Grass roots modern tattooing - what's it to you?

Will

Watched a few videos on bme of shawn porter videoing sailor jerry et all. Bunch of gay guys, sitting around naked tattooing roses and old school stuff on them.

Was shown a vid at the convention this year and it was something similar minus the tattooing. It just triggered the video in my mind again and thought to myself bizarrely "that's what it's all about" bunch of lads just running around naked having the craic :pac:

The old school style has been around and it's still quite prominent and maybe even making a bit of a revival.

so what does grass roots tattooing mean to you?

truthinwords

Simple, clean tattoos with plenty of blackshade that will last. I know this isn't going to be a popular opinion but I can't see a lot of these outlineless colour portraits standing the test of time (and I have half a leg worth of them). The revival of traditional is an embrace of the back to basics approach and then you've got people like Cris Cleen who do traditional in a different way (the shading is almost like brush strokes and he uses negative space in a really interesting way)



For me grass roots modern tattooing is taking what worked in the past (strong lines/plenty of black) and combining it with new technology, equipment and materials. In short grass roots modern tattooing is providing solid tattoos with longevity.

Also Neo Traditional stuff is on the rise in the UK and US but it doesn't seem overly popular here which is a shame. People should check out some neo-trad artists like Jurgen Eckel, Derek Noble and Rachi Brains.