sophistre

....whoops. Guess the towel I was sleeping on didn't stay where it was supposed to. I wonder what the hotel will make of all of those blue scales..?

Thanks! I am pretty proud of powering through the end of tonight, for sure.

Here frands:
Feeling pretty tattoo-flu-y, but I have a steak on the way, and then it's time to drink every water and sleep every sleep. So happy that we finished the areas that were the most painful for me during lining, though.

Couldn't be happier.

Here frands:
Feeling pretty tattoo-flu-y, but I have a steak on the way, and then it's time to drink every water and sleep every sleep. So happy that we finished the areas that were the most painful for me during lining, though.

Couldn't be happier.

this nice big one wasn't too bad, way better than ribs...

I identify with this post today, haha.

I think the most brutal session for me was when we lined my back, since we did the whole thing in one shot. I've discovered that my endorphins tend to fail on me at about four hours in, and everything after that is a test of will. Somehow, we wound up lining the worst spot on back last that day (up between the shoulder blades and just below the nape of the neck) and I was basically biting leather and hiding my face in my bunched up hoodie because I didn't want my tattooer to feel bad. Something about that spot made me burst into tears. Not like 'oh, this hurts, I'm so sad' -- almost like a nervous system response, like shock. Poor guy asked 'you sure you don't want me to stop?' and I'm like 'YES I'M SURE BLOOOOOO' because at that point the only thing in the entire world that sounded worse than what was happening was having to do it again later. 

Sorry for the bad photo, its a pretty hard spot to photograph haha.
Shark done by Ross Ferrie at Marks Of Art in San Jose.

That is just so badass

My first tattoo is a traditional eagle with American flag. Planning on adding smaller tats around it though. So much wasted space 

I've got a few to add to this thread:

His / Hers eagle tattoos by Chris David - Government Street Tattoo (Victoria, BC)
hers: "could you make my eagle more feminine please"
his: "just make mine a good ol U S of Eh screamin' eagle"

Lets go with a few more what the heck:
Becca Gene Bacon at The End is Near in Brooklyn with the fish rose morph. Becca is really nice and hit homeruns daily.
Rob Ryan with the Hand of Glory and Mandala Big Cat at Electric in Asbury NJ. Rob is a super fast and as nice as they come.
Steve Boltz with a flying fish at Smith St. in Brooklyn. What a great shop and Steve was filled with great conversation. I thought it was the coolest thing sitting down and having lunch with Steve after the tattoo. Gotta get back to Smith.
Sheila Marcello with this flying lady head on my collarbone. Sheila rocks. Electric in Asbury.
Rob Ryan again at Electric with some fish mandala knee magic.
Lastly I traveled to Maryland to the Wheaton Tattoo Paradise shop to get this fiery eyed lady from Chad Koeplinger on his 50 state tour. Got to meet a lovely LST member as well. A blast of a day (though way too much of it was spent in a car lol).
Anyway - love these picture heavy threads with cool tattoos so...lets keep going.

lets see if this worked this time!

Percy Waters crane/lady by Tony Nilsson at Blue Arms Tattoo

I haven't been getting tattooed much lately because I've been focused on one big piece for the past several months. I expect more traditional one shots in my near future! But here's what I've got so far when it comes to traditional style tattoos, and a little background on each:

Eagle and rose by Brian Via at Golden Ages in Lancaster, PA. I wanted something to represent my parents (still alive, not a memorial!). Brian is super laid back and the whole shop is really talented.


Also done by Brian, picked off his wall of things he wanted to tattoo. My first skull and not the last.


Butterfly done by Antonio Roque in Frederick, MD. Really cool guy especially considering he's kind of "Instagram famous" with over 50k followers...easy to book with, charged me actually way less than he should have (and got a big tip as a result), and no ego at all.


Panther and rose by Chad Koeplinger when he came through DC. He's one of my artistic idols and I was kind of star struck to meet him. Fun guy to talk to and I was amazed at his speed (this took less than 2 hours, including all the time we spent talking about movies). But wow does he hurt like no one's business! I wanted him to do this spot (inner bicep) to get it over with as quick as possible, but he's pretty brutal! Anyway, I asked him for a panther and rose and said he could do whatever he wanted with those subjects, so I got my whole inner arm blasted with this.

so how about these four to start us off
the first two classics were done by Shannon Pagliarini at Crown and Anchor in Pt. Pleasant NJ. Great tattooer and super cool person.
Pharoah's Horses was done by Sheila Marcello at Electric Tattoo in Asbury Park NJ. Sheila is an amazing tattooer and also a real nice person too.
Rock of Ages is my most recent tattoo (until Friday hahaha). Anyway this was done by Robert Ryan at Electric as well. Rob is the man - it's not lost on me how awesome it is that Electric is so close to me. I'm lucky. Anyway - lets see what y'all got.

It's been awhile since we've started a new thread that goes on for pages and pages.
Let's see your American Traditional-style tattoos. From Sailor Jerry to Steve Byrne and beyond... let's see those bold classics!

I identify with this post today, haha.

I think the most brutal session for me was when we lined my back, since we did the whole thing in one shot. I've discovered that my endorphins tend to fail on me at about four hours in, and everything after that is a test of will. Somehow, we wound up lining the worst spot on back last that day (up between the shoulder blades and just below the nape of the neck) and I was basically biting leather and hiding my face in my bunched up hoodie because I didn't want my tattooer to feel bad. Something about that spot made me burst into tears. Not like 'oh, this hurts, I'm so sad' -- almost like a nervous system response, like shock. Poor guy asked 'you sure you don't want me to stop?' and I'm like 'YES I'M SURE BLOOOOOO' because at that point the only thing in the entire world that sounded worse than what was happening was having to do it again later. 

I actually found my artist telling me, "almost done!" or "just another 10 minutes..." to be less helpful than intended, because it never wound up being what I interpreted to be the predicted amount of time. If nothing was said at all I would have much preferred it, and would have been less cranky, lol. I also agree with @Synesthesia, and prefer as few breaks as possible. Fortunately, the artists I have worked with thus far have required remarkably few breaks, if any, and I didn't, so the starting back up again after a break was minimized. Just power through, please....

Every session of my thigh piece got worse somehow. I did about 7 hours for lining and that sucked, but things were just downhill from there. The last session we did was some more background and touching up and was only maybe 2 or 3 hours, but I was spent by the end. I'm sure some of it was psychological from all the other painful sessions and some of it was just being in bad physical shape (not eating enough, not enough sleep, etc). I find there isn't really a "trick" to getting past the wall, you just have to make yourself do it and do your best to prolong the wall by being prepared...because with a long enough session, it will come, it's inevitable. About the only advice I can offer (it's true for me, anyway) is to try not to take a lot of breaks because it's always worse coming back into it after the adrenaline wears off and your skin has some more time to process all the irritation it's going through.

As a strategy to keep the wall at bay for as long as possible, I have found that getting a good nights sleep (the night before), eat a solid grounding meal (slow burn) before the session starts and of course bring some sugary snacks when you need a quick bump somewhere near the end helps (sugar immediately gets me back up for a short stint under the needle)- and of course bring your phycological tough face, grrrr... lol. (basically the opposite of a torture session)  Sleeping the night before a mega-session is difficult sometimes, so I take good old valerian root to knock me out. When you align your stars it amazing what we can endure.
I have seen a lot over the years, but they are not my stories, so I will leave it to them to tell. I think the wall stories are a personal share on the receiving end. Thank you to all who have shared so far and I look forward to more. You are not alone... lol.

I had a clipper done last week and it was only 3.5 hours. It boy, she was heavy handed. Out of the 16 tattoos I have, this one killed me. At one point I did a mini 2 minute tap. I told her to hold on. But then I was right back in the saddle. Have no idea why it hurt so bad other then here packing ink in my rose in the ditch. I was just getting annoyed.


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