sophistre

@CABS: Oh, I see. That Cripwell suit with the legs, I guess? It's pretty amazing to look at. Who knows, it may wind up that way with my arms! I have so many mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, Greg is a great guy, he's nearby, and I'm totally thrilled with what we've done; it's fun to go in and flip through books of classic flash until we see something we like, and have him put together his take on it. It feels a little bit like getting a present every time I go, since I haven't known exactly what it'll be either time. I definitely wouldn't hate doing that indefinitely.

On the other hand, I'm so curious about experiencing how other shops and tattooers do their thing, and that's on top of admiring their tattoos (and I'm still discovering new tattooers all the time, since I'm a noob).

Tough choices! But, I feel lucky to have that kind of tough choice to make.

Or, he'll keep going until you absolutely can't take another second and you have to tap out. No one likes to tap out. It's a sign of moral weakness, contributes to global warming, and will cast poorly upon your family and children. Even after many hours, it's so psychologically awesome to hear, "Ok, we've reached a good stopping point" instead of crying silently into your hand and whimpering that you're sorry you just can't take it any more. The silence that follows such an abject admission is enough to curdle milk and paralyze small dogs.

Amazing. This sounds every bit as apocalyptic as I feared.

My tattooer asked me just before we started the first one if I was nervous, and I told him I was only nervous about doing a bad job sitting there, which was true.

Now I know I had good reason to be nervous. I will continue to try to sit there...if not for the sake of my dignity, then for small dogs everywhere.

I kinda hope you get tattooed only by Greg. A Greg bodysuit!

Haha. Do you? Why's that?

I probably wouldn't mind, but there are so many amazing artists out there that it seems unlikely. Definitely giving him my whole arm, though.

Swellbow. I had not heard this word. Guess I should change my gym plans for that week. Thanks for the advice. Ice was pretty nice during the itchiest part of healing my last one, too.

Tattoo number two today! With Greg Whitehead again, photo from his instagram...not a great shot but it's good enough!

Sounds like I'm coming back in a week to put a rose on my elbow, too. I'm guessing that one's gonna be fun.*

*not fun

I usually only voyeur this section of the forum, but...I AM SO EXCITED FOR THIS. I might have to take a little field trip up to Snoqualmie now that I'm living in the PNW, since that's where most of it was filmed. Gotta celebrate with some damn fine coffee. And some pie.

Is it fair to say that you aren't allowed to be unimpressed with giants in the industry if you are new to it?

I had a poetry prof in university a million years ago who said something on the first day of class that I think applies to so many other things in life, and maybe it's relevant here, I dunno. He was addressing the perception of many freshmen that learning how to scan poetry, learning the rules of it, didn't matter, when so many of them took a shine to poetry after discovering e.e. cummings or Eliot's The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock -- in the case of the latter, mistakenly believing that it was free verse, which it actually isn't. But that mistake underlined his point, which is this: until you're familiar with the rules of a thing, until you understand the hows and whys of that thing, which often entails becoming familiar with its major players through history...you can't really meaningfully deviate from those rules.

He said that he thinks it's important to break rules, but it's even more important to understand why you're breaking them when you do it. You start with the foundations, and then your choices have context and meaning, whatever choices you make afterward.

Maybe this doesn't apply to tattooing, I don't know; I'm still learning...but I find that most people with knowledge of a subject will assume that a new person discarding the fundamentals of any given thing are doing themselves or the thing a disservice, for lack of having the knowledge to know any better. Maybe that's not always true; maybe a new person can just intuit those things and make excellent choices blindly. It does seem rather more unlikely, though.

@SeeSea: Cozumel is just beautiful. I haven't been in years...I bet that all happened after the last time I was there (though I didn't know the reefs well enough to remember their names, so I'm not sure). Dad is landlocked and retired in Colorado these days, but I should definitely look into the Tuneup. NJ might be a little far to travel, though I appreciate the invitation. :cool: I also did my first (and only) shark dive on the Fiji/Tahiti trip. My memory is that it was mostly black tip reef sharks.

And speaking of sharks, grats, @Mick Weder! (And now I will stop derailing tattoo thread with dive talk. :o)

So, you DO know you can rent some of that stale canned air and get the fins wet...although it's a tad cold up your way! Where did you dive?

I've been out of the water so long I'm pretty sure I'd need to be recertified, sad to say! I dove a lot in Cozumel, but a few other places...Fiji and Tahiti. That was before I was even fully certified. I guess it's handy to have a dive master for a dad! I miss it so much...though juggling diving AND tattoos in the hobby department sounds like a great way to never have any money. :o

There are totally dive shops around here, which is crazy to me...but I hear there are gigantic octopuses in the Sound, which would be pretty cool to see, admittedly.

