ItchinforInk

I kept it for two years before i started lasering it. It wasnt amateur work by any means but i like a good overall flow and for the sleeve to look great at oany angle. Unfortunately it only flowed right if my arm was placed by my side.

Being new to the tattoo world, I read dumb opinion articles on getting the best tattoo rather than going on a forum and reading personal experiences. A lot of articles advocated letting the artist do his thing and just give general ideas. I did that and he drew up some stuff. My reference picture was a sleeve that had tattoo built on tattoo with little negative space and clouds were fillers. He advised me to just put two big tattoos and then fill the negative space with clouds. I didn't argue because of those dumb articles always telling me to do what the artist says or you'll get a bad tattoo. When he applied the stencil and asked me how it looked, It actually looked ok. Then he started to freehand the filler and it started to turn to shit. Rather than feeling like I wasted $50 for the deposit, I went along with it. Now I know that $50 isn't shit for something permanent. It was a hard lesson.

Dannii Garbiras Here's a pic of the tattoo he did on my thigh. Crazy that hes only 20. He also has a really light hand and good technique. This one healed perfectly.

It kind of looks like he gave you an option to build a sleeve underneath that. Seems like an ideal placement to put more tattoos underneath it.

What's worst is that he actually had some really cool looking sleeves in his portfolio. For the longest time I never knew why I had to get the shit sleeve out of all of them. Which is why I'm now the guy that comes in with a ton of references because he had me convinced that I was the one that didn't give enough information.

This is a double edged sword it seems like. For my first sleeve, I was advised by friends with great sleeves to let the artist do their thing after you give them the idea. I gave some broad general ideas and told him to just try to create a sleeve with a good flow that moves with my arm. He ended up just putting two flash tattoos that cover my entire outer and inner forearm and then he just put clouds behind it. For the longest he kept telling me its because I just need more tattoos near it to look good but I added more and it didn't. Now I have to undergo tattoo removal to fix my sleeve. It was a huge waste of money.

well i mean color wise, i get pretty depressed over color because its hard to adjust to seeing everyday. i only get withdrawals when I get a tattoo that feels naked because theres nothing else around it.

^ I think being really careful with planning your tattoos will end up making your overall look that much better. I've been seeing a lot of girls with really well planned out sleeves and other individual tattoos and it makes their overall look that much sexier.

I seem to only get post tattoo blues right after I get color or if the placement is bad and I have to find ways to fill awkward spaces between tattoos.

Thanks for responding Mike! Always interested in hearing your feedback. I'm currently undergoing laser treatment via picosure at clean slate ny. There aren't any picoway's around the area yet so this is my only option currently. You're right about the inconsistent results. I am two treatments in for a forearm sleeve and have seen my sleeve lighten up a lot but I am not seeing results like everyone else who has had picosure. Albeit my sleeve is only a few months old and all of the ink is still very dark and saturated. Blues and Greens were the first to go but they aren't completely gone (they have turned a very faded grayish olive color). I haven't seen much ink breaking up but everything is getting lighter as a whole. I hope I can achieve complete removal.

So now that the picoway is here and operates at those wavelengths, will you be purchasing it? I read it just got FDA approved.

Thats really cool man. Did you give him a specific captain america for reference? I plan on using comic references for faces for my tattoos. Notably artworks from David Finch and Jason Fabok.

that is a sweet cover up man. Who's the artist??

Thanks @Mike Panic, you're right its not what I want to hear but its a realistic answer. I've been fed a lot of marketed type answers promising me this and that with this amount of treatments but I always see mixed stories of people who get great results and people who don't see any. I also rarely see anyone try to remove heavily saturated traditional work (My sleeve is heavily saturated with a multitude of colors) so I really don't know what to expect and it makes me extremely anxious. Just trying to stay hopeful until December 12th!

Hey Mike, Does it help you at all as a laser technician if you know what type of ink is used prior to getting treatment? I'm looking to get my half sleeve removed for some new tattoos and I made sure to keep an eye on the ink that was used. "Old Gold Small Batch" was the ink used from beginning to end on my half sleeve. From what is made available publicly, the ingredients look like this. Made with some or all of the following ingredients: Powder pigment Distilled water Glycerin Witch hazel Ketel One vodka I'll never know where or not theres metals in the pigment but it seems pretty natural I think. What do you think?