CShaw

@CShaw I saw it on IG. The red looks really sharp.

We ended up going with red for the cord winding through my bats after all--a dark Brick red and one called Red Velvet. Got the last peony colored and about half the cord done, so I think just one more session to finish it all up, which I think will make eight en toto. I'll post a pic as soon as the bruising around the red ink doesn't look so dire. :D

@Mark Bee you can't seem to go wrong at The Pearl! Love seeing your already impressive collection grow.
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I can't believe I haven't posted these here! I got my butt snake colored in at the beg of feb. Basically I got home from my tattoo trip, and my dog had a big sudden health issue that had to be dealt with STAT! So I didn't even think about it.
Pics attached. I'm booked for more at the beg of Apr too!

Had my 2nd session with Thomas Hooper yesterday. Mostly dot shading and mostly sat okay for it. Much easier than the line work during our first session.

Hey guys! Thank you for the warm welcome! I'm excited to talk tattoos with you all!
Okay, I'll eventually get the hang of embedding, but for now links to peep's instagrams will have to do. All these are from when the tattoos were still fresh (of the ones I could find) because I actually don't have pictures of my work. But I'll try to get around to taking decent photos of it all healed up and settled. Anyway, let's start:
First session for my sleeve with Thomas (going for my second appointment soon):
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Eva is by far the person I have the most work from. Chronologically:
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From Sarah Carter. Least painful tattoo ever:
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My Valerie girls. I love these things:
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(Side story: You know that gorgeous punk rock Virgin Mary Valerie did a while back? I was supposed to get a punk girl from her that week she was at Kings Avenue, but decided to delay it because I thought these two made a better pair. And then she came out with that Virgin Mary and I've been kicking myself since. I'm actually thinking of going to England to get a second pair of girls on my calves to finally get my punk girl. She will be mine. Oh yes, she will be mine.)
I'll try to get pictures of the other ones, since I couldn't find them online.
Disclaimer: My skins swells up like crazy when I get tattooed, so some of these are kinda distorted. Like I said, nice pictures of healed work on their way.

@Tornado6 I'm gonna echo the placement argument here. A few months ago I started a new sleeve, and the first hour or so was spent finalizing the design and figuring out how/where to lay it on my arm. The artist went on to explain how the arm is basically a cylinder, so a cohesive sleeve is about creating an image that complements and enhances your natural movement. (I hope I'm doing justice to his explanation.) So when I bend my arm now, the bottom bird's wing creates this really nice spiral where before was just a hard, 90-degree angle. What I had originally imagined got changed completely, but it was absolutely for the best. I have no gift for composition, haha.
Placement is important for a piecewise sleeve too, of course, but you can get away with a lot more with this approach.
As for the feminine/masculine thing and how people will read it, I don't think you should worry about that. It's going to be on your body, so on days you are feeling more girly, your tattoo will complement it. On days you're feeling tomboyish, your tattoo will it as well. In a way, a tattoo is the ultimate accessory, so how you carry it can change its quality.
I hope this makes sense.

At one point I found out the gynecologist I have been going to for years had not one, but TWO 3/4 sleeves! Blew my mind and made me adore her even more (she's the best doctor I've ever had).
A lot of the ladies at my job have small tattoos like love-in-an-infinity-sign and that sort of thing. It's still exciting to talk to them about their tattoo plans even if we are drawn to different styles. Several of our male software developers are heavily tattooed with rad stuff. I'm lucky in that everyone at work has been really supportive of me taking off work to get tattoos and are excited to see what I come back with.

@tay943 Originally, we were going to do teal because it is complementary--cool to go with the warm flowers. The bats are the point of the tattoo for me, as the flowers lose color over the years, the bats will still be center stage. I feel like the red (depending on what shade) would probably stand out about as much for me as the teal, overall.
Thanks for all the thoughts, you guys! She's going to end up picking anyway--I'll just go with what she decides--but she always asks, and since before I started the tattoo I wasn't intending to get color at all, I usually just go "Uhhhh..." :D

Hey ladies (thread), I think my tattooer's going to do the remaining peony before the cord winding through, but we're still waffling on what color to do the cord. She'd originally planned on doing it a deep teal, but now she's thinking a nice dark red. Any other suggestions for colors we can talk about at the next session? :D

@tay943 Originally, we were going to do teal because it is complementary--cool to go with the warm flowers. The bats are the point of the tattoo for me, as the flowers lose color over the years, the bats will still be center stage. I feel like the red (depending on what shade) would probably stand out about as much for me as the teal, overall.
Thanks for all the thoughts, you guys! She's going to end up picking anyway--I'll just go with what she decides--but she always asks, and since before I started the tattoo I wasn't intending to get color at all, I usually just go "Uhhhh..." :D

Love your back! Maybe wait until all the color is done before you stress on a decision. ?

What colour is the remaining peony going to be? What about a violet for the cord?

@CShaw do you really want the cord to stand out, or be harmonious with the rest of the peonies? The teal would be nearly opposite on the colour wheel to the pink flowers, so the colour would be really defined against them. A deep red cord would blend into the background a little more. Iboersonally like the idea of using teal, but I like lots of colours.

Another vote for violet. And I don't even particularly like that colour. But I think it could bring a hint of blue into the mix without standing out too much.

Thanks @Patrick Bateman!
Day 2 with Emily done, and boy am I so very glad that is over. Was quite a mental challenge today, the left side of my body seems to be more sensitive than the right, and I stupidly saved the left thigh till the second day. Here is the tiger, and I stitched both pics together so you get an idea how they look together. No photos of the horse today as she is swollen and distorted.

I think a lot more accomplishments would be made and goals achieved and fun had if people would stop saying, I'll do XYZ but I want to lose 20 pounds first.

@CShaw - (just deleted as I misread your post)
Any color that doesn't cause the bats to lose their distinctness, so maybe a warmer color.
It is looking so lovely and I'm enjoying seeing the progress!

Wifey got her 2nd session done earlier in the week.
Picture stolen from the obvious source . . .

So far, the lower back and spine are reliably:

Big reveal in the wild. Diving in the Maldives. On this trip, I saw several of the creatures on my back, which was pretty cool.
The response from my dive buddies was overall pretty positive, and it changed a few attitudes towards tattoos. I had been chatting with three of the women before I let them know I had done it, and unrelated to my tattoo, they all spoke down on tattoos, including the "Why would someone do something permanent - your tastes will change over time" and the "What will it look like when you get old?" Sigh. One of these women really liked it and said it was the best she had ever seen, and she is in the medical field and has seen a lot of bare skin. A lovely woman from Austria was just in love with it and gushed about my "sea" that I can take with me. :-)

Bit of a long break from LST but I am still alive and slowly chipping away at my backpiece.
Had a decent break from tattooing over xmas which was great but back to the grind now.
The snake has taken quite a while but almost finished now. Each scale of the snake has 3-4 different shades of green so has chewed through some time.

My strategy is to play dead, like I'm being mauled by a tiny bear. So far it's working.

My latest and greatest tattoo on my left knee, Had a very personal battle getting this one almost tapped a couple of times.
Artist is WT Norbert so stoked to have him working just down the road from my place

My strategy is to play dead, like I'm being mauled by a tiny bear. So far it's working.

The winner of Tattoo of the month January 2015 is @graybones with this fantastic Seth Wood piece. Congratulations!!

Please PM @steve1461686340 with your shirt info (size and male or female) along with your address.
New contest will be up shortly!