Synesthesia

So I'm not exactly the most socially adept person even in the best circumstances, and certainly not when it comes to tattoos or delicate scenarios...looking for feedback on this idea. I was working on a leg sleeve with Jason Reeder, when he unexpectedly passed away before its completion. Because he's the only guy I ever had in mind to do it for me (and I had so many more things I wanted him to do for me), I feel like it would be disrespectful to have someone else finish it, so I'm stopping it where it is. Maybe someday I'll have it finished, but for now, it's just too hard to think of anyone else working on what I considered "his," I gave him a lot of freedom with it. I'm pretty bummed about the whole thing and have taken myself out of the tattoo game for a while so I can get my head straight. The saddest thing about all this is Jason's wife recently started piercing at the same shop he worked in, and I always intended on seeing her to get some work done also. I still would someday when I'm in a better state of mind, and part of me thinks it might be a nice gesture to be like "Hey, Jason did this for me, I thought you might like to see it in person" and show her my tattoos. He was really proud of what he had done for me and talked about how his wife thought it was a great project too. I think it might bring her some joy to see his work in person and know how much I appreciated what he had done for me. But I also don't know this woman at all, and I'm afraid it might come off creepy at best and painful at worst. Honestly, I want a little bit of closure myself and I'm worried this is a selfish way to go about it. :(

I never said the shop or artist was bad (could have been better, but I picked what I picked). But the guy barely spoke to me before, during, or after my tattoo. I'm pretty sure the only things he said to me when I sat down in the chair were "Keep your leg like this" and "Check it out" when he was done. And it's not that he doesn't talk while he works...he talked to everyone else in the shop but me. He was laughing and joking with every other artist and client in there, but just seemed to ignore me. I'm sure they all were judging me for being an 18 year old girl getting a foot tattoo, but that doesn't mean he should get to be a dick without even talking to me first.

I've been fortunate enough to have pretty good experiences with all tattooers/piercers I've been to. The only time I felt uncomfortable was during my first tattoo. It was only about 20 minutes, but the guy I went to didn't say anything to me during the entire procedure and I just felt like he was rushing through it all. I made an appointment with him, but he treated the whole thing like a walk-in...quick and rushed stencil, just powered through the tattoo. It wouldn't have been so bad if I had more tattoo experience, but I was nervous enough getting my first one, and then the stuff he was doing made me feel like I was annoying him or doing something wrong. It was a weird experience.

My dog always wants to lick my fresh tattoos, I spend most of my healing time just shooing him away.

I'm not heavily tattooed at all, but I do have more "coverage" than most people I know who might just have a few little wrist or ankle tattoos. Plus I've been getting most of my work done since last winter and it's still not really warm enough to wear shorts and expose most of it. So I haven't had too many stares, but my co-workers are always interested in my progress and asking to see anything new. It doesn't bother me at all (granted, I don't have anything highly visible and I'm not covered...yet :) ). I like looking at and discussing tattoos, even if they aren't so great, so it usually sparks a conversation with people when they see mine. I like the thought of someone seeing my tattoos and maybe getting inspired or having their perceptions changed of what a tattoo can be, so many people were amazed my artist drew my tattoos and didn't just print them off the internet...that's kind of sad that they think tattoos can only be traced existing designs. It's not necessarily my duty to educate anyone and I'm sure there comes a point when it's annoying, but I don't mind it at this point and I hope maybe I can do my small part to help out the tattoo industry.

I should clarify my job gives a ton of PTO and I do not surf/drink beer, so I pretty much only use all those hours for tattoos. ;) Ha, I thought I was the only one who did that. When I do finally get moving, that's the only way I can walk, putting my foot all the way down creates a whole new world of pain.

For me personally, I was mostly pain free by about day 5. For the first 2 or 3 days, every time you go to stand up, it feels like your leg has the worst bruise imaginable and someone is squeezing it as tight as they possibly can. My artist warned me this would happen when we did my first lower leg one, but I didn't really know what he meant. So I kind of hopped out of bed the next morning and was instantly crippled by the pain and had to sit down again. For those first couple days, it takes me a good few minutes to stand up and get moving and then I'm limping everywhere. It seems to be the longer your leg stays elevated, the worse it gets when you do stand up...but if you don't elevate your leg, it swells up like a balloon. Kind of a lose-lose outcome. I usually only give myself about a day to recover and head back to work when I'm still in the hobbling stages. Luckily my job is mostly sitting, so I can tough it out. I wouldn't dream of going back to work so soon on a job that's primarily standing...

^ The whole lower leg is agony. I'm doing a sort of leg sleeve thing from the knee down, and I still need to fill in two little areas: the shin and the back of the calf. I'm actually dreading the calf a lot more. I am SO looking forward to getting work done above the knees for a change... Speaking of which, finally pain free on my lower leg tattoo. Now just super itchy and skin is flaking off left and right. :eek:

^ I agree, I hate how fetishized tattoos are. Not even just on women, probably half the pictures of guys with tattoos are the smoldering model types. Most of the time when I try to google certain designs, I feel like I'm looking at soft-core porn. I've always thought tattoos are more for the individual getting them (not in the upside-down "IT'S FOR ME!" way :rolleyes:), but this hyper sexual stance on tattoos makes it seem like you get them to get ogled by strangers. I feel more beautiful with mine, I don't need to dress like a porn star to express that.

