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An entire leg sleeve of skulls is no laughing matter – and not an easy one to blog about, either. I’ll just let the bearer do the talkin’:

Kind of funny looking at my leg now compared with the original concept of what it was going to be. It started about 3 ½ years ago with the announcement that I was going to be a father. At that time I had a few tattoos, but not a major collector in any way. When I found out my son was going to be born a Leo, the search was on for an artist to do a realistic lion cub. I did tons of research, finally stumbled across Mike Devries‘ work and was totally sold–I contacted him right away to set up an appointment.

Luckily, he was booked out almost a year. I say that because if I had jumped the gun on the lion tattoo, it would have been a major mistake–my son wound up being a Virgo instead.

Since I already had the sitting lined up, I started thinking about what else to do and then it hit me, a skull! I have always loved skulls as far back as I can remember. I wasn’t sure if DeVries would be into it since all the work of his I had seen involved people and animal portraits. I contacted him about the change of plans and the rest, as they say, is history.

Since doing so much research initially, I had compiled a “tattoo dream team list.” I talked with my wife about the idea of continuing the skull theme. She was completely supportive and told me to go for it. I immediately started contacting the artists on my list. Many of them not only were interested in the project, but actually moved me up in line on their waiting lists just to be part of it.

The following, in order, are all the artists who contributed: Mike DeVries, Carlos Torres, Jeff Gogue, Nikko Hurtado, Robert Hernandez, Bugs, Jason Butcher, Joshua Carlton, Carlos Rojas, Aric Taylor, Shawn Barber, Bob Tyrrell, Stefano Alcantara, and FAT.

Each artist was given complete freedom to tattoo anything they wanted as long as it was a skull. It was so much fun to see what the guys would come up with. Some did exactly what you’d expect based on their respective styles, and others took it in totally different directions than anticipated.

After having such a wonderful experience with this project, I have  started an arm sleeve with the same concept. So far the contributing artists are Phil Garcia, Goethe and Jeff Ensminger. Time to get that “tattoo dream team list” out and start making some calls!

… but not for at least a week or two.

As a sideline, I am totally freaked out by the number of people with palm tattoos these days.

Tattoo by Shawn Barber at Memoir Tattoo in Los Angeles, CA

It’s probably the greatest oversight we’ve ever made, but this is the first tattoo of Shawn Barber’s posted here on Tattoo Snob. (Don’t get snippy though, he’s been mentioned plenty of times for his art!)

I’m going to go ahead and assume that translating James Jean’s “Crayon Eater” into a tattoo was not have been an easy task…

Tattoo by Shawn Barber at Memoir Tattoo in Los Angeles, CA

This past weekend was the Seattle Tattoo Convention, and Channel 13 took a few minutes during their morning show to promote the event. They had Damon Conklin and Shawn Barber appear, and hype the convention and the wide world of tattooing. While most of the questions are pretty generic and somewhat comical, I suppose no press is bad press.

It’s hard to tell exactly how big this is, but it’s a killer piece. Apparently it was an open spot on a collector – and I’m not using that word lightly. While you can’t see the surrounding pieces, I was told the one above is from Bob Tyrrell, the one below from Nikko Hurtado and to the right is a Shawn Barber original as well.

Tattoo by: Stefano Alcantara at Last Rites in New York City, NY

How do I go about getting the 5″x15″ prints that go with these boards without actually buying one? Don’t get me wrong, I dig the skateboards but I really just want the prints.

If you’re interested in picking up these decks, they’re not hard to find. I’ll even provide a good home for the prints to anyone who doesn’t want them…

Creature Skateboards by Shawn Barber

I’m sure most of you are familiar with the work of Shawn Barber, specifically his Tattooed Portrait works.

Shawn’s newest work, Tattooed Portrait: Chronicle will be opening on April 24th (from 6pm to 9pm) at the Joshua Liner Gallery in New York City. The exhibit runs through May 22nd, and additional details can be found here.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with Shawn’s work, take a moment and look around his website. I assure you it’s time well spent, and don’t forget to check out his tattoo work.

A little bit of spring cleaning is going on over at Sullen Clothing. The sale includes t-shirts from Jeff Gogue, Corey Miller, Shawn Barber, and Preston Chambers (pictured below.)

Quantities are limited, so don’t sleep on this.

Sullen Clothing Preston Chambers shirt

A couple weeks ago, we announced a weekly #FollowFriday post to share some of our favorite Twitter users. The weekly posts seemed to lack over the past two weeks due to the holidays, so we waited on posting this until now.

Obviously tattoo artists are the best place to start, so without further ado – here’s the list:

Tim Kern – The infamous New York city tattoo artist has has a strong presence on the internet for years, and it’s no surprise that Tim is all over the newest internet fad.Megan Massacre – Like our previous posts of Megan? Good, because they were both stolen from her tweets.

Shawn Barber – Tattoo artist and painter extraordinaire Shawn Barber shares his tasks throughout the day, and typically includes a snap shot showing off his jaw dropping work.

Myke Chambers – Myke updates his Twitter quite a bit, and is constantly sending out pictures, links, and letting everyone know when he’s tattooing live over UStream.

Durb Morrison – If you know anything about Durb, it’s he is always working on something new. You can try to keep up, but let me warn you – it’s not easy.

Adam Hathorn – Adam Hathorn AKA HonkeyKong is someone I make sure always check out his tweets. A mixture of unique tattoo work, and humorous tweets helps fuel my Twitter addiction.

In an attempt to make it easier for people to follow this group, and people that will be added to the group in the future – I’ve created a list off the Tattoo Snob twitter account. From what I understand you can follow this list as opposed to all the users, and still receive all the tweets.

I’ll be updating this list in the future, removing people that fall off the Twitter game and adding fresh faces.

. . . you don’t even know. That’s what Shawn Barber has to say about Bryan Bancroft, pictured below.

I can only assume this picture is going to join the tattooed portrait collection that Sean has been working on for a few years.