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I have a gigantic portion of my body covered by Scott Sylvia, and I can't recommend him and the crew at Black Heart enough. He is a legend in the game for good reason - a hell of a tattooer for 30+ years, fast as they come, and a great guy. Plus he started this website. Idle Hand is a killer shop in SF as well. Temple Tattoo is a bay area institution and worth looking into the guys there. FTW in Oakland is a strong shop too. A lot of the Spider Murphy's folks have moved and opened Shangri La. Both of those shops are pumping out killer work. Long story short, there are plenty of places to look in SF/Oakland/Bay Area, and that's just traditional.

It's really just semantics. What is it that you want to do? I'm usual pretty careful for a week, then cocoa butter and it's on its own. I wouldn't go into a gym with it uncovered, but I'd go into a gym if I covered it up 4 days out.

If you REALLLLY want to get tattooed by an artist, the time and money will be worth the wait. Plenty of people on this site have waited for artists they love, myself included. That said, that's a long time to wait when you do have pretty strong options in both Sacramento (Britton at Royal Peacock does great work!) and a reasonable drive to SF/Oakland with plenty of killer artists doing traditional work.

There are errors on all tattoos. Yours looks great just remember the artist is drawing(tracing) on your skin. the transfer could slide a little bit or if your arm is slightly twisted when the transfer is being placed. If you can find any perfect straight lines or perfect symmetry on any tattoos let the rest of us know. The key is getting a very detailed piece. The more details the harder it is to notice any imperfections with a very few exceptions. Your tat looks great. Don’t scrutinize it. That’s a slap in the face to the artist. Honestly I don’t even see what issues you are trying to point out.