mtthrmn

"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"
Haha, my conversation with my girlfriend before getting my panther was almost verbatim.
Tattoo (and photo) by Erik Gillespie, done at Great Lakes Tattoo

This might be the only appropriate time in life to say "...what she said." ^^^

get two sessions of laser treatment, to lighten the tattoo. wait 6 months to let the skin settle, find a competent artist, and maybe get a rose tattooed over the top, classic, timeless, represents love and could possibly tie to growth etc. a colour tattoo will work way better to cover this design than a black & grey one. that's what i'd recommend

"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"
Haha, my conversation with my girlfriend before getting my panther was almost verbatim.
Tattoo (and photo) by Erik Gillespie, done at Great Lakes Tattoo

"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"
Haha, my conversation with my girlfriend before getting my panther was almost verbatim.
Tattoo (and photo) by Erik Gillespie, done at Great Lakes Tattoo

"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"
Haha, my conversation with my girlfriend before getting my panther was almost verbatim.
Tattoo (and photo) by Erik Gillespie, done at Great Lakes Tattoo

"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"
Haha, my conversation with my girlfriend before getting my panther was almost verbatim.
Tattoo (and photo) by Erik Gillespie, done at Great Lakes Tattoo

"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"
Haha, my conversation with my girlfriend before getting my panther was almost verbatim.
Tattoo (and photo) by Erik Gillespie, done at Great Lakes Tattoo

"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"
Haha, my conversation with my girlfriend before getting my panther was almost verbatim.
Tattoo (and photo) by Erik Gillespie, done at Great Lakes Tattoo

"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"
Haha, my conversation with my girlfriend before getting my panther was almost verbatim.
Tattoo (and photo) by Erik Gillespie, done at Great Lakes Tattoo

"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"
Haha, my conversation with my girlfriend before getting my panther was almost verbatim.
Tattoo (and photo) by Erik Gillespie, done at Great Lakes Tattoo

"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"
Haha, my conversation with my girlfriend before getting my panther was almost verbatim.
Tattoo (and photo) by Erik Gillespie, done at Great Lakes Tattoo

Because the easiest way to make a tattoo tougher is to put a dagger in it!

it is a sexual thing. the dagger symbolizes a penis.
i have a dagger stabbing through a skull and eagle because i love skulls and i fuckin love america.

Just because you got something stabbing through your head doesn't mean that you're having a bad time

That reminds me of a quote from the late great Rollo Banks: "...the basic premise of tattooing is pretty goofy. It's like, here you have this human body, like a beautiful piece of sculpture...like somebody owns Michelangelo's David and goes 'I just bought this and I want to get some fire and devils and things on it.'"

This conversation about taste and whether 'traditional' American tattooing really can be described as timeless is so interesting. It also ties in a way to a conversation I was having with my grandfather a couple of weeks ago after I showed him my tattoos for the first time.
He's 89 years old in November and got all of his 4 tattoos during the 2nd World War whilst stationed in Germany. He has a crawling panther, an anchor, a swallow and his favorite, an eagle on his bicep. He got all of his tattoos in 1944 and he still loves all of them to this day, he says that getting the eagle was one of the best decisions he ever made 'its given me so much joy over the years'. Interestingly though I asked him if he ever wished that he had got more and he said no, he got just the number he wanted and stopped there.
Now this is a guy who has lived with his tattoos for 70 years now, tastes have changed, fashions have come and gone and through it all he's remained stoked with those four tattoos he got in the 1940's! This got me to thinking about my own approach to tattoos and how different it is to his, like most people on this forum I'm always planning who I'd like to get tattooed by and have pretty much mapped out my arms and torso in my mind. But its easy to forget that those images of heavily tattooed sailor from the 1940's actually made up a tiny minority, my grandad was considered pretty heavily tattooed at that time.
I wonder with the whole traditional thing whether we are chasing something that didn't really exist in the way we think it did, and whether he might be onto something when he said to me that if you want to continue to love the tattoos you have through your life then sometimes less is more...
That being said its not advice I'm going to take, I cannot imagine a time when I won't want to get tattooed.
Sorry if that was a bit of a rant and off topic, I just thought it tied in with the flavor of the thread.

not just metal
but chrome...

Lyle Tuttle and his spider web elbows and stomach/ribs.

Drink more alcoholic beverages to make up for the lack of swimming pool activities.
That would be my advice.

Hooper. Left side of my squid pants.

New-ish to Texas, finally got over to Rock of Ages. Got talking to Dreyfus about Steve Byrne's availability, before long my girlfriend interjected that we needed to discuss how we were going to pay for an upcoming trip. I agreed, we left, and then I went right home and called the shop the next day anyways. Snagged a Friday afternoon in October :cool:
Haven't decided what I'm going to get. Instead, I'm going to see if he has any ideas about filling one of the last (kind of awkward) spots on my arm. Way excited.

New-ish to Texas, finally got over to Rock of Ages. Got talking to Dreyfus about Steve Byrne's availability, before long my girlfriend interjected that we needed to discuss how we were going to pay for an upcoming trip. I agreed, we left, and then I went right home and called the shop the next day anyways. Snagged a Friday afternoon in October :cool:
Haven't decided what I'm going to get. Instead, I'm going to see if he has any ideas about filling one of the last (kind of awkward) spots on my arm. Way excited.

New-ish to Texas, finally got over to Rock of Ages. Got talking to Dreyfus about Steve Byrne's availability, before long my girlfriend interjected that we needed to discuss how we were going to pay for an upcoming trip. I agreed, we left, and then I went right home and called the shop the next day anyways. Snagged a Friday afternoon in October :cool:
Haven't decided what I'm going to get. Instead, I'm going to see if he has any ideas about filling one of the last (kind of awkward) spots on my arm. Way excited.

My 9 year old daughter, after learning how much her grandmother hates tattoos, told me, "well, that's her problem then."
:)