These are the ones I’m talking about. Volumes 1-3 are out of print and copies are hundreds of dollars now. I fortunately have the first two.

If you would like to know any other traditional americana books to get let me know.
Tim Hendricks says that books and paintings are the best investments anyone can make. I know he paid over $200 for 1 and 3 and about 120 for vol 2.

So clean dude! Can’t wait to see the next one. Stevie has been killing the white highlights lately!

Mike Roper. Don’t bother trying to find info on him because you can’t haha. He is a ghost, but one day it will happen!

You know the dude is good when this is what Grime says:
“Dude, and this is coming from me, for whatever that’s worth, but I’m a snob … Mike can tattoo circles around like 99% of the tattooers. Fuck, dude … that guy is insane … he’s the shit! I mean really, when I see it I’m like ‘Oh my God, I’ve got to get on the fucking ball!’ But he’s always been better than me. I don’t even know how much of this you should print …”

Agreed. I’m sorry but I know the rate is great for that level of work but that shouldn’t be the reason to committ. Especially since those designs are larger.

Off the top of my head in NSW here are some shops/artists.

Rock of Ages
Kaleidoscope
Ocean Ink
Sam Clark – currently travelling though
Hunter and Fox
Kian Forreal
Ash Gravino

Some of them are a distance to travel but that’s all part of the experience.

Some other great Aussie artists to peek at:

Fergus Simms – very bold traditional work much like Smith St., his lines are unbelievably clean. Fegus is young and is going to be famous!

Stevie Edge – Australia’s premier traditional tattoo artist. Stays true to the old school red, green, yellow and black the old sailors used to use. Kills anything panther/lion/tiger related.

Heath Nock – amazing allround traditional and realism tattoo artist. He can mix both styles into the one tattoo without it looking out of place.

Alvaro Flores – Australia’s Thomas Hooper (sort of). Specialises in Japanese and geometric/stippling work.

Adam Kitamoto – pure traditional oriental tattoos. Adam has years of expertise and follows the laws/guidelines/ideals of oriental tattooing to a tee.

Come get tattooed in Australia!

Ahhh I wanna do mine down to the back of my hamstrings. I guess it’s all worth it eventually.