First Tattoo

Also @crazyblu, if your offer still stands on pointing me and Derek in the direction of a good artist, I would def appreciate it. Thanks

As far as pain, the back of the triceps isn’t too bad. Once it starts wrapping around to your inner arm it will start to hurt more because the skin is more sensitive there.

Yes line work is like the outline or borders of the tattoo. You can see in the pic I posted what bad line work looks like. It’s more of a blatant one, but make sure when you look through the artists portfolio that all his line work is straight and clean.

On the subject of tattoos. I’m getting some work done tomorrow for the first time in a year and a half. Very excited.

[quote]bulkNcut wrote:

[quote]strungoutboy21 wrote:

[quote]bulkNcut wrote:

[quote]beachguy498 wrote:
How many shops are in your area? Asking people with good tattoos is your best bet. Go to a few shops and ask to see samples of work, most shops have online galleries so you can get an idea of what artist you may like to go with. I feel that you have to be comfortable with the artist too, if I get a bad vibe, I go somewhere else. I’m starting with a new shop in a few weeks and they came highly recommended. I’m having an arm sleeve finished up.

Pain acceptance can vary from person to person, some artists have a heavier hand than others. If the tattoo is relatively small, sitting for an hour or less is easy. I’ve done some 3 and 4 hour sittings lately and anything past 2.5 hours starts to get uncomfortable.

Shops that have a wait indicate that they are in demand, so there may be a wait anywhere from weeks to months… or years with some upscale shops. Never haggle with the artist, but do have an idea what your tattoo will cost up front. Most will give you an upfront price or quote an hourly rate. I always pay by the hour which can be as much as $150 in my area. Again, quality is what you strive for over price.

Rob[/quote]

Thanks a ton, to others who have posted as well. Theres 1 shop 10 minutes from my house and a few others about an hour. I’ve heard mixed reviews about all places. Some say they’re amazing, others say they’re shit. My friend got one at one of the shops and it looks pretty good. Hard to tell though cause its a really simple design. I have friends out in the boston area and will be going to school near there, so if anyone has any recommendations for places out there let me know. Still not sure if I’m def getting it, I’ve been going back and forth for a year. [/quote]
How does your friends line work on his tattoo look? The line work is the basis for all the tattoos. You got to have someone who does clean lines. Also, if you are looking into the person he went to, did the artist draw the design themselves? What type of design or work do you want done? Is it something small and simple, or is it something larger and more complex? Certain artists also have different specialties.

As far as price and time goes, color takes more time which means it costs more money. I myself am a color man because I have really light skin and the colors hold really well on me.[/quote]

Really apologize that I kinda left this thread die without answering peoples questions. I’ve just been busy with finals and what not. By line work do you mean like borders as opposed to shading? I want a somewhat small but complex tattoo on the back of my arm. Ideally I wanted it to be dead center on the back of my tricep, but the inside of my arm has stretch marks and it would be cutting it close.

It would be mostly back of the arm but some side. The design wouldn’t be too huge. I could toss up a pic if you guys were interested. Its something I came up with myself but I would give it to artist ahead of time and have him give his input.[/quote]

Small but complex are 2 things that don’t mix well in a tattoo. Run it past the artist for his opinion, very important. You can tattoo over stretch marks, again, see what the artist thinks.

The inside of the arm is sensitive, but don’t let that stop you. A relatively small tattoo can be done in one sitting, bigger designs are often broken down into outline-shading and another sitting for the color.

I’m having some work done Friday at a new shop myself.

Rob

Whoever was asking about Boston area- my girl knows a guy that does tats outside of the city by 30min or so. She would only go to him for new ink so her last tattoo we travelled up there. I’ll see what I can get out of her.

I have some old stretch marks on both of my inner arms b/c I got tall so fast. They used to be really red but have now faded and are covered with some hair. I had a german proverb done on the right inner arm and I would say it was a pretty easy sit through. I’ve got that one, a small pec one, and one on the outside of my arm and I will say for some odd reason the outside arm one was the most painful AND it bled like a son-of-a-bitch.

my first tattoo is now 20 years old, its faded as it should but was done by an excellent artist in the area, wnd while faded somewhat still IMO looks good, actually I prefer tattoos when they are aged a bit, I like the look better. I recently (about a year and a half ago) got some work on my stomach and while I like the lettering, it needs to definitley be redone in some areas. Most of my right arm sleeve is relatively old, but I invested the time and money in good artisit and it paid dividens, unlike my stomach work

Oh and slightly off topic, tattoos dont necessarily have to mean anything, sometimes when people go on about their deep meaning of a tattoo it makes me want to vomit. I have a ton of work, some has some meaning and thats cool, some I just like the way it looked and thats fine as well. I guess the one thing you want to avoid is trendy tattoos and not classic styles that are always going to be in the ink genre…

[quote]MattyXL wrote:
Oh and slightly off topic, tattoos dont necessarily have to mean anything, sometimes when people go on about their deep meaning of a tattoo it makes me want to vomit. I have a ton of work, some has some meaning and thats cool, some I just like the way it looked and thats fine as well. I guess the one thing you want to avoid is trendy tattoos and not classic styles that are always going to be in the ink genre…[/quote]

I hear you Matty, that’s why I can’t watch any of the Tattoo reality shows anymore.