I don't think anyone's really AMAZING, but some solid tattooers. On the earlier seasons, it was always really obvious who the top 3 were going to be, and everyone else was pretty middle of the pack or worse. This time it seems like there's a lot of "better than average" ones at least. I still wouldn't get tattooed by any of them, but I don't remember as many blatant eyesores this time.

I'm liking this season more than the others so far. Some really good talent, not too many drama queens, and thank god they let that Ashley bitch quit instead of talking her out of it like they did with Tatu Baby. I'm a big fan of Gentle Jay...he's kind of a dick, but an endearing dick.

I'm not quite dry healing, but I am using about half the amount of lotion I've used in the past. So far, it's been pretty annoying and uncomfortable. I was actually worried it was infected because I've never had a tattoo hurt for so long afterwards, but I think my skin is just so dry, that's what's causing the pain. It does feel marginally better when I put lotion on, but again, I'm trying to restrict myself as much as possible. I think I over moisturized my last one, which made it take forever to start and finish peeling. I can't imagine healing completely dry!

Experimenting with using less lotion while healing my latest tattoo, and it's not working so well for me. My skin is painfully dry and tight feeling all the time (it's been 4 days). Still in a decent amount of pain too, I'm not walking normally yet and even in a resting position, the tattoo feels like a giant papercut and has a slight stinging/itching feeling all the time. Pretty miserable overall. :(

^ I'm against all those too (except for neutering, which has more positive than negative effects...I still felt bad for doing it to my dog). The dog also runs the risk of infection while the tattoo's healing. Regardless of where it ranks on the cruelty scale, tattooing an animal for your own selfish reasons is totally lacking benefit to the animal and is causing it unecessary pain.

Every now and then one of these stories pops up, and I can't understand why anyone would even want to do this. Is it supposed to be funny? For attention? For fashion? Just...why? Why can't you just put clothes on your animals like a normal psycho? As far as the "it was done under anesthesia" argument, that doesn't mean jack shit. Just read the thread where we complain about healing tattoos to see the pain and discomfort doesn't stop as soon as the needle does. It's one thing to give a dog a small tattoo for ID purposes, but this is just dumb and cruel.

Had a session a couple nights ago with some classic rock and metal. Getting tattooed to Dio was fucking awesome.

About 4 hours of shading. Outlining is rough for me, about 3 hours of lining and I'm done. I'm not sure I could do even a medium sized tattoo in one session. :( That's okay, that just means I can get tons of little ones. :)

Got this shaded last night by Jason Reeder. Really feeling the burn today. :D

Just got pretty much my whole inner leg from the knee to the ankle shaded last night. I underestimated just how sore and how much pressure I would be feeling today, so once when I stood up, I went way faster than I should have and almost fainted. :( Last night and today, I've been limping around the house like my leg's broken. People are always so worried about the pain of the needle, but honestly, I'd take a couple more hours of tattooing over what I go through afterwards...

Every time tattoos come up at work, my co-workers start talking about getting tattoos from their friends at their houses. And inevitably, it ends with them saying how they don't like their tattoos. Yet they continue to do it, thinking they're miraculously going to get decent tattoos. It's exhausting to even listen to.

Funny you would say that. I'm female and if you consider Slipknot "too heavy," the metal I listen to every day would make you shit yourself. :) Most of the time when I go into a shop around here, they're playing some kind of gangster-y rap. In one shop, they were playing some kind of ambient stuff. The shop I've been going to has like "shop music," which varies depending on who picks it that day (the last time I was there it was some really lame 50's music as a joke, but it's usually classic rock or something along those lines). And then each artist has their own little room they work in where they can play whatever they want. My artist likes metal, and he knows I do too, so he usually pulls up some metal on his iPod. Nailbomb, Type O Negative, Deicide, Job for a Cowboy, etc. Depending on who else is in the shop (they do a lot of nipple tattoos for women that lost theirs due to breast cancer, so there's a decent amount of older women that wouldnt usually be caught dead in a tattoo shop), he doesn't always feel comfortable subjecting people to that music. But if it's just me and him, we go all out. :D It's usually metal, sometimes it's classic rock, last time we ended up listening to The Beastie Boys. Not my thing, but whatever, music choice is up to him. My best experience getting tattooed so far was a couple sessions ago where he played like 2 straight hours of the Deftones newer stuff. I have their older albums, which are hit or miss for me, and I had been avoiding the newer stuff because it just didn't seem like my thing. But he insisted I hear them, so he played their newer albums and it got me into almost a trance like state. It was a pretty amazing experience and the session seemed to fly by.

Tattoo of the year.

I was browsing Tim Lehi tattoos and found this fucking sweet one (obviously not mine, maybe someone's here?)

Since I'm snowed in today, I went ahead and made another appointment in a couple weeks with Jason Reeder for my nocturnal/crepuscular animal leg sleeve thing. :rolleyes: Going to be coloring in my hare and maybe some filler shading.

I guess it depends on where the tattoos are and what kind of relationship you want with your parents. If they can be easily hidden, there's no pressure to tell them now or never, unless you really want to be open and honest about everything (even things that aren't much of their concern). My parents have surprised me about their opinions on me getting pierced and tattooed. Of course they hate everything at first, but they come around pretty fast. Things have actually gotten easier the more work I have done, whereas I expected it to be more of a fight the more I had done. It seems to be that way for most people on these boards: it's harder to take the first plunge, and everything afterwards goes a lot smoother.