SeeSea

Like. Fits the style with your whaleshark. I like no background either for something like this.

Ahh, all the way at the bottom there is the option to display as posts. That certainly helps! Thanks! I'll update my review of the search engine from "sucks" to "annoying".

I thought it was pretty funny - remember diagramming sentences in English class? But also a little useful to learn the names of some basic styles. Turns out what I thought was "realistic" wasn't what my tattooer informed me "realistic" was. But I got lost in the chart trying to figure out exactly what I'm getting. -_- Gee, I'm thinking about a Trash Polka now!

Well, son of a bitch. site:www.lastsparrowtattoo.com watercolor tattoo Thanks for beating me over the head with something I already knew. But that still won't stop me from complaining that the search engine sucks. ;-)

Part of the problem isn't really the search engine, it's that single threads here go on to perpetuity. That's great to keep particular topics together like the backpiece experience thread, but it's terrible for sifting through search results. "Watercolor" returns a ton of threads (and that's fine) but if every thread has 100 pages and it doesn't tell me which of the 100 pages it's on ..... ugh. And now back to your regularly scheduled program...

HA! Beer just came out my nose.

Like Color 18 or with no background like Color 9? Or B&G? Can't wait to see that one!

Don't. A good relationship is communication. If you didn't talk, it would keep eating you up. She might sense that and put a strain on things. But you talked it out, and I bet you are both more settled about the relationship. I had a chocolate craving before my last session. I made a batch of brownies and brought it to the shop. They were destroyed! Looks like I'll be making a batch every session now! :-) And man, brownies are good at 2am when I needed the sugar rush.

@gougetheeyes - oh well, I thought outlines might have helped. But gee, props to the newbie who figured out big mistake #2. @irezumi - Thanks, the thought counts. tl;dr is better than nothing. @CultExciter - I figured. But after wrestling with the sucky search engine again, I said screw it, let me piss off some folks and ask. Maybe there should be a section here called, "Shit that's been beaten into the ground". @Tesseracts - wow - both are pretty wild. I wasn't looking specifically for birds - they just happened to be two of the first examples I saw that illustrated my question when I was surfing. I wasn't implying I *liked* either one in particular. I was reading about tebori when you posted your tattoo - neat. I really like the transitions - it's more like a painting like you mentioned. Thanks for giving your perspective and giving examples - something to keep in my head for next time. (Oops, did you just put a thought in my head for a third one? O_o) @Colored Guy - agreed. Thanks, all.

Just stumbled across this beauty.

I've heard that watercolor tattoos and tattoos with no border don't age well (although some look incredible). I like the abstract nature. I gather the top one won't read well after a short time, but what about the second one? It seems like it won't matter is much when the colors fade because there is an outline. Thoughts?

It's an interesting idea. You might consider a different font and larger letters. It doesn't read well from a distance. A logo doesn't necessarily have to include the name of the business, unless they want it to be there. A sign would be something different - could be the logo followed by the name on the side. Have fun with it.

It was awesome - I sure learned a lot. It was really interesting to learn about single needle and how all that came to be. Thanks for posting about it.

How about you take in a couple pictures of a nautical star and show her how yours doesn't quite look like that in that one area, and that you'd like to know what she can do to make it look like the references, or what she recommends. This way, it's not YOU saying she's wrong, you are redirecting her attention to references that show what it should look like.

So there are many comments about not over moisturizing because it clogs the pores. I doubt I've over-moisturized, but here's my experience healing 3 sections of my back, each done about 3 weeks apart over the last 6 weeks. Every time the first shower is really hot like @MadeIndelible and @OutOfIdeas to get all the gunk out of the pores followed by a couple minutes of really cold to close the pores. I let the shower go right on it, but my shower is pretty gentle. If it were a really hard stream, I'd avoid hitting the tattoo directly - why add insult to injury? For sessions 1 and 2, I showered 3 times a day and moisturized after each shower with a tattoo product that's gotten poo-poo'd around these parts - I used this all the way through the heal, not changing to another product after X days. I'd also moisturize a couple more times a day when it got really dry and itchy. I was very sparing with the moisturizer (1 pea size for a large area). They both healed fine, but each had 1 or 2 small areas of scabbing - maybe half the size of my fingernail. The third time I washed only 2x a day after the first day, and only put on moisturizer (the same poo-poo'd stuff) after each shower (2x/day). I also changed how much moisturizer I put on - this time I put on sooooo little stuff that it was barely covered. I also did not moisturize between showers. This time I had bout 4 small areas of scabbing (to be fair, session 3 was 8 hours, sessions 1&2 were about 6, so different size areas). The length of time to complete each peel was the same. All three sections healed absolutely fine with no color loss, including the scabbed areas. But I wonder if overall I used too little moisturizer overall (for me). (Yes, I know there is a whole thread on dry-healing so it may be some feel there is no such thing as under-moisturizing.) Interestingly, the itch factor was much less for heal #3, but it was mid/upper back, and sessions 1 and 2 were lower back. Anyway... I have my 4th session coming up next week, and I'm going back to how I healed the first two times. First shower really hot followed by really cold, then shower 3x/day for the first 2-3 days, then 2x/day, with a bit of moisturizer several times a day using very small amounts rather than microscopic amounts. YMMV.

