Since I'm starting the process of sketching my first tattoo, I thought it could be interesting to start this new thread. We had an old one but it's 6 years old so no harm done with creating a new one!

Old thread (full of dead links and Waiguoren tats):
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=59497&p=1415531&hilit=tattoo#p1415531

So, uh, tips, comments, prices, etc are welcome. Show us your tats!

http://i.imgur.com/80f3kMJ.jpg






And there are various others too.

Cooool! I love tattoos and I desperately need to get more. I have ten currently and I have plans to get more, many more. This is the only picture I have readily available. It also happens to be my pride an joy tattoo for now:



This was done by Ink Master's Halo Jenkowski and it cost me $1,000, tip included. So not bad for a five and a half hour tattoo at a convention.

Oh shit, that's awesome, Erosion. I should get a SW tattoo as well, maybe later! 1000 bucks seems fine for that much colours, how much would you say it would had been in B&W?

I love the hand tree, NW, well done stuff

Sick as balls home here with the flu, but here's mine from last August (also in the pictures thread). This is my first and definitely not my last, as I want to get both arms from shoulder to wrist done in the future. Hopefully this arm will be finished before the end of this year. To be perfectly honest, I love the shit out of my first tattoo - couldn't have turned out better, though this picture doesn't really do it justice, as it looks way better in the flesh.



I will never get a colour tattoo, they're just not for me - I prefer the black/grey/shaded effect, and for the designs I want, it just works better I believe. This was a full day sitting, followed by about another two to three hours to complete it, and cost me $800 Australian monies. Damn pleased.

Yeah, this is incredible, man. I agree that colours would ruin it except for some red here and there.

So this is the sketch I did tonight. I'm the best drawer or anything and it's the first draft but I love it. I'd like it to be on my arm around the same spot as Crushed but possibly a bit smaller.
It's (obviously) Reverend Bisarre's debut album (Goya's Witches' Sabbath) with the mushrooms of their Slice of Doom release and orchids (Opeth's Orchid, duh). I've planned to include my mother and father as side characters on it (the witch with my black cat) and the hooded figure. I think I'll do it in black and white with some colours here and there but I thought that it would be nice to colour the first draft. Thoughts?

I think the papyrus will say "Doom what thou wilt!".

Thanks Tony!

Man you get that done by the right tattooist, and it will look great. The orchid detail will look amazing if done right, contrasting with 'shrooms, along with the robed figures in the background. One thing I will say about tattoos (though I'm still only a freshie to this), is to keep it as uncluttered as you can, that way everything will "pop" out more and look cleaner. I say that while my tattoo has a whole heap of stuff going on in it

You going for some background shading/colouring at all Tony?



Nice man. Didn't know it was done by him, cool.

I was thinking of some foresty shit for the background, not sure yet. I could certainly add the bats and the moon from the original painting with some other stuff. Maybe a fucking shitload of black cats waiting to be eaten by Satan??!! I'll have a lot of time to think about it since I'll wait to have a lot of money to do it, possibly next year or so.

I do like detailed tattoos/drawing, I'm a big fan of Cathedral's artwork and it's so full of details, I'd say it was intentionnal for me to add a lot of stuff but yeah, I get what you're saying.

Detail is fine if the artist is up for it, and when done right can be downright brilliant. Yeah a moon in the background would look awesome, to add some more depth to it. Any idea how much you're willing to spend? Tattoos can be a mighty expensive thing to acquire.

That's a sweet drawing Tony but I don't think it will fit on your arm. A full sheet of paper takes up a lot of body space. You'll need either a thigh, chest, or back are for something that large.

I don't have any immediate plans to get tattyblasted, but I always liked the idea of getting the Opeth orchid somewhere on me. I think it would look really nice on my right breast, or even my thigh or bicep. I think it would be a good balance between a cool, subtle metal reference and a generally pretty image that would look really nice even if there wasn't a great album behind it. Something that normies would think is pretty, lol.

Just get a portion of the cover from Reverend Bizarre's debut Tony! Don't mess it up with a personal touch!

Some heat in here for sure. That Star Wars joint on EoH is stunning. I also really dig Nordic_Warhammer's hand-tree. I think I posted my first (done in March) tattoo in the Pictures thread but I can dump it here as well for posterity. I'm very very happy with it. For my first piece I wanted a timeless image and I think I got exactly that:

Nice looking metal themed tattoos in here, I really need to get a cool metal themed tattoo soon, I just don't want anything with satanic themes or the like so I'm a bit limited I suppose. I generally prefer black and grey for my tattoos as well but when it came to Star Wars no way was I going without the color.

I've got loose plans to have one like "spooky arm" if you want to put it that way, building around my Baphomet. Mostly just a bunch of really surface-level occult imagery because that's the shit I'm into. I don't want to go into too much detail but I'll of course share here when more work is completed.

Outside of that though, I've got some very "non-metal" stuff in mind. My tattoo guy wins awards for clean, colorful, bright pieces. I think I'm going to let him do some bright stuff on my legs. I've also always wanted some Alphonse Inoue artwork on my body since the first time I saw his very strange ex libris art.

