What to do

[Shumateb]

Hi,

13 years ago my brother and I got each other's names in Japanese tattooed on our forearm. Mine is pretty bad as I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. It's flat, blown out, and the lines are bad.

My sister and I have an appointment on Monday to do the same thing except hopefully get great tattoos. My plan originally was to get her name in Japanese to the left of my first one, so that they are symmetrical on my forearm. My question is, should I go with my plan, and just be cool with having a bad tattoo, or should I do both on my other arm in good style with a good artist, and cover up the one I have now? Could a good artist rework the one I have now or would it just need to be totally covered up? Also, if I do my sisters name next to my brothers, will it be hard to work those into a Japanese sleeve? My plan was to do a Japanese sleeve on my left arm and a traditional sleeve on my right. Any help and perspective is greatly appreciated!

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[Tornado7]

Leave your brother's alone. The memory is more important than the tattoo.

[PinkUnicorn]

Why in Japanese?

BTW, presumably you realize you posted the photo with the characters upside down?

My katakana reading is very rusty and I'm having trouble reading the first character of the name. [...Ah, I see it's a "pu"]

Edited January 15, 2017 by PinkUnicorn

[Shumateb]

Tornado, I completely agree, and that is what I'm going to do. I got the tattoo just before my brother and I played a show in NYC at the Knitting Factory. It was an amazing day and a great show! I'm going to get my sisters next to it as planned, and work a Japanese sleeve around it later.

Pink Unicorn, it is Katakana, and yeah it's upside down in the picture. In English the name is Bryce, but in Katakana it is pronounced Buraisu. The website that my brother used to translate our names had two versions, and my we liked the font on this one. Attached are the two versions, and even though I've had Japanese people read it correctly, I believe that the second one is more correct. We did sibling tattoos in Japanese because our grandmother is 100% Okinawan, and we really identify with that aspect of our heritage. For this tattoo I was young, dumb, and just trusted my brother's judgment in choosing the text. I still love it though!

Thanks for the replies guys!




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[PinkUnicorn]

47 minutes ago, Shumateb said:

Pink Unicorn, it is Katakana, and yeah it's upside down in the picture. In English the name is Bryce, but in Katakana it is pronounced Buraisu. The website that my brother used to translate our names had two versions, and my we liked the font on this one. 

Ah, OK, thanks. Because the lines were indistinct I thought it might be "Pryce" (or Price).

Personally, I'd suggest doing something graphic rather than text (even in katakana).