KVipers

Yeah I live in Moncton! Okey Doke Tattoo shop in Toronto. Trophy tattoo in Hamilton, Sink or Swin tattoo in Aurora, Crawling Panther in Cambridge, Lucky Devil tattoo in Barrie, Chris Anthon's private studio in Guelph and Berlin tattoo in Kitchener.

Wow thanks for the list guys. I actually lived in aurora for a year when I was younger. Definitely gonna check it out.

Also, nice to see a fellow maritimer on here haha

Cheers

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Got this little beauty at the NB HubCity Tattoo con one week ago.

A little hotstuff by Sailor Jerry Swallow, Canada's oldest tattooer. He was taught by Charlie Snow, who was taught by F.A Baldwin, who is arguably one of the first tattooers in Canada. He has the title of Hori from Horihide (Yes, that Horihide) and has been tattooing for over 50 years. He knew all the greats personally. Worked with Malone, Zeke, Jack, Irons, Huck, and all the others. Said Norman Collins was an asshole and Hardy was disrespectful. haha

Funny thing is, the lady who wanted to get a tattoo before me didn't even know who he was and wanted to get a tribal design out of a magazine. haha

Finally someone else who knows not only about Hub City but where NB is haha grats on the piece. Would have liked to make the con this year but couldn't.

On that note, I'm travelling with my gf to Toronto in a couple days. Any recommendations for shops to check out while there?

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Gonna update this after almost a year from starting. Moving a couple times has strained funds but here are some progress shots.

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So I decided to go with a hanya. I let the artist do what he wanted. My only input was having snake head come into my chest. He added a couple cool things like the skull ropes for the mask. This is after the first sit. Next sit will be some more details and lines and maybe background and then for some color. Have to decide on a color palette. I'm open to suggestions!

Ps sorry for the sideways pics. Doing this on mobile and will fix it when i get a chance.

I love this post, and especially the last sentence of it. I wish I'd understood earlier that spaces and asymmetries are ultimately temporary and to not worry about looking lopsided and needing to balance things out right away.

It's funny because while it seems a lot of people worry about looking balanced, I've always been more attracted to an asymmetrical look. For example, maybe having a 3/4 sleeve on one arm and a full or half on the other, with the opposite side ribs done on the short sleeve side, etc etc.

I'm still early on in my tattoo experience but the more time goes by and the more I take in the culture, the less and less I care about uniformity and the more it's just fun to get tattooed.

Tapatalk wouldn't let me add the image to my last post but here is said Rubendall back piece that he posted on his Instagram awhile ago.

@Graeme I don't know if it is the same but rubendall did a back piece with similar dancing skeletons. Try googling "citipati".

This was the first thing that came to my mind. It is an awesome piece!

Looks awesome @rozone!! We'll compare notes in a few weeks haha I really like that Tibetan skull.

Well i can't argue with that @Graeme haha

I am confident in my artist and this is his jam and at the end of the day I will listen to whatever he suggests. Just the anticipation of knowing you have a date set and wanting to see the final product. It sucks waiting.

@rozone any pictures?

I will chat with my artist as we nail down a design as well, but I wanted to ask here, too:

The more research I do on snake/skull pairings the more I am seeing them on flatter panels (ribs, thighs, backs). Do people do this so as to not distort the skull? Will a skull on an upper arm look funny because of the round shape of the arm? I am not a small person, but I'm not huge either..

What are people's experience with this?

@BrianH the artist is Mike Young. He's a local guy here on the East Coast of Canada.

@Cork doing some poking around and thinking a Tibetan skull with the right flowers and color pallette could look awesome. Will update once I hit the library.

Heading to the library tonight to see what to can dig up. Tibetan skulls were really the only other idea I had. I'll see what the library turns up!

I'd be lying if I said I remembered that you could go to a library. I'll check it out this week. Thanks for the heads up haha

So I have an appointment booked for two weeks from now to have my 3/4 sleeve lined with my artist and I'm looking for some suggestions on the details. It is going to be a skull and snake as the focal point with some peonies or cherry blossoms and finger waves etc. What I'm curious about is the type of skull and also if there were any other cool headdress things that could be added to the skull such as a samurai helmet.

I have seen lots of hanya skulls and snakes (specifically O'Donnell's) but was wondering if anybody has ever seen a cool oni skull for example. I had trouble finding any good examples just using the Google machine.

