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I recently traveled 5,000 miles to get my first tattoo– a full sleeve done in just 5 days. I made a blog to chronicle my journey and share some real first-hand advice. Everything you need to know about my experience, my artists, as well as some gnarly pics of what its really like to tattoo for 24 hours. Click here to read my story! Xo Claudia

Got my first tattoo about a month ago, everything seems to be healing well, and of course I've got a million plans for future tattoos. I've been lurking at LST for a little over a month, and just wanted to say thanks for all the advice in the old threads. I'm the kind of person who needs to obsessively research things before I do them I order to feel comfortable in a new situation, and this forum is the best thing I found to get an idea of what I was going into. Story: showed up to my session, I'd sent the artist a couple of reference pics, but had no idea what he'd come up with. All I knew is that I wanted an ankh with an overlaid eye of Horus, and if he could also possibly work in some mandala design. So he showed me the outline he came up with, and while I absolutely loved it, the size was a little bigger than I expected, and I waffled a minute. But I remembered all threads at LST I'd read with experienced people saying "go big or go home" and "thou shalt trust thy tattoo artist if you want their best work" - so I let him pick the right size and placement, and two hours later I had my lovely tattoo! So anyway, that's me, looking forward to participating a bit more now that I know it's definitely a thing I want to do more of. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

some of you may have seen this already on my IG ... but here ya go. Psych Tiger Head made by OllieXXX in 2012

So for April Fools Day I made a facebook post "looking for laser removal recommendations. I have enough business to put somebody's kid through college. I'm tired of looking like Walt Disney threw up on me. Time to grow up and look more professional." My father texts me 10 minutes later saying if you are looking for a laser removal specialist to get in touch with him asap and he will connect me with someone who does that. LIKE, TELL ME HOW YOU REALLY FEEL DAD LOL ...aaand the next day I win a contest at the tattoo convention. oh geez

That's been one of the factors holding me back for years, but I recently joined a Facebook group of about 20k ladies with Fibro and there were a lot of positive experiences, far more than anyone reporting issues, as long as they weren't already in a flare. The endorphin rush is great actually, and because my body is always in some kind of pain or other, it's pretty cathartic to know that I chose the pain this time, and something good will come from it - instead of what seems like a never-ending slog of non-rewarding pain that's my normal life. I actually chose the forearm because I wanted to always be able to see something I like and chose for my body. My fibro (and the other associated issues) dictates a lot about my life, from what I can wear, how I can wear my hair, what jewelry I can wear, so many things. In the last six months, things have gone pretty badly health-wise, and feeling like there's something I chose has been nice. The symbology is Egyptian and stands for life, health, and strength. Egyptian because my husband loves ancient Egypt stuff. (When he gets his tattoo, it'll be king Tutankhamen's cartouche) So basically I chose something that's the equivalent of those hipster "strength" tattoos - just more badass :cool: Anyway, this reply was mostly to say that there's a lot of us in the Fibromyalgia community that have had success with tattoos and other body modification, if doc clears it. Good luck to her, chronic pain of any type is tough. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Got a few more pieces from Tato Toby at Thank You Tattoo in Copenhagen today. He did the rose and the butterfly-demon today, and the smoking heart and the small fly about a month ago. Lately I've been really drawn to these more loose, folk-ish styles of traditional tattooing. I'm not 100% sure what it is exactly, that does it for me, they just seem to possess some sort of hard-to-pinpoint naivety and sense of mystery and magic, that's really cool to me. For these, I really like the use of blank space in both the rose and the butterfly - although I do realise, that I'm probably gonna get asked "when are you gonna get those finished?" more than once... Photo borrowed from Toby's Instagram (@tatotoby).

haha I sure did ! part of our responsibility as tattooed peoples to put the fun back in tattooing. people take this thing and themselves way to seriously. the fun part was dropping trough on the stage and flexing (sticking out my belly) with the crowd whistling. then telling the judges how I'm still sour and felt robbed my bumblebee didn't win best smallest colour last year lol

That looks great! Welcome to the club!

Good story, good looking tattoo. Who did it? Welcome to LST!

Nice. Welcome!

