Hello all. New to the forum. Figured I would add my two cents. I have three quarter sleeves on both arms. My first tattoo ever was a half sleeve Kintaro done by Jason Lambert of Black Cat Tattoo in Pittsburgh. The sleeve was finished on the one side and the other side was done by Robert Atkinson here in LA. Robert is an overall awesome guy and a great artist. I consider him a friend and am glad to know him. Granted I just have an n of 2, but Robert IMHO is one the best tattoo artists around. I decided to bite the bullet and Robert just started lining my back. I'm doing one of the Horiyoshi 108 heroes, Kaosho Roshishin. Compared to my arms the discomfort at times was more intense, particularly around the love handles, shoulder blades, and top of the buttock. But nothing too bad. To be honestly I thought my elbows were the worst, so the flank wasn't as bad as that for me. Robert is pretty fast, we lined this in about 3 hours. Will go back to add a snake and some peonies to finish the lines and then move to shading. I'm stoked so far.
Robert's sleeve is on the right, and Jason's is on the left. Once we do the background we'll even those out and I'll ask Robert to shade the negative space under my pit on the left