Faolan

my boyfriend who is somehow not tattooed by now, said this when i told him it would be a few more months until i got my next tattoo and we had to be careful to avoid some part of me "this is ridiculous, you're already 2 to 0 with me, i need to go and get mine done before you get your next one."
Also, my grandparents live abroad so they had no idea i had gotten a tat until they came over for dinner on a visit. my immediate family and they were sitting together in the living room and my sister was talking about my dads tattoos, he's covered, and my grandpa said in the politest way possible "I'm glad your father is the only one in the family to have tattoos." this was met with a silent moment of everyone (mom, dad, siblings, and myself) looking at each other and immediately followed by everyone rolling around and laughing. Then we told them i had a tattoo which they complimented after i showed them.
Also i think plainskin could be derogatory, but i like it anyways. to me it really expresses the early days of modern tattoos and those who got them when it was way more taboo. I might use it as a derogatory term for someone who was being rude and self righteous or something about my tats, but to say that about someone who is respectful of tattoos and tattooed people sounds wrong.
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When i read to them my brother and sister love to trace mine, it tickles so much but they love it. In my experience when it comes to appreciating tattoos kids really know how to do it.

Hello everyone.
I love Traditional Japanese tattoos and in designing one for myself I've been learning about the strict rules that they follow. So far i haven't found much online, though i did see some links in previous threads but they aren't specific enough. If anyone can answer these questions, or knows where to find the answers, I'm grateful for their help.
Firstly, are there any masculine of feminine colors in tattoos? (I know that in general Japanese culture red is masculine, but I want to know about the tattoo symbolism specifically.)
Secondly, I've been told that the main focus of the traditional style is the season it is set in. What i want to do is have three different tattoos on my upper body and i want to join them so it looks like one big piece, I'm curious it if is appropriate to have a spring tattoo joined to a fall tattoo that's joined to a summer tattoo, or if it needs to be one whole piece with the same theme all around.
Aside from those specific questions i would love to hear any interesting rules or traditions of Japanese tattooing.
Thank you for any knowledge you may give me.

yep. can't wait to see what my guys face will look like when i say that to him. skin guru also has a nice ring to it.

I prefer skin wizard, personally.

Hi my name is Faolan,
I love tattoos my whole life and have been planning my tattoos since i could draw. Since my dad was covered before my birth this has always been the norm for me, and people without tattoos seem strange. I stated my tattoo collection three days after turning 18 and have two so far but wont be finished until most of me is tattooed. I'm excited to see what knowledge and help this place can give me on my escapades in the years to come.
Thank you.

For people who actually tattoo, I notice the terms alternating between different styles of tattooing. The more rendered, over the top styles seem to go with artist more, while the traditional/craftsmen minded guys seem to opt for tattooer. Clients almost across the board use tattoo artist, or occasionally tattooist. Some variations seem to occur based on era in which someone came from, as well. Similar to shops or tattooers now using the term "professional tattooing" to differentiate from scratchers/fly-by-night kind of guys, tattoo artist did seem to be a way to try to separate from those who aren't serious.
Personally, I call myself and use the term tattooer. I find I work best thinking of what I do on skin as all craft, with art being on paper or canvas, and ending with my final line drawing for a stencil. However, like a potter, or someone who works in a bronze foundry casting people's sculptures, I understand there is an artistic component to the craft.

This would be so much cooler if LST was a bar, and some drunken idiot blurted all that out in front of the regular patrons. Hahaha.

I want to see a dagger with a dagger thru it...

I always thought the panther/tiger/leopard head gettin' stabbed was a symbolic reference to mans intellect(the dagger) cutting through his more base, animal instincts. Intellect vs. instinct is what I have always thought.

I was 18, it was three days after my birthday and i was finally at the legal age, my artist is an old family friend who works at tattoo paradise. I'm part Irish so i wanted something uniquely Celtic that few people would get and found an old drawing of a Celtic warrior with a la tene tattoo sleeve and thought it was perfect so he designed a variant for the first piece to go on my shoulder. I wasn't scared, mostly excited, but i didn't know what to expect. The guy is great with first timers, he explained everything he was doing and when he started he told me he was going to do a quick line so i knew how it felt and then when i was ready he'd really start. It was very painful, naturally, but he helped me get through it and we had some great conversations so all in all i had a great time. i have to say the worst part was the healing afterwards being sore and having to be careful when i slept, and i survived the dreaded itching and was able to carefully scratch the untouched skin in and around the tat. To me it's very special because it was my right of passage to become a man.

My dad and i share a tattoo artist and my mom drove me to the parlor and ended up staying for the whole session. The only time she cried about a tattoo was when i got one to represent my love for her.

@Faolan I think, if anything, it would be like the rule that tattoos are placed so the viewer sees them best. For example, faces are placed so that the tattoo is looking forward on the arms, or inward on the chest.

My dad and i share a tattoo artist and my mom drove me to the parlor and ended up staying for the whole session. The only time she cried about a tattoo was when i got one to represent my love for her.

it's a manly symbol from back when real men got tattoos, and today real men still get them because we're manly enough to get a tattoo we like and not care if other people are ruining its meaning. By men i of course mean women too, because it's a damn fine woman who can stand by that tattoo.

