Ebolarama

Whoa, I got my first piercing at Dandyland about 14 years ago, I live right by that place, knew they had a good reputation but didn't know they had artists specializing in realistic style

Definitely going to look into Thomas Hooper, I'm in San Antonio so not too far from Austin. Thanks for all the info, really appreciate it.

Thanks for the input Seesea, That's one of the things I'm still going back and forth on. Like, do I really want a constant reminder of this illness I've had? On the other hand I've always been one to hate showing weakness, so I hid how bad I was suffering from so many people to the point it ruined relationships etc. Getting it on me is almost of way of just saying "hey look, this is me, this is something I battle with, I'm not ashamed". But I do see your point and am keeping it in mind. Cork, Well I might as well make a bad first impression and admit I think tribal tattoos look ridiculously awesome, that's probably what I would have gotten years ago but man I don't know, just the whole stigma behind them gets to me. Maybe if I could find someone to do something tribal but with some kind of different flare to it I would go for it. I also love clocks too, aside from any relevance, i just think they make cool looking sleeve/half-sleeve pieces.

Hi, young(ish) male from TX, trying to keep anonymous and new to the art, have no tats. Been an admirer of tattoos for years but I never really had anything too meaningful to get so as much as I wanted one I wanted to wait. I'm not very artistic so it's been difficult for me to come up with anything but lately I've had a lot of random ideas coming together, I was hoping somewhere here could maybe jog my brain a bit. A bit of backstory. I was born with anxiety/panic disorder.... as strange as that sounds, I seem to have had it since I was a toddler. It got progressively worse and then in my early 20's just became unbearable and I actually had to go on disability for some time. I'm still not well, but I've learned to live with it and have learned to "live with the monster". This has been a huge part of my life, though negative I also feel I've learned a lot about perseverance and also about my own character.... I used to have bad anger issues, I used to be a control-freak, I feel a lot of those traits contributed to my panic attacks and in a way it's all helped me sort a lot of bad habits/personality traits out. During these years I felt like I was literally doing time.... like time around me was just passing by and i was chained up, it was a feeling of helplessness and despair. I saw some artwork a few years back of a clock disintegrating, which I thought was really cool because it really connected with the way I felt. I've thought of making the main piece an old, degrading clock with pieces chipping off.... I've thought of maybe putting frayed ropes around it representing my slowly trying to break free and maybe chains around the top representing years back when breaking free was not even an option.... sort of representing the progress I've made, from unbreakable chains to ropes that can be torn. I'm really into gray wash with a lot of shadow, placement would likely be shoulder down to elbow. Thanks for having me and reading my long post lol. If anyone has any ideas I'm all ears, if my idea seems silly I'm also very open to criticism.