Last time I spoke with him I was at an intersection in Philly.
He looked me over and said "I think I've tattooed you".
I told him that he had. In 1992. Talk about making a client feel special.

I know this is an older post, but yeah... Ed is pretty much the reason most of us get tattooed the way we get tattooed. Forget the clothing, the energy drinks and all that; Ed rounded up the best talent in the world at the old Realistic studio and really pushed information sharing when other people were closing doors.

I've been posting a lot of old tattoo videos on my newest blog, really worth checking out:
http://occultvibrations.com

Got this little guy earlier tonight.

Palm tattoos are sob's. Good luck!

Hahaha I was just checking my tumblr and there it was. Pretty nuts dude!

your tiger palm technique is impressive!

Haha, that's a pretty good one.

Healing my palms was worse than healing 6 hours on my ribs... all I can think when I see your tiger is "better him than me", cause I'd never want to do that again!

Really? Mine hasn't been bad at all. No swelling or anything. I actually forgot about it minus the stiffness on the solid parts. That shit is super in there too, he used a 14 liner and hammered it in. It was awful while it was happening. Here's a pic of it cleaned without any stencil residue.

I was always told palm tattoos had trouble staying sharp due to the constant loss and regeneration of skin. I assume thats what the 14 and going deep was for but won't the outline still break up a bit on the surface? Just curious, either way that tat is bad ass. I had an 8 hour rib session and if it's worse than that I don't envy your time in the chair.

They don't ever look as good as a tattoo anywhere else, it's more of a novelty but when done right they can look pretty good(for a palm). I'll post a pic once it's all the way healed and see what it's looking like then. I've seen a few palms that were only done once and years later still look awesome. Others not so much. Lucky for me I work at a shop so I can just have it touched up if needed. As far as pain, I have both my ribs and torso outlined. That was worse because of the length of time it took but the palm was far worse when put into concentrated pain. Size wise it should have only taken 15-20mins tops since it was just an outline, but it took about an hour because I could only take a couple minutes at a time before having to take a break and letting out a couple curse words. haha

Mine were done in November 2008, one pass, and look pretty much exactly like they did when I got them done. One little spot could use a touchup, but otherwise they healed perfectly. We stippled them in with a rotary.

Right on, good to know. Seems like a solid design for a hard to heal spot anyways, well defined well spaced dark lines.

Hat's off to you sir. Just the thought of it brings tears to my eyes and makes my nuts crawl up into my body.
Looks good.

This was the night they were done in 2008, I'll try to grab a current picture of them today to compare.

Oh wow! I couldn't imagine doing both in one night. Yeah, please post a current pic.

yeah. it was pretty stupid to do them both at once, but I figured if I was going to not have the use of a hand, I might as well not stagger it.

I'll see if my girlfriend can snap a picture tomorrow.

My friend Okamoto from Japan was in town and gave me this!

thats the first booska tatt i've seen! really awesome chowing down on ramen!! niocceee!

and those palm tatts, do they take long to heal up then any other spot???

My palms took quite a while, considering.
The technique we used all but guarantees pigment retention, but it hurts like an SOB and takes a while to heal.

sweet!!!

booska one very nice as well...

My left sleeve is almost done but it's just random traditional stuff, very "sailorish"

Upper right arm


Chest, 5 hours in. Still got at least another 5 hours for the color. I'm scheduled for 23rd of this month and I'm REALLY looking forward to it!

This is at 2.5 years.
The bottom left part of the keys has looked like that since it was fully healed. It didn't "fade", it just didn't get put in as solidly. We only did one pass on this with no touchups.

\

The chest is looking great so far!

Awesome. Who's doing your chest? Can't wait to see this finished.