I've been planning on getting a mermaid tattoo for a while now. I'm definitely planning to have her boobs covered up...not because I think there's anything wrong with bare breasts in art or for any other reason, but because I can conceive of social situations (particularly involving extended family) where I would be self-conscious and uncomfortable about having them on my person and therefore potentially on display, and I'd rather just feel unreservedly awesome about my tattoos at all times. So...to me, it's not worth it. I imagine this is just a subjective thing.

The blues in that backpiece are unreal, @Cork. And there's just so much to see. The longer I looked the more little things in it I noticed. So cool.

Stuff about healing my first tattoo that I am noticing, and did not expect, for whatever reason:

Why do I cut corners in my house so closely? It has taken me having a tattoo on my shoulder to notice that I basically dive-bomb my doorframes. WTF?

Goosebumps + healing tattoo = AAAAH

The best feeling in the world is when I get to air dry it after it gets washed. Yessss. So nice and cool.

It's cool that you noticed that as well. He gets tattooed by Jacob Redmond a lot, and I think that may be influencing him. As you already know I love Jacob's tattoos, and everyone else at Atlas. In fact I sent Cheyenne an email this morning about getting tattooed again during our next Portland visit. If that doesn't work out I think I may try to get in with Greg.

Agreed with this. I think this new, simpler direction he's going with his tattoos is really great. That's a really beautiful tattoo, excellent start @sophistre, what's up next?

I think he's pretty much left his older style of work behind, save for when someone specifically asks him for it. He talked about how much better this style of tattooing wears in, how classic and timeless it is -- basically everything I heard here. He also said another interesting thing toward the end of my session with him, to one of the other guys who was watching...he said that he didn't even really enjoy the tattooing before, mechanically, and he got most of his satisfaction from achieving the effect he wanted, whereas now he really enjoys putting the lines down, and that it was more instantly gratifying. I thought that was kind of cool.

He also said that I'm one of the only people to come in and ask for this stuff instead of his older work, aside from his assistant and his wife, so I'm sure he'd be THRILLED to get flooded with LSTers. :) This is all he wants to be doing anymore.

@Graeme : We'd originally talked about a mermaid or a fish, but I kinda want a peacock. He wants to do girlheads. Somewhere in the middle of these things, I figure an awesome tattoo lies.

ironchef: Thanks very much! Lurking member, at least. :)

I love his stuff, too...and he's a really, really nice guy. Very mellow.

I got a thing today. Hard to believe it too me almost 33 years to finally start. A fun Percy Waters bird from Greggletron/Greg Whitehead at Scapegoat Tattoo. I stole the picture from his instagram.

Side note: I really appreciate this forum. I went to my appointment totally prepared and actually knowing more than the average bear (which is still only a very little, admittedly), and he kept asking me 'are you sure this is your first tattoo?' He kept talking about how pumped he was to work on somebody who'd give him creative license, who knew about Good Tattoos and what makes them good, and...yeah. It made me feel really good. I'm pretty sure I learned all of that here. He would probably thank the forum too if he could. Haha.

Booked my next appointment for October. IT BEGINS.

I did this in the ocean and I thought the waves made it pretty fun! Fell in a whole lot at the beginning, but I liked the changing challenge of it. (I think yoga would be out of the question however, aheh.) Made my tummy nice and sore the next day, which is always a bonus.

And I think that rash guard is plenty hot-mama! (though I am fair-skinned enough that short sleeves would produce a very not hot-mama sun line...)

My pug the day I got it done, first tattoo :)

That is adorable. I have a pug that brings so much goofy joy into my life...she's such a nerd! Always making me laugh. I've wondered lately how she could be translated into a tattoo, since they're so funny lookin'. This is a really cute one. I love how they captured the back wrinkles.

Poking my head up from lurking again to post here, because I'm excited. After my last appointment fell through (artist cancelled visit to the states), I tried to get a booking in with Greg Whitehead at Scapegoat, closer to home. Took 3-4 months (and a dropped ball by his previous assistant), but now I'm booked for Sept. 18th. He's been doing more traditional stuff lately. I'm not exactly sure what we're doing! Mermaid or fish and birds and flowers? Dunno, don't care. Gonna be a good time. :)

The resurrection of this thread makes me so happy. There are so many places to investigate after I visit Scapegoat in September!

Or still go to NYC and get an amazing tattoo from someone else.

Right? I seriously thought about it! The logistics and timing just made it saner to cancel and regroup without definite plans for something kinda huge. I figured it'd be short notice to try to rebook and hope I can take up two very specific days of somebody's time. NY is definitely on my list, though.

Thanks! Yeah, I am bummed, but it's not terrible...there are just so many good artists out there. (Though the one I'm trying to flag down hasn't answered my email, booooo.) And I would love to go to a convention! And also dive the Galapagos. Though at this point, I think I'd need to get recertified; I've been out of the water for years. Womp womp.

@Cork Haha. That's how she signs her emails. It sounds like she manages their fb, his travel/bookings, and whatever else for their shop. He's just a guy from Denmark. I like his stuff, but I don't think he's anybody that LSTers would consider super-important.