My next appointment is in August to fill in the rest of my forearm with another dragon. No deep symbolism, I like dragons, always have.

[quote]coolnatedawg wrote:
Whoever was asking about Boston area- my girl knows a guy that does tats outside of the city by 30min or so. She would only go to him for new ink so her last tattoo we travelled up there. I’ll see what I can get out of her.

I have some old stretch marks on both of my inner arms b/c I got tall so fast. They used to be really red but have now faded and are covered with some hair. I had a german proverb done on the right inner arm and I would say it was a pretty easy sit through. I’ve got that one, a small pec one, and one on the outside of my arm and I will say for some odd reason the outside arm one was the most painful AND it bled like a son-of-a-bitch.[/quote]

Yeah that was me asking about the boston area. If you find out the shop, let me know.

Mine is pretty large and covers about 35-40% of my upper back. It took about 4 hours to complete. Wasn’t that bad, just felt like a nail being dragged across your skin. What really is crazy is you feel like they drew a line all the way down your back and then you look and it’s like an inch or 2 lol

But over the spine was pretty painful for me. Basically, any area with little fat and close to bone will hurt, but unless you have no pain tolerance, it’s really not that bad.

[quote]beachguy498 wrote:

[quote]bulkNcut wrote:

[quote]strungoutboy21 wrote:

[quote]bulkNcut wrote:

[quote]beachguy498 wrote:
How many shops are in your area? Asking people with good tattoos is your best bet. Go to a few shops and ask to see samples of work, most shops have online galleries so you can get an idea of what artist you may like to go with. I feel that you have to be comfortable with the artist too, if I get a bad vibe, I go somewhere else. I’m starting with a new shop in a few weeks and they came highly recommended. I’m having an arm sleeve finished up.

Pain acceptance can vary from person to person, some artists have a heavier hand than others. If the tattoo is relatively small, sitting for an hour or less is easy. I’ve done some 3 and 4 hour sittings lately and anything past 2.5 hours starts to get uncomfortable.

Shops that have a wait indicate that they are in demand, so there may be a wait anywhere from weeks to months… or years with some upscale shops. Never haggle with the artist, but do have an idea what your tattoo will cost up front. Most will give you an upfront price or quote an hourly rate. I always pay by the hour which can be as much as $150 in my area. Again, quality is what you strive for over price.

Rob[/quote]

Thanks a ton, to others who have posted as well. Theres 1 shop 10 minutes from my house and a few others about an hour. I’ve heard mixed reviews about all places. Some say they’re amazing, others say they’re shit. My friend got one at one of the shops and it looks pretty good. Hard to tell though cause its a really simple design. I have friends out in the boston area and will be going to school near there, so if anyone has any recommendations for places out there let me know. Still not sure if I’m def getting it, I’ve been going back and forth for a year. [/quote]
How does your friends line work on his tattoo look? The line work is the basis for all the tattoos. You got to have someone who does clean lines. Also, if you are looking into the person he went to, did the artist draw the design themselves? What type of design or work do you want done? Is it something small and simple, or is it something larger and more complex? Certain artists also have different specialties.

As far as price and time goes, color takes more time which means it costs more money. I myself am a color man because I have really light skin and the colors hold really well on me.[/quote]

Really apologize that I kinda left this thread die without answering peoples questions. I’ve just been busy with finals and what not. By line work do you mean like borders as opposed to shading? I want a somewhat small but complex tattoo on the back of my arm. Ideally I wanted it to be dead center on the back of my tricep, but the inside of my arm has stretch marks and it would be cutting it close.

It would be mostly back of the arm but some side. The design wouldn’t be too huge. I could toss up a pic if you guys were interested. Its something I came up with myself but I would give it to artist ahead of time and have him give his input.[/quote]

Small but complex are 2 things that don’t mix well in a tattoo. Run it past the artist for his opinion, very important. You can tattoo over stretch marks, again, see what the artist thinks.

The inside of the arm is sensitive, but don’t let that stop you. A relatively small tattoo can be done in one sitting, bigger designs are often broken down into outline-shading and another sitting for the color.

I’m having some work done Friday at a new shop myself.

