Over the years, I’ve attended a variety of tattoo shows and they all have something different to offer. As many of you know, if you’ve been following my writing the past few years, my favorite show (as a spectator) is the Hell City Tattoo Festival, which offers so much eye candy – from the variety of vendor booths to the live art demonstrations to the spectators themselves; it’s a colorful show that always has something going on. When I arrived at the National Tattoo Association convention in Cincinnati last weekend (April 14, 2012), I was unsure what to expect; compared to Hell City, the room was smaller, there were fewer tattoo artists, and the atmosphere was relatively quiet except for a slight murmur of talking and the distant buzzing of a few tattoo machines. As I started to make my rounds, I wondered if I’d be bored within the hour.

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What do you get when a former Czechoslovakian boxer decides to move to the United States for new business opportunities? You get Joe “Knuckles” – a wickedly talented special effects artist who is building his American dream by quickly becoming one of Indiana’s most noted professionals in the FX industry.

 

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It’s normal for even fully healed tattoos to suddenly start itching or become slightly swollen, but just because it’s normal doesn’t make it any less annoying. Here’s why your tattoo may be causing you to scratch and what you can do to relieve it.

 

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One of my friends recently asked me how to heal her new belly button (navel) piercing. I guess I was feeling metaphorical, and started thinking of the belly button as like this dark, damp cave that hosts parties for crud monsters – lint monsters, bacteria monsters, fungal monsters, etc.  So, when healing a new navel piercing, you need to think of its primary environment – the belly button – as a den of iniquity that needs to be cleansed! But the wrong cleansing products can actually make things worse, so it’s important to know just what tools to use and which ones to avoid.

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So, the first season of Spike TV’s Ink Master is officially over, a winner has been declared, and the next season is already in the works.

 

Meet Spike TV’s first Ink Master champion – Shane O’Neill. His talent and his determination carried him through the competition and eventually won him the title of Ink Master. Shane has been quoted as saying that he went into this competition with one objective – to win. And that he did, while rumors circulated about his character and treatment of his fellow contestants. Is he really the arrogant hothead the TV show portrayed? And did the show live up to the expectations of the viewing public?

 

 

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