Hi @beez - this is after session 3. I'm hunched over so you can't see the "perfect placement" of the moray eel covering my little self-delusional problem :-) Most of this doesn't have the second layer on it yet so it's kinda dark. The unfinished clownfish and anemone are on the lower right - you can't see the clownfish that's completed because it's below my pants. My artist is Sean Zee.

Next session on my underwater back is the 28th of March. We're going to work up the right side. Two Moorish Idols are going on the middle - excited for bright colors!. I have an unfinished clownfish above my hip from a previous session and some moon jellies are going on near my shoulder. I never know what the plan is, I just show up and see what he wants to do next.

This is great! And kinda relates to something my artist did a couple months ago. I'm not heavy, but did carry some extra poundage for some years, and I'm older. So I've got the start of some sagging in my mid back - you know where I mean. So he was placing the stencil for a moray eel on my lower back and the shape of the eel was similar to the contour of my back there. And I jokingly said, how about moving the eel up a little? :-) Well, by the time he got it where he wanted it, it worked perfectly! The top dorsal fin of an eel is kind of wrinkly compared to its body, and heck, that's sure fitting the tattoo to the body, right? LOL! Get a great tattoo! Go in and tell them if you want to hide anything or accentuate anything - your mom and her friends were on to something!

@cameroncrazie80 - not being dickish at all unless I'm missing something. You're bringing in ideas and you're asking someone if what you are looking for can be done. Maybe not the way you are envisioning it, but if they are any good, they should give you suggestions to get you something you will be happy with. Bringing in reference material is great. As for the ballpark question, that is certainly part of the conversation. You didn't say how large the characters are. (small symbols, large Disney characters? Makes a difference!) The artist may have an hourly rate or give you an estimate based on it design itself, depending on how detailed it is, if it looks like it will take more than one session, etc. He may decline to estimate until after he's had a chance to do some research. For bigger pieces, you may just get an hourly rate and nothing more. I am doing a back piece and I pay hourly. He couldn't even estimate the number of hours during the consultation because of the size and he didn't know how well my skin would take the ink, etc. After three sessions now, he is able to give me a better estimate of the number of sessions remaining, but my tattoo is growing organically like a painting - not a stencil that is completely planned out in advance. So don't be surprised if you walk away with more than an hourly rate at the very start for something big ...but that's in the US. From what I'm reading here, that apparently isn't world-wide practice.

I'll trade with you. The itching doesn't really bother me too much. I'd take a boatload more itching in order to reduce some of the agony of GETTING the tattoo.

It's funny - I don't disagree with you, but when I saw those thigh tattoos I was mesmerized. I had two thoughts - 1) I wish I was a lot younger so I could get a tattoo like that that looked so awesome on young perfect white thigh skin (although I didn't have those legs when I was 20!), and 2) maybe these tattoos are keeping these young kids out of the sun and there will be a lot less skin cancer! So odd that skin cancer popped immediately to my head as an advantage. Gettin' old I guess.

LOVE LOVE LOVE! The expression on the guy on the top is precious.

Fruity Pebbles everywhere. Of course, right after I cleaned the bathroom floor.

I've been reading along and have both agreed and disagreed with various parts of everyone's posts. There are many good points made all around. But after reading this one, I've reached the point of diminishing returns on this thread. Everyone has their own body image. It's been developed and grown and mangled and thrust upon them over time and circumstances. Body image is not something many people can completely control. Maybe guys handle it better than girls. IDK. Maybe guys don't see it as a big deal. Some do. Many girls do. But to tell someone else what level of importance their own body image should have is insensitive and uninformed, especially since it's not something that is completely under someone's control. I could give some f'ed up examples of stuff that's happened to me that affect my body image in hard ways and I've worked on that over time. Some things will never go away. I'm now much less "sensitive" to certain things, especially things I now realize people say out of ignorance and not to be hurtful. Why do I "give a flying fuck" as you say, about what people think about my body? I wish I couldn't give a flying fuck, but the point is, it isn't completely under my control. I don't blame most people for being insensitive (unless they are just being a complete jackass) because I don't put out in public why I MIGHT be sensitive. The point is, you don't *know* other people's stories. Someone's body image of themselves may mean nothing to you, but affects them in ways they may try very hard not to reveal. So don't challenge people on it. $0.02.

Oh crap. ::smacks forehead:: I must be a hipster. Some of those are just amazing!