SeeSea

LOL I'm with you on that. I hit a low in mental fortitude after long sessions 6 days apart 2 weeks ago and knew I needed time to get my head back in the game. But I think I'm back and can't wait for the next one. Funny how all that changes when you see the piece taking shape.

For my first tattoo (a little thing) I was told to use A&D, so I went to the drug store and bought just that one item. I didn't say a thing, but the guy at the register looked at me and said, "Just got a tattoo? I love the smell of that stuff - makes me want to get more!" LOL! - - - Updated - - - I haven't seen it mentioned, so I'll ask. My artist has me using Redemption Tattoo Aftercare - a very thin later after washing 2-3x/day. Anyone familiar with this product? It seems to be working well for me and I don't plan to change anything, just wondered if anyone else had experience with it. This is the ingredient list. It includes some of the stuff I've seen mentioned here like Calendula and Arnica. Organic Castor Oil, Organic Sunflower Oil, Organic Beeswax, Organic Cocoa Butter, Organic Coconut Oil, Organic Vegetable Glycerin, Organic Arrowroot Powder, Organic Calendula Oil, Organic Arnica, Organic Chamomile Extract, Organic Rosemary Extract, Mixed Tocopherols

I asked the same question of my artist, too, as a newbie. How many sessions? He kinda laughed in a not mean way and told me he can't even estimate (full back). I thought it would take much less time than it's gonna take - I'm only 11.5 hours in there's not a lot done yet. Even if an artist can't estimate, I wish I had gotten at least a rough rough rough estimate, even like, "This will be at least 50 hours" or something like that. Anyway ... it might be a better question to ask people around here to show one of their pieces and share how many hours went into it. That could give you an idea how variable the answer is. There may be a thread for this somewhere, but I'm pretty new and floundering around trying to figure out how to search this site and get useful search results.

Wow. Just wow. I bet you sure had a hell of a tattoo hangover for a good couple days after that.

Nice start - I like the position. I'm interested in seeing the depth/shade up close as it goes along. Yeah, the experience drives great art - I know what you mean - that will live with you forever. Very cool - everything going on my back has a personal story like that. My artist is Sean Zee from NJ. How about you?

Sure, I want to show - just wish it was further along. I said elsewhere it doesn't have a stencil, so it's pretty free-form and you won't see what's planned - just a couple blobs of initial shading. A clownfish area with anemone and the eel area with a couple cool tube sponges. Maybe after my session in 2 weeks there will be enough to show to at least get an idea. Whaleshark - cool! They are amazing - so gentle but run you over like a bus. The spots will look amazing! Have you been diving in Galapagos? Amazing critters - the top of my back will be shadows of schooling hammerheads from a pic I took there. I was thinking of tribal eagle ray but decided on the realistic instead, so will have some eagle rays in the distance. i didn't have a great octopus pictures so no octo in my piece. :-( Do you have pics up?

I'm a diver too, and I'm getting a scene of my underwater pictures on my back. My artist just did the first pass on an eel near the bottom of my back - spotted morays are my favorite, but he said that the spot pattern is a little small and won't age as well as a larger pattern like a Leopard moray, so we're doing the Leopard. I'm with you on the eels!

Healing two different areas of my back done a week apart from one another. Ping-pong itching! It's like a whole second round of itching even though the skin has already fallen off, like bugs crawling under my skin. It's taking me about 10-12 days to complete a peel. Wish I was younger, maybe it wouldn't take as long. 2 weeks until my next session.

I guess I didn't phrase that right. Is is generally a no-no to take more than a glancing peek and someone's tattoo if you try to be clear it's an appreciation check and not a negative editorial? Would a look with a nod or smile be generally acceptable? I'd genuinely like to look but don't want to come off acting like an asshole - I don't have visible art to show I'm on the same page.

So reading this thread, it seems like responses run the gamut from being upset people stare to not caring. I have one small tattoo on my shoulder that doesn't garner stares and it's hidden at work but I'm working on a full back now that no one has seen, so this question is interesting to me. But on the flip side, sometimes I see tattoos that's I'd like to look at and not feel like I have to sneak a peek at. Why do we feel like it's wrong to do more than sneak a peek? Why would someone with a tattoo get upset to know that someone else is looking and could be genuinely interested in the art? Isn't a reason for getting a tattoo, at least in part, that it be seen? I know I'll get lots of dirty looks wearing a swim suit when the time comes, but I'd like to think I wouldn't get bent if people look more than a moment to check it out. Am I sadly mistaken?