Lastly, I'd like to dress the skull with something but am open to ideas for specifically what that would be. My first idea was a samurai helmet, but I'd like to see what other unique options are out there that I haven't thought of. Anybody have any cool ideas?

Any tips or ideas are greatly appreciated

Fresh one my girlfriend picked up this afternoon. Its a Nick Oaks design tattooed by a local artist, Mike Young.

http://www.lastsparrowtattoo.com/forum/tattoo-advice/3704-traditional-japanese-v-american-japanese-tattoos.html

There's a good thread to look into on that topic @scubaron @KVipers. I think the consensus is that there really is no way of defining a "Japanese" tattoo any more. The lines have become so blurred and all different styles have kind of evolved and borrowed elements from one another. People such as Horiyoshi III and Mike Rubendall have both said that their style is not really traditional Japanese, but a modern interpretation of Japanese tattooing (someone correct me if I'm wrong). Anyways, that's a whole different can o' worms.

@BrianH that sounds like an amazing arm

That was a good read. Thanks for the link!

Also @robz that is some killer work. Love masks.

Then you might run into the debate on whether they really can be considered Japanese tattoos, more like Japanese inspired. If there's one thing all Japanese tattoo masters can agree on, it's that the background is the most important element of the tattoo.

This was another thing I was wondering about. Because there are so many cultural aspects to Japanese tattoos I was wondering if this would even be acceptable. Like you mentioned, 'Japanese inspired' vs 'real' Japanese tattoos can both exist, but I wouldn't want to offend the culture in any way.

What about negative space with smaller one-off Japanese pieces instead of the traditional backgrounds of iso bars, clouds, and waves? For example arm sleeves that are not one large consistent piece but rather single Japanese tattoos with no background separated by negative space. Does anyone have any examples of this or has seen an example of this that could weigh in?

Hello all,

just wondering if if anybody is going to the Hub City convention in Moncton, NB the first week of October? I've been lurking around the forums for a little while now but haven't come across too many other Maritimers out there. How many of us are there?

I know someone who works on this show behind the scenes. Apparently this upcoming season has contestants from former seasons that didn't get along ,"tattooing against each other". It's going to be even more about 'reality tv drama' and less about tattoos than it already has been. WTF?

The finale for last season hinted at this. WTF - my thoughts exactly. I guess to get the good stuff you've got to dig a little deeper than mainstream TV.

Just like Iron Chef isn't made for chefs, Cops isn't made for police officers, and Cake Boss isn't made for bakers, all of the mainstream tattoo reality shows aren't made for tattooers or tattooed people. They are made for mainstream reality show fans. I'm also making a distinction between people with tattoos and "tattooed people," as pretentious or exclusionary as that may seem.

I hadn't thought about it like that before but that's a fair point. I wish there were more Tattoo Age.. *sigh*

That's a rad tattoo. Fusion can be cool. Google Chris Brand's “108 Heroes of Los Angeles.” Can't see how anyone would find that offensive.

That looks awesome - thanks for the heads up on that I'm going to look into it more tomorrow on my down time.

I kind of thought that nobody would find it offensive but I'm still new to tattoos and wanted to be sure because I would consider a sort of fusion like that ^ for myself at some point in time.

Like many others I've been struggling with this as well. The aesthetic of mixing styles is growing on me, and a good artist can certainly make it work. I am, however, wondering if there are any cultural issues here. For example, is it incorrect or offensive to butt traditional Americana images next to traditional Japanese backgrounds? Or to totally mix the two styles, but in one cohesive piece?

Here is a piece done by Lucas Ford that is a good example of what I'm talking about:

Japanese / Americana fusion

I knew I wanted my arms covered from the beginning, I kept filling spaces on my right arm since I was toying with the idea of something more cohesive on the left (still undecided on that, really like the piecemeal look but there's definitely something to be said about a whole sleeve).

I have been struggling with this a lot lately, too. I can appreciate both the piecemeal and the cohesive look but I can't decide what I want to wear myself. My first (and only) tattoo I got two years ago is a black and grey piece that I don't necessarilly want to cover, but I'm heavily into Japanese and it doesn't go with that at all. I'm thinking one cohesive arm, and one piecemeal 'collection' arm.

I'm in the same boat as some others here; no hands, face, neck, or feet and it feels like a big deal to go below the elbow even though I'm pretty sure nobody would care. After all, tattooing is for me and those others who appreciate it!

If anyone has seen Stewart Robson's latest post on instagram it tags the account Shitsluts....it physically hurts me to look at some of them..