Rob[/quote]

By small I mean just not like a flu sleeve or huge tattoo. Its not tiny, length wise prlly about 5 inches or so

[quote]bond james bond wrote:

[quote]MattyXL wrote:
Oh and slightly off topic, tattoos dont necessarily have to mean anything, sometimes when people go on about their deep meaning of a tattoo it makes me want to vomit. I have a ton of work, some has some meaning and thats cool, some I just like the way it looked and thats fine as well. I guess the one thing you want to avoid is trendy tattoos and not classic styles that are always going to be in the ink genre…[/quote]

I hear you Matty, that’s why I can’t watch any of the Tattoo reality shows anymore.

My next appointment is in August to fill in the rest of my forearm with another dragon. No deep symbolism, I like dragons, always have.[/quote]

Kind of like why I have my dogs tattooed on me, cuz I like them. lol

[quote]ZJStrope wrote:
Mine is pretty large and covers about 35-40% of my upper back. It took about 4 hours to complete. Wasn’t that bad, just felt like a nail being dragged across your skin. What really is crazy is you feel like they drew a line all the way down your back and then you look and it’s like an inch or 2 lol

But over the spine was pretty painful for me. Basically, any area with little fat and close to bone will hurt, but unless you have no pain tolerance, it’s really not that bad.[/quote]
It covers that much of your back and it only took four hours!?! There is no way that can be right unless the artist you went to works super super fast.

[quote]MattyXL wrote:
Oh and slightly off topic, tattoos dont necessarily have to mean anything, sometimes when people go on about their deep meaning of a tattoo it makes me want to vomit. I have a ton of work, some has some meaning and thats cool, some I just like the way it looked and thats fine as well. I guess the one thing you want to avoid is trendy tattoos and not classic styles that are always going to be in the ink genre…[/quote]
Very true. Nothing wrong with having some good art on your body that is there because you think it looks good.

[quote]strungoutboy21 wrote:

[quote]ZJStrope wrote:
Mine is pretty large and covers about 35-40% of my upper back. It took about 4 hours to complete. Wasn’t that bad, just felt like a nail being dragged across your skin. What really is crazy is you feel like they drew a line all the way down your back and then you look and it’s like an inch or 2 lol

But over the spine was pretty painful for me. Basically, any area with little fat and close to bone will hurt, but unless you have no pain tolerance, it’s really not that bad.[/quote]
It covers that much of your back and it only took four hours!?! There is no way that can be right unless the artist you went to works super super fast.[/quote]

It’s not colored in like a full sleeve or anything. And maybe my percentage is off by 5-10%? I dunno? It’s big and goes down my spine from near my neck to the middle of back and goes over to my scapulae. It’s a phoenix.

Outline looks something like this:like this:

EDIT: Ok, I tried to do a rough outline but what I write in the edit box doesn’t equate to what shows.

[quote]ZJStrope wrote:
What really is crazy is you feel like they drew a line all the way down your back and then you look and it’s like an inch or 2 lol
[/quote]

Lol, so true. Every time I’m like, dafuq is this guy drawing…

I found the instagram page of the artist my friend went to. His stuff seems pretty awesome to me. Idk if any of you guys have instagram or not, but if you do ill post his name on there so you can tell me if its good stuff.

@USMC- haha I was going through that guys art work and saw that he did a damn good looking clap trap (from borderlands) on some guy. Not something i would get, but it was pretty cool.

I got work done yesterday and my artist has been using this type of film stuff to put over the tattoo for the first day. I guess they use it for burn victims and it helps the skin heal really fast. He said his clients have been healing super fast with no problems at all. I had it on for the first day and it worked really good. I just changed it out and dabbed off the excess blood sitting in there. So far so good.

Don’t go by the stuff on websites. Check out the Facebook page, make sure there’s lots of frequent posts and lots of follow up comments.

For a first time, avoid the ribs/side of the body, inner thigh. Face, hands, neck should go with out saying (plus lower back, belly button, genitalia if male).

Don’t get an owl, infinity or any of that shit.

[quote]tsantos wrote:
Don’t go by the stuff on websites. Check out the Facebook page, make sure there’s lots of frequent posts and lots of follow up comments.

For a first time, avoid the ribs/side of the body, inner thigh. Face, hands, neck should go with out saying (plus lower back, belly button, genitalia if male).

Don’t get an owl, infinity or any of that shit.[/quote]

Great advice. I drew up my design and I’ll post it if you guys are interested and what it means. Haha as long as MattyXL doesn’t make fun of my emotional meaning behind it :wink:

[quote]strungoutboy21 wrote:
I got work done yesterday and my artist has been using this type of film stuff to put over the tattoo for the first day. I guess they use it for burn victims and it helps the skin heal really fast. He said his clients have been healing super fast with no problems at all. I had it on for the first day and it worked really good. I just changed it out and dabbed off the excess blood sitting in there. So far so good.[/quote]

That sounds pretty cool. wonder if i could use that to heal my wound haha…