Sounds like you're at the point I was for the last couple years, and you really need someone to take it to the next level. I knew I wanted sea life and a couple critters in particular for emotional reasons (spotted eagle ray, clownfish) and I knew I wanted something on my back but I couldn't get the ideas to settle in my head artistically. When I met the guy who is doing my back piece, he showed me a similar sea scene he had done previously and said that client sent him around 50 pictures of stuff that he could choose from. He did the same with me - I sent him probably 70 pictures of underwater critters I've photographed underwater and told him the 2-4 that I REALLY wanted in the piece. He picked and chose and created a scene and helped me understand that the shape and content in my head wouldn't really work on my back. He spent a lot of time explaining perspective to me and as a result, the placement and content changed several times until we settled on something that worked. Some critters I thought I wanted aren't realistic, and another I only partially liked, he showed me how it would fit in really amazingly and now I'm really excited! So, bottom line, lay it all out for your artist and get the advice of someone who understands construction and how the tattoo would flow on different parts of your body. You'll get ideas you hadn't thought of.

Ouch! Well, THAT'S awkward...

I think I'm glad I didn't see this thread until after I committed to a full back! I hadn't read any forums actually, but had an idea for an underwater tattoo for years. I found an artist at a convention who had done underwater and he designed a tattoo for me and I said, let's go for it. It wasn't originally to be that big, but he explained with the critters I wanted that it would need to be bigger unless I wanted to change the idea. Well, I didn't have any idea what I was getting into in terms of time, money, pain, etc. The first session was hours of drawing and then 6 hours tattooing and ended at 4:30 am and I was an exhausted mess. I have no reference for pain - I have one very small tattoo on my shoulder. But as soon as the needles hit my skin I thought, what the hell did I get myself into?!? And now I read that the back is one of the worse places, and it feels like a scalpel on my spine and ribs, and love handles hurt like hell. This is pure agony. I get very cold, so I wear a backwards hoodie and then a fleece jacket backwards over that. And gloves. And I'm still cold. I think because the sessions are so long. I've had 2 so far. This tattoo has no negative space that I can tell (no stencil) and he won't estimate how long it will take because he's letting it grow organically. I just gave him some critters I want. It's a little nerve-wracking that I only have a rough sketch of what it will look like, especially now that it appears it will take waaaay longer than I thought. I had hoped to have a tattoo in a couple months but with it being so big, I am kinda clueless what to think now. This thread has been very useful. There seems to be a big range of experiences.

Hi Killercock76 - Thanks for the tips. I took a lot of food and ate something on every break, like a bagel, candy, banana. I read not to drink coffee before hand, but I did the second session and I don't know if that was why it seemed to hurt more. And I get cold REALLY EASILY (I'm a small female) so I was dressed in two layers (backwards) and gloves. I still got cold later on and am thinking about bringing a heating pad to put under my chest (I sit in a massage chair). I've watched movies and listened to music. Sometimes that helps but I don't have a magic formula. I'm going to try learning some meditation techniques to stand it better.

Thanks TaeTae - the forums have a lot of good info, and the post you linked to is really good. I don't know about posting any pictures yet. He didn't do a stencil. He said he's doing it like a painting, and there are two sections so far, and neither are "done" but a lot of shadow and dark areas. He said it wouldn't look good since the color and highlights and that kind of stuff wouldn't be done until later sessions. So they look dark and not like they will look in the end - hopefully he will swing back and finish up one of the sections after they heal so I can post something. One session was last weekend and the other was 2 weeks ago. I'll be back for #3 in about 3 weeks. Hi harry878 - thanks for saying. I didn't really have a reference. My artist says he does minimum 3 hour sessions so I guess that was my reference, and he said the first session would be really long because he spent hours just freehand drawing on my back. Then he took a picture of what he drew, and he said that would be his reference going forward instead of a stencil. I was pretty zoned and exhausted at the end but I just stuck it out - I think because I didn't really know any better! But yeah, by the end of each, I was complete quivering toast.

Hi all, I've been surfing around and landed here after finding a thread on full back pieces. I've been toying with a sea life tattoo on my back for years, and finally got my act together and found an artist who designed a sea scene. I wanted several kinds of critters in it. He advised I should go large because it would be very difficult to add to it later if we only did some on the mid/top of my back. And also so that the fish weren't too small. I hadn't thought about going all the way but the design looked nice and I thought, what the hell. He makes a lot of sense and spent a lot of time walking me through why this would be a good strategy, and I agree. I've wanted a back tattoo, and I'll always have to deal with the negative feedback, etc., associated with getting a tattoo in the first place (which I accept), so I figured, let's do a good design and not constrain it to a particular shape. I'm actually pretty excited about a full back now, although I wonder if I didn't jump into it a little too quickly, but the reality of a good design makes sense. But, when the needle hit my skin for the first session, I thought, "What the hell did I just do?!? How the hell can I sit through my entire back with this pain?!?" And that's when I started surfing for pain strategies, how to sit more comfortably, how to survive long sessions (I've had 2 so far - 6 hours and 5.5 hours) and I'd like to be able to sit longer. I'm older and have 1 very small tattoo, so this was a massive jump for me. Anyway, that's what brought me here - looking for advice.