The Edmonton tattoo convention was this weekend. Popped in on Sunday afternoon and won the "neo traditional" contest for my OllieXXX tiger head LOL #maketattoofunagain

So I told my parents yesterday about my tattoo plans... bearing in mind I'm 42 years old. My mum: "oh dear, but you won't be able to wear vest tops and stuff in the summer then?" Me: "errrr, no? What?" She genuinely thought I was going to go through all that and NOT show it off? Mad woman!

Great story and insight into why you chose the design - and lovely work. Welcome to the forum!!

My wife has fibromyalgia and is afraid to get tattooed.Dont know what will happen.

Thanks! I live in Las Vegas, so there's a lot of good choices (as long as you stay off strip, the prices won't kill you), this time around I went to Studio 21. They came highly recommended by a former coworker who was a regular, and also they have phenomenal Yelp ratings. My artist was Das Frank, he was great. When my husband gets doctors clearance to get a matching piece, will be calling back! Me, we will see...I've got an existing appointment late in May at another studio, but it was a really informal consult with the artist and she hasn't confirmed it other than an email that she got my reference material email, no deposit. The tattoo I ended up getting first was what I'd planned as a second piece originally, but got impatient once I had made up my mind to get a tattoo. Ended up working out fine because this is the one with actual meaning, the first was intended to just be a trial run experiment with flowers or mandala type thing. I have Fibromyalgia and some other chronic pain issues that limit what I can do physically and I often don't know from day to day how I'll feel, so the first was just going to be an experiment to see how my body healed. So, if she confirms, great - I love her work, but I've popped the cherry (so to speak :D) so I'm not crawling the walls with impatience anymore either! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Welcome!!

I've had a couple of tattoos heal badly, including a black and gray one. I don't think it is infected yet. If it oozes pus or a red circle starts emanating from it and keeps getting bigger, I'd see a doctor. As it is, I'd just keep your hands off it and don't pick. You will probably have to get it touched up, however, once it is fully healed. That's what I had to do with the black and gray bird on my leg after it did exactly what yours did. I've only had one tattoo actually get infected, and that's because my skin just rejected the main color in it completely. I got an antibiotic shot in the ass, and I eventually healed. It had to be totally recolored, however, because the color actually FELL OUT. Completely. My artist was baffled, but he used a slightly different color, and it was fine.

I guess this theme will have more success! Here's my hannya by Alix Gé

I'll repeat my old story that wasn't posted on this thread..... In May 2014, I got my first tattoo. Though I've been into art for years, tattoos have been something I've been into since my teens. I was always hesitant because I didn't want to live with that "regretful" tattoo mixed with not being able to afford a good artist. I began my diet at 360 pounds, I kept saying to myself I'm going to get a tattoo when I lost 25 pounds. I got past 25 pounds then bumped it up to 50 pounds. Past that mark then 100 pounds. Past that and finally said when I lost 125 pounds I'm going to get a tattoo. FINALLY I got up to 128 pounds lost. I decided that's it I'm doing it. Being a fan of Luke Wessman's artwork and life story since about July of 2013. I needed him to do my first tattoo. Went to Wooster Street Social Club the day the doctor confirmed my weight loss. He took me as a walk-in. Having his talent, great back story and awesome conversation only fueled the fire of getting more tattoos. After having another 3 sessions with Luke, I went nuts and began getting tattooed by a few others: Timothy Hoyer, Mark Mahoney, Chris Garver (3x), Deno, Steve Wimmer and Rich Pineda. First Tattoo (sorry for big pic)

I went all out and got a full sleeve as my first tattoo. I knew I was going to go all the way to my wrist eventually, I had the money, and the results turned out better because of it!

So I have been away for over a week on vacation, no internet. Logged on today, saw that there was a bunch of posts in this thread, and started to catch up. Got halfway through @mmikaoj 's post and decided to leave it until tonight after my son's soccer practice. While there I was talking to my buddy's wife, who apparently hasn't seen me in shorts since December. So I proceeded to answer just about every single question on here - pain, cost, meaning, where, why, etc., etc. Started out like this: Her- "Whoa, when did you get that?!? Me - "December" Her- "What's the meaning??" Me - "It means I have an awesome panther on my leg. With a sword. And some roses." Her - "Oh, three roses! For your wife and two kids. Me - "Uh....OK" I felt like the conversation was happening because of this thread.