang-Od) to be recognized as a National Artist has been circulating on social media sites.
"Alongside Wang-Od’s portrait is a text which reads: “Whang-Od is the last Ancient Kalinga Tattoo artist. In the past years, the silence of this ancient art was broken because people from around the globe pay homage to this remaining artist and take pride that they were tattooed by her.
“'It is my personal advocacy to let the Filipino community realize that it is now time to recognize her world-class contribution to the art of tattoo-making that is genuinely Filipino.'
“'She deserves to be one of our National Artist,' it said with a hashtag #WangOdNationalArtist."