It could be resized anyway, this is just a drawing. Also, my arms are huuuge haha.

@Jonpo, personal touches are cool! I think it would be boring without them.

@TEA, yeah Orchid is a subtle metal reference, pretty ideal if you don't something obvious.

Fair enough. If you find a great artist and let them re-work it it'll probably turn out great. It just looks VERY busy to me. Lots of ideas jammed into one thing. The goat itself is SO killer, you don't want to draw the attention away from it with every other thing that you like. You've got plenty of real estate for other cool ideas, no need to pack every idea you have into one.

That is very sexy.

Thank you! I have to agree. My tattoo artist is a beast.

I only have a stick and poke cross that I intend to engrave the word "doom" into soon. It's small and on my kneecap. Planning on getting a minimalist cactus soon too, perhaps under the belly. I'd love a really fancy artistic sleeve but I don't have that kind of cash.

Hmm, this thread is inspiring me to start thinking about possible tattoo designs. I should start getting some ideas together and look for a good artist. I've seen a few links here and there for some really incredible tattoo artists here in Korea, and I think getting inked here is reasonably cheap, so it could be a good opportunity.

So this is my first tat ever, now two months old. I wanted to go for a black only and simple yet effective one with some meaning. Actually this was the most important thing to me here. Don't want a super kawaii cat tattooed only because it looks damn cute, you get my point...

I came up with the idea and compiled the theme. It was 400€.

A few little spots will need to be inked a second time but that's no big deal. Doesn't look THAT great right now cause my skin tends to be dry as fuck at the moment...

I like the panther except perhaps for the guitar but I can't really get behind the text, seems a bit too in your face for me.

So instead of doing the big tattoo I've shown you guys, I'll do a smaller one before. It would be something similar to this on a leg in b&w.

I got my first tattoo last year, it was Celtic Frost heptagram on my chest and today I'm going to set up an appointment for the reaper from Behind the Realms of Madness.

"harbinger of metal" isn't that much less in your face But as it refers to an album title it's still great and nice layout idea as well, like it.

Glad this thread idea has been renewed! I love seeing everyone's work

Here is a picture of my leg


I've got a arm sleeve in progress, here are a couple progress shots

Witch King of Angmar


Viking Warrior (only half done)


All of my work is done by Vincent Castiglia http://vincentcastiglia.com/, a fantastic artist who recently painted a new guitar for Gary Holt that ESP is now putting into production. Great guy, and a huge metal fan.

Damn, that leg tat is pretty awesome man. Nice work!

Extremely impressive! How long did it take you to get it finished?

Thanks! Your arm looks great too!



I honestly lost track. It was completed over 2 years, and my best guess is roughly 80-100 hours of work. The artist puts TONS of details into every nook and cranny of his work, and my leg is fairly large, so we had a lot of ground to cover!

I was really pleased with how it came out. It represents my recovery from a narcotic addiction, with the bottom half being a sort of "hell" that I was in during my use and the top half depicting a spiritually connected, clean version of myself.

This is my only one till now, made back in April 2015:

Metal81 that's a beautiful story put into some killer art man. I love it.

I have two concept designs that I'd like to turn into two opposing tattoos. I've held off because I want a tattoo artist I'm at least familiar with to do it, and unfortunately all the tattoo artists I know are metalheads on this forum that live in other countries. So, for the time being, I will hold out and wait. In the meantime, I've had these designs for years and I'm absolutely certain I'd go with them:

Satanic Warmaster fan, eh? Nice.

I don't have any syqq tatties at the moment but I've got a fair amount of ideas. I'd like to get the Leviathan moon on my left pec, American History X style. I think a half/three-quarters sleeve of something like this would be cool too. The raging Malazan fanboy in me wants to get the Bridgeburners emblem somewhere as well. There's a few other ideas but these are the ones that have stayed around the longest, and so I'm most likely to actually get them.

Now that's a serious amount of time spent. Nice to hear you put a deeper meaning in it!

My forearm ain't that large and with that plain and simple design I was finished in nearly three hours.

Oh I won't use those words, I'll probably use "Doom what thou wilt!".

Here's my only tattoo to date.

Great thread. I do't have any metal tattoos, but I do have a few tattoos. The only metal related tattoo I would get would be the Bolt Thrower skull I think.

i know the lyric tatoos are quite cringy, but i couldn't help to use a section of Continuum by Garden Of Shadows (strong personal reasons tie me to that song)

I turn 18 in 3 days, so my sister's gonna take me to get my first tattoo. it's gonna be a small yellow flower on my ankle, in memoriam to my mother.
It's gonna be the first of many, so I'm pretty excited.

The best picture i could get.

Well I went in for a tattoo in April as I had hours and hours to kill in London and wanted the tree for ages. Was terrible, so wanted it redone, they said that's okay and the owner will do it, they were really apologetic, but schedule was always packed and I don't live in London. On the day they called me as I was on my way, and told me it would be 6pm not half four, and by the time they started it was half 6. Needless to say I was pretty anxious after all this ridiculousness, but given the initial one I think he's done a great job.

What I wanted:
Their first attempt:
the owner's repair job: