sophistre

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 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 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 waited until I was 50+ too. It reminds me of an old story I heard.
A man was walking through the desert one night when he heard a voice that told him to fill his pockets with the stones at his feet. The voice then said, “Tomorrow you will be both happy and sad.” So the confused man took a handful of pebbles and stuffed them in his pocket. The next morninghe examined the pebbles and discovered that the stones were really precious gems. He was happy and sad—happy he had obeyed and picked up some gems, but sad that he had not picked up more.

Filler fun c/o Nick Oaks (from yesterday).

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 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.

@sophistre STUNNING!!!! I'm a huge Greg Whitehead fan. He's been KILLING everything he puts out. I saw the pic on Instagram and was wondering if it was an LST member. So glad to confirm that guess! Enjoy it!

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 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 came across this amazing video today, unlike anything i've ever seen. it led me to this thread and i found that the video documents some of what was described in the link from the initial post. i can't imagine many of us had the slightest clue that this is how it goes down... vice does it again! enjoy!

I saw this today and didn't see a previous posting of it. Pretty interesting images.
Cedric Arnold:

I sat for Dennis at Providence Tattoo for about 4.5 hours on Saturday afternoon. It was a bit shorter of a sitting than I thought it might be, and thank god. I was still miserable the last hour, and I'm pretty sure Dennis wanted to kill me, haha. But I LOVE the result, and of course it was worth it! I have been waiting for this tattoo since January, and really for even longer than that.
There are two shops, and we were at the one on Atwells Ave, which is just a beautiful shop -- I love it. Dennis was fantastic to work with and so kind. We had a really fun chat, and he even drove me back to my AirBnB when we were done! (I was visiting Providence to get the tattoo.)
I posted a photo from my phone as well as the shot Dennis posted on Instagram. It's swelling a lot more than any of my other tattoos ever have, but I'm thinking that's because it's on my thigh. Otherwise, it seems to be healing fine. I'm so stoked on it!

I feel like LST is the perfect place to get this started, so here goes.
It looks like I'm going to put together a fundraiser in early December for the Wounded Knee School on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. I've been talking with Chris who runs the Friends of Pine Ridge website and I've talked to Principal Alice Phelps from the school who is totally behind the idea.
Some of you may know about the levels of poverty, unemployment, and suicide, some of you may not. Some of you may remember the name being associated with Russell Means and the American Indian Movement in the 60s and 70s. Some of you have no idea what I'm talking about. What I don't want to do is get on a soapbox and go on a tirade about our government's systematic failure and attempt at extermination (woops, just did it), but instead I just want to get these kids fed.
The Wounded Knee School needs help. All of the students qualify for free meals in school but the problem is when they get home. Principal Phelps has made arrangements with Feeding America in Rapid City to come out once a month and do a food distribution for all of the families but the need is more than they can fill. Because there is only a single convenience store on the reservation and the nearest grocery store is 60 miles away in Rapid City, Alice has started a food pantry that she operates out of the school. That's what we're looking to fill.
My good friend Dave Wallin has agreed to use his shop, Eight of Swords Tattoo, here in Williamsburg for the event. You might remember the name from last year's Ladies! Ladies! art show, or other shows and events he's had there before. We're still in the early planning stages, still trying to lock down a date and a timeline, but I wanted to post this up here first to start to get the word out. I've reached out to a couple people initially to sort of gauge interest and everyone seems eager to help. The idea is pretty simple: get a bunch of rad tattoo artists to donate pieces, do a silent auction, and then send that money to pack the food pantry at the school.
We're looking at early December, possibly the first Friday or Saturday. I haven't even sent out real emails or made phone calls yet but I'm meeting with Dave on Monday to iron out some of the details. So expect me to bother everyone even more!
Feel free to pass along the info. to anyone that might be interested and in the meantime, I'll try not to fuck this up.
Also, MSNBC did a pretty decent three-part article on Pine Ridge a few months ago. Worth a read: http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/failing-americas-most-forgotten-children
Thanks everyone!

Some of the LST posters here are bang-on, it is so others can calculate the money you have spent. In my experience it's either because they are genuinely curious and want to see if heavy coverage is a goal attainable for themselves OR to validate their own holier-than-thou opinion that you are a fool for 'wasting' your money on something which they view as silly and frivolous.
What you see, it took me 10 years of steady progress to get covered in tattoos like this. It shocks most - if you think about a 3hr tattoo vs 200hrs coverage - because I think the average person has a misconception about the time/pain we all here invest...time to manifest the ideas, time coordinating appointments, time to travel, time to research and plan, time to make money and time off work, time applying stencils and placement, time actually under the machine (which is what is only really counted), time to heal, time to develop our relationships with our tattooers, time for the tattoo to age and wear (which is frankly when it looks the best), time for the tattoo to take on a life of it's own as we wear it through our lives. And we can't forget the time to wash/rinse/repeat! When the goal becomes heavy coverage we aren't talking about hours invested anymore, we are talking about years committed. Then a tattoo isn't just a tattoo, tattoo becomes life :)
Tattoo coverage doesn't happen over night. Which is why tattoo to me is a visual representation of commitment, loyalty and dedication, which are values that I think are very important.
So I tells em,
"So, like, how long did that take bro"
"A long fucking time man"

I stopped by Dark Age Tattoo and Supergenius today. Both are rad shops.
Talking to the folks at Dark Age I was surprised that Derek Noble and Jesse Roberts only have a 2 month waiting list. The other artists are as few as a couple of weeks. Definitely a place to stop by if you want something kickass before Christmas.

Third session on my back today, with my friend Iain Mullen. Rudy Fritsch does the next one at the London Convention, mid day on the 27:th. Come say hello.

My never-ending front piece by Tomo...

@BrianH - you saw his butt. You're now either friends or enemies.

here's my tattoo from cole dunn that i got today at the meeting of the marked. hard to get it all in one shot because it's caps my shoulder off pretty good but you get the idea.

Haven't entered one of these in a while so thought i'd enter the ring with my parrot by Chad Koeplinger from the Amsterdam Convention earlier this year. Looking forward to seeing everyone elses entries!

I also saw Steve Byrne for the first time last week at Rock of Ages in Austin, TX and I doubt it'll be the last. Rose #2.

From Master Nervio of Roses and Panthers. Just done today!

I'd take moped and flip flops guy. Rolex and wanky suit guy sounds... well... wanky. :p
Ryan, you have the benefit here of many "hot girls" who are into tattoos responding to your post (at least I imagine everyone who posts on LST to be a beautiful person. Right?) Getting a tattoo is not going to make a difference. Your personality and confidence will. By all means get an awesome tattoo, but do it for yourself. That is way cooler than getting a tattoo that you perceive will make you cool in the eyes of someone else. Girls can sniff that crap out really easily, and it is a huge turn off. No-one likes a try hard. Being true to yourself and being comfortable in your own skin is attractive.
Anyway, in response to what you actually asked... phoenix? Classic subject, awesome to look at, carries the sentiment of the quote without being a quote...

So not been on here for a while but I have finally had the 3rd session on my back after a short break... I went on holiday. It definitely felt like we hit quite a lot this time round but it might just be that we were moving a little bit all over. So to add to the conversation going on above I definitely prefer to gradually work from one area to another rather than jumping all around. Suddenly moving to a new spot really sucks. Anyway this is how the progress is looking.