Let me start by saying I received a free copy of this book in return for an honest review. That being said, I’m glad it was free, because the list price on the back of the book states $27.95. I would’ve been super-pissed if I spent that kind of money on this book. It’s not that it’s such a bad book. I mean, some of the pictures were kind of cool, but the book was poorly written and riddled with typos and misspellings, especially since this was a revised edition. I also don’t see how they got the title, “Advanced Tattoo Art,” because it seemed pretty basic to me, mostly pretty standard stuff you can find on the walls of any tattoo shop. There were a couple of decent artists, but that was it. The best part about the book was the history of tattooing and some of the artists’ back-stories. Like some of the other reviewers said, you’d be better off saving your money and buying some magazines or a different book. I wanted to like the book a lot more than I actually did. ( )

I hesitated to review this book on the theory of that if you can't say something nice... The book itself is high quality printing but unfortunately, even as a revision, the content does not hold up. It offers a superficial view at best despite calling itself 'Advanced'. The descriptions are very simple with no real updated information. The brief interviews with seasoned artists gives no real insight into their creative process and even leaves out mentions of some of their trademark styles. I was really disappointed with this book.

I received a copy of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review. ( )

Originally published in 2006 to mediocre reviews on Amazon, this is Mitchel's "take two" on Advanced Tattoo Art. I'm not sure this one is much better. The front covers boasts secrets such as how to find and size the art, proper skin prep, use of a stencil, blending colors, and more. However, the "manual" isn't indexed so if you are interested in learning about only one of these techniques, it would be a scavenger hunt to find it. Take "proper skin prep" for example. I *think* I found the secret to proper skin prep on page 155 where the skin is wiped down with an unnamed sanitizing solution and shaved. No big secret there since every tattoo artist should sanitize the area and shave it clean. Since I am not a tattoo artist, I don't know how informative this "how-to" really is. The photography is okay and the art displayed is alright. Nothing jumps out as being particularly fantastic or eye-catching. The best feature of the book is each bio on the artist. Giving them a piece of the spotlight was really clever. It gave them an opportunity to share their secret, why they got into tattooing in the first place. ( )

This book gives some interesting insights from various tattoo artists as to how specific works are developed. Each project covers some aspect of what is laid down first, what is filled in, what is enhanced next, etc. It does not go into any particular depth about real techniques and won't be very useful for a practitioner. The quality of the photographs is rather pedestrian so this won't serve as a coffee table book either. Basically, the only person to whom I might recommend this book would be a comprehensive collector of tattoo books. ( )

An interesting book though not quite what I was expecting at all. I was expecting a little bit more about the history and current climate of tattoos as well as basically a guide to how tattoos are done. I don't find that this fit the bill of that at all. The author clearly did not know anything about tattooing as evidenced by numerous statements he made throughout the book. My biggest issue though was for being a revised edition I found a lot of outdated references that should have been updated and a lot of grammar and spelling errors. The photos also seemed amateurish and low quality. ( )