Vinnie

I was very worried about this as well. I usually get light headed when i donate blood or watch people stick me in the arm. I told my artist and his wife was on the same page as me, but they assured me tattooing was a different story. they were completely right and i've never had an issue. I've developed a lil ritual for my 4 hour drive to my artist on the day of my day. 1.It all starts the day before... no alcohol, tons of water, and try as best I can to get a decent nights sleep. (usually 6 hours for me) 2. I've never been big on breakfast but i try to get something substantial in my stomach, sometimes just beef jerky. 3. on the drive up i sip on a bottle of mountain dew and snack on sour patch/jolly ranchers and gardettos. carbs and sugars. I also drink about a liter of water in the car... pee breaks are your friend. 4. during the tattoo i suck on jolly ranchers as i find it easier than constantly reaching into a bag of candy to eat sour patch, skittles, or whatever. 5. during breaks I'll down some more gardettos and chug tons of water. i am always slow to stand up because laying down and putting your body in shock for however long, always takes a toll on the CNS 6. after all is said and done, I take a deep breathe and sit up for a few minutes, then stand, then more water. 7. walk across the street and order a double double and animal fry from In-N-Out. but for real, if you managed the urge on your first tattoo, especially a 6 hour one, i think you'll be fine from here on out. If you do get the urge again, sit down as soon as you can! Good luck! :)

I'd either: A. keep the tattoo and have it as a reminder of that time in your life and hopefully your buddy becomes an awesome artist, and you'll always be there to humble him. B. Go full blackout on that area, and do a scarification method where you want a different color. Depending on how your skin scars, it would range from reddish to skin tone. there are some awesome scarification artists out there.

yaaaa good to have more tattooed engineers! hahah luckily my company doesn't mind the ink :) what kind of engineer are you? I studied mechanical but am currently working in aerospace, designing satellites/3D printing titanium. There are several biomech artists that i really love... it's never been my style of choice, but you can't argue with great work. Where are you located? prowl around the forums for some great information.

thanks for the positive feedback! :)

first time posting a picture on here... here is after today's session. we added more background around the elbow, and colored in the leaves. edit: looks like i need to learn how to resize... right click and open in new tab works!

thanks for the calming words @bongsau ! another thing to note, when i went back to Chicago for a long weekend, all the bumps disappeared. back in LA, they popped up again. Just ANOTHER reason I'm moving back to good old Chicago :):) I'll be sure to post some pictures after my session this Saturday.

wonderful to have you and welcome! i think you'll find most of the people here share your sentiment. make sure to update us!

Thanks @oboogie! I'm hoping I'm overreacting, it's just weird to me that they appear on the old tattoo, not the fresh one. I'm going in this Saturday for work on my inner bicep, the last piece to the full sleeve. Once it's complete I'll be sure to post pictures :)

search the style "trash polka" i think that's what you're after. also check out "trashpolkaofficial" on instagram for some more of that style.

First off let me say that i love this site, it's so useful! I live in SoCal, Hermosa Beach, right now after moving from Chicago two years ago. I've always wanted a tattoo and finally found the perfect artist who's only 4 hours away haha. Well we started my sleeve in September 2015, first two sessions, the top half, healed great! aquaphor for a week, dr. bronner's peppermint soap, and normal lotion after that week. the top half has color but nothing bright... browns grey blues a lil dark yellow next up was a piece on the outside of my forearm. i had what i thought was an ingrown hair going into the tattoo that i took a knife and nail clippers too... still not sure what it was, but i definitely made it scar up. we did the shading and lining in the same session. there is green/blue , red, and yellow, and the black lining with greywash. this healed fine with a couple minor white heads that i thought to be normal. after two months, we started on the inside of my forearm. while this was healing i developed a rash on the other piece (outside of forearm). i thought this was very strange. basically it would start as red circles and then swell up resembling in grown hairs/pimples. my artist thought i was using too much aquaphor and recommended hustle butter... no results. I was getting so worked up i went to a dermatologist. He talked to me for two minutes and told me i was allergic to the ink. now these red bumps were mostly in areas without ink, just surrounding the tattoo. after a while they were scattered. some on the line work, some in the color, some in grey shading...the only thing they all had in common was they were located at the base of the hair follicle. he gave me some triamcinolone acetone to put on the bumps that seems to help a bit. after most had cleared up it was time for my next session, on april 13 2016. we did all the coloring of the piece before, same colors as the top portion of my sleeve that healed fine, and the bumps are back. They've resurfaced on the old tattoo on the back of my forearm that is 3 months healed. please tell me this is just a reaction to the trauma of getting tattooed or something not serious. EDIT: I will post pictures in a different thread once i can. I don't want to put a bad stigma with my artist as i don't feel this is his fault. TLDR: rash appears a few days after getting tattooed. rash appears on a previously healed tattooed, each time i get a new tattoo. raised red bumps/pimples at base of hair follicles. thanks for any input and sorry for the novel, just got back form work where i can't access this website. Vinnie