I was 18, it was three days after my birthday and i was finally at the legal age, my artist is an old family friend who works at tattoo paradise. I'm part Irish so i wanted something uniquely Celtic that few people would get and found an old drawing of a Celtic warrior with a la tene tattoo sleeve and thought it was perfect so he designed a variant for the first piece to go on my shoulder. I wasn't scared, mostly excited, but i didn't know what to expect. The guy is great with first timers, he explained everything he was doing and when he started he told me he was going to do a quick line so i knew how it felt and then when i was ready he'd really start. It was very painful, naturally, but he helped me get through it and we had some great conversations so all in all i had a great time. i have to say the worst part was the healing afterwards being sore and having to be careful when i slept, and i survived the dreaded itching and was able to carefully scratch the untouched skin in and around the tat. To me it's very special because it was my right of passage to become a man.

I'm going to elaborate on this from the report @Lance gave of Shige's seminar from this year's SFO convention:
So based on that I'm going to say that doing straight copies of Shige's tattoos is garbage and that even if the copy is technically well done it's soulless and completely misses the essence of the tattoo.

it's a manly symbol from back when real men got tattoos, and today real men still get them because we're manly enough to get a tattoo we like and not care if other people are ruining its meaning. By men i of course mean women too, because it's a damn fine woman who can stand by that tattoo.

I think I'm in the camp of laughing-at-the-dodgy-imitations, but tbh it'd get to me if someone ripped my work off, whatever it was. I've actually been worrying about the whole thing for a long time as I've been totally in love with several images but of course didn't want to copy them.
I booked in my Day of The Dead girls (well, the first one) on Tuesday. I took in the crumpled pictures and notes I've carried for ages and had my speech ready about "not wanting to rip off exact images" etc, despite how it may look.
The tattoo artist didn't even consider that I'd want exact copies of them, despite my annotations scrawled all over - "LOVE THE EYES!" "SHINE ON LIPS IS PERFECT!" etc, sounds weird but I KNOW the thought didn't even enter her head. It felt like I'm pointing at a red room gushing how much I want mine the same, she offers to paint mine blue - it was the brushstrokes stoking my fire all along, she knew it from the start. It only really dawned on me then that godjam, I'm paying for this lady's incredible talent, not just her experience and skill in sticking me with ink. Can't wait for the session (105110 mins and counting! Online countdowns are torturous!).
Love to all
John

I think Kahlan raises an interesting point. My opinion is, reproducing work of classical artists that were never intended to be tattoos is kinda cool. There is no mistaking the work of a Dali or a Giger. No one could ever wrongly take credit for it. I think Giger's style has certainly been "quoted", if you will, by many a tattooer and perhaps to the point of plagerism or insult depending on the quality.
Then there is someone like Sailor Jerry. Obviously one of the most important people in tattoo history whose work is something of a standard in modern tattooing. His designs have been copied millions of times and even indirectly, plenty of designs can be traced back to him.
How does he fit into this discussion?
I suppose, in his case, we are again talking more about flash than original designs meant for one person. I'd still be interested in hearing people's take on that.

it's a manly symbol from back when real men got tattoos, and today real men still get them because we're manly enough to get a tattoo we like and not care if other people are ruining its meaning. By men i of course mean women too, because it's a damn fine woman who can stand by that tattoo.

For what it's worth I feel no animosity towards panthers. My thought process when thusly:
"What's the toughest thing I could possibly get, so everyone can see how nails I am?"
"I know, A Panther"
"Wait, with a fucking dagger through it"
and then that turned out to be too much tough for me to handle, so there's a butterfly as well:

Seriously though, it looks cool. What more reason would you like?

at the very least try incorporate the binary into a more visually appealing image. maybe a tradtional heart filled with binary? or a skull with binary "etched" into it. or a clipper ship named the "SS 011000110"

I was 18, it was three days after my birthday and i was finally at the legal age, my artist is an old family friend who works at tattoo paradise. I'm part Irish so i wanted something uniquely Celtic that few people would get and found an old drawing of a Celtic warrior with a la tene tattoo sleeve and thought it was perfect so he designed a variant for the first piece to go on my shoulder. I wasn't scared, mostly excited, but i didn't know what to expect. The guy is great with first timers, he explained everything he was doing and when he started he told me he was going to do a quick line so i knew how it felt and then when i was ready he'd really start. It was very painful, naturally, but he helped me get through it and we had some great conversations so all in all i had a great time. i have to say the worst part was the healing afterwards being sore and having to be careful when i slept, and i survived the dreaded itching and was able to carefully scratch the untouched skin in and around the tat. To me it's very special because it was my right of passage to become a man.

My dad and i share a tattoo artist and my mom drove me to the parlor and ended up staying for the whole session. The only time she cried about a tattoo was when i got one to represent my love for her.

My dad and i share a tattoo artist and my mom drove me to the parlor and ended up staying for the whole session. The only time she cried about a tattoo was when i got one to represent my love for her.