Cool Introduction and Seeking help! Please help?

[Nazara]

Hey guys, Nice you meet you as far as introductions go, My name is Travis, 22 years old stuck in limbo at the moment, I am assisting my grandfather at home(home care 7 days a week) and I am trying to work out to get into school. I am doing odd and end jobs to make ends meet (I live with my grandfather not live off him) I used raise serpents,larger pythons and boas, BCC's,Retics,Burms, my largest was 22 feet. I still have some animals just one big snake(well a baby I am going to grow up). I have taken martial arts for 8 years(TKD) I quit then re joined recently only to quit again, just too expensive right now, I am a second degree (L2) black belt. I consider myself a Interfaith spiritualist (I believe all religions can correlate and mix) Though I am mainly Buddhist(asides being Bi-polar and oxy moron huh?). I really love animals and I never give up on people, their really is great people out there, along with some bad. I love the Mass effect series(video game) I love horror movies too. I am an amateur costume prop builder. I also love plants as well(house plants LOL). I figured this is a good first post.

So for the help I am seeking, I got my first tattoo 4/5 days ago. I have been doing what my artist said. I rinsed it gently off that night, the next day I cleaned the plasma and excess ink off. I have been using a thin amount of A & D I recently switched over to fragrance free Curel. It took about 6 hours to do this tattoo, he took his time on shading and doing it right and safe, great artist,nice guy. The tattoo did hurt,no need in lying lol. I noticed about 3 days afterwards it was scabbing up, really mainly on the head of the dragon. That is where he worked the hardest on detailing and shading, it took hours on that alone. I am not sure why it is scabbing I may have let the plasma sit too long before cleaning? I don't touch nor pick at them(scabs). Just apply curel now when it feels like it is drying out. The tail of the dragon all the way up my shoulder is healing very well. I noticed the scabs are separating(kinda like a broken plate) What do you guys recommend and do you think it will heal ok? Does it look normal?

[SeeSea]

Welcome! Looks cool. Don't worry about the scabs. I get them too in the areas where he really works the detail - often in the faces like this. Likely you didn't do anything wrong, although getting that first cleaning or so done well is important. Just keep using the moisturizer if that's what he told you to do. Be careful about not getting the scabs snagged on your shirt and not rubbing too hard when you put on the moisturizer. My scabs take a little longer to fall off, so just wait them out. If a little color comes out, your tattooer should do touchups, so no worries!

[Edited to add] Some scabs can take up to a couple weeks in my experience, so don't freak out if you have some that just seem to linger.

[marley mission]

like the tattoo - i usually scab a bit myself

everyone is different with healing advice

what works for me is keeping it clean and dry

that said

i dont do much after first 3 days or so in terms of ointments

leave it be and expect in a month or so to see what its really gonna look like

anyway - just my opinions here

enjoy it ... and plan your next ;)