therockingchairyears

With my first tattoo it was with an artist that wasnt in my area, so everything was done through emails. He was very straight forward, said he charged $150 per hour, expected it would take about 4 hours for the initial sitting. He warned me though that if I was the sort who needed a lot of breaks or anything, then that would obviously take longer and cost more. It ended up being the exact time that he quoted, so it was the exact price he quoted. With my second/third tattoos, the artist was in my town and wasnt as precise, and she basically said "it wont be more than 5 hours" and said she charged $150 for the first hour and $100 for the subsequent hours. So I brought enough for 5 hours and ended up paying less. I wouldnt go to an artist who didnt at least give me a maximum. And if they tried to go above that on the day I just wouldnt go through with it.

I never really wanted to be one of those people who had just random tattoos over my body, but I also am not the sort who is looking for full sleeves or a body suit or anything, so its tough I like to place my tattoos in places where I can show them if I want to, and cover them when I want to as well. If/when I get more I'll have to think about placement a lot because I do want them to look planned.

I have been having issues with this with my most recent tattoos. I keep thinking like, they arent exactly what I wanted, are they a stupid idea? I shouldnt have ever done this, now I'm stuck with them forever. But then the other part of me thinks they're awesome and I'm glad I did them. I dont know what my deal is. I think another thing thats causing me difficulty is like, my artist for this one is pretty active on Instagram, and yet she hasnt posted my tattoos even though I know she took pictures of them. Then it makes me worry like, is SHE not happy with how they turned out? Its giving me needless worry lol My first tattoo I was completely in love with after it was done, and these ones I'm kind of split about.

Are you trying to cover the roses as well?

I second Descendent. I personally would get a tattoo of something that represents my kid as opposed to just text with a random image. Both of my sisters have tattoos of my nieces/nephews names and they're awful. Might be an unpopular opinion but I've never seen a name tattoo that made me go "Wow thats awesome"

I have what I like to call my "dead arm." Nurses have the most difficult time drawing blood, taking blood pressure or even finding my pulse in that arm. Everyone thinks they'll be the one who can do it though, and so that arm has been bruised time and time again due to "fishing." And thats on a non tattooed arm! Echoing what others have said, I think it really depends on the skill of whoever is doing the job. Them not being able to find your vein isn't because they don't know what they're doing, its because you have tattoos! Or whatever else will shift the blame back to you and off of them.

Hello everyone, I am new to this site but not totally new to tattooing. I used to spend a lot of time on BME when I was a teen and got my first tattoo at 22. I recently at 29 got my 2nd and 3rd tattoos, though I might just consider them my second since they go together. While I love tattooing and would like to get more tattoos, I consider myself to be very indecisive and so I have to mull over tattoo ideas for a long time before committing to one. I joined the forum here because there seems to be a lot of intelligent discussion regarding tattoos and tattooing, and I like that the focus here seems to be on quality tattooing. I hope to learn more than I currently know, maybe get some advice, and hopefully contribute to the great discussion here. Because I take so long between tattoos I feel like things have changed so much between them! Or maybe things have stayed the same and its just the difference between artists lol. Thanks for reading!