New to the site with a question about a healing tat!

[jgarr610]

Just got the insides of my pinkies done this past Friday.. One with a heart and the other "xo". I'm in love with them, and the heart is healing great.. The xo is starting to worry me though. You can see the crisp lines which look perfect, but around the letters it looks grey and cloudy and almost as if it's blown out.. I read somewhere that someone had the same thing on their healing palm and that it just went away. Should I be worried?

[irezumi]

They blew that out nicely for you. I'm honestly sorry to tell you this but you're kind of screwed. Nothing about that is going to fade in the sense that it will uniformly fade and look good or entirely disappear. You'll probably lose some of that but hold on to some of it which means you'll just have a gray smudgy dirty looking part of your finger for the rest your life. When I say THE REST OF YOUR LIFE that's really real. You will get accustomed to it at some point or another, but that will still be kind of weird looking bruise on the inside of your finger when you hit 40.

This is the epitome of irresponsible tattooing. Your tattooer should never have done this; even if he warned you that this would happen and had you said "I want it anyway" he should not have done it anyway simply on that principle.

Please know that I am not being mean or disrespectful to you, I am honestly just saying what I would tell any customer that came in the door with that. It's your tattooer that I am talking about.

[Tesseracts]

This is the epitome of irresponsible tattooing. Your tattooer should never have done this; even if he warned you that this would happen and had you said "I want it anyway" he should not have done it anyway simply on that principle.

Is any tattoo on the finger is likely to blow out? What about this? Is it only if it's done by someone who doesn't know what they are doing, or is this a bad idea period?

[irezumi]

The OP has the bottom side of the finger tattooed, not the top of the hand or the top of the knuckles like in that picture you posted. Entirely different type of skin.

That tattoo looks like it will age better then some other ones I've seen, but who knows? A lot of the stuff that's being done right now with dotwork is more advanced than what had been done before with it (it's not a new thing) but the nature of people skin will never change. I am certainly not going to second-guess what the artist in the picture that you posted did because it looks very clean and it looks like they've had plenty of experience applying that type of tattooing. I don't know who the artist is but that's relatively unimportant in the discussion.

The picture from the OP was an artist with less than 1/10 that skill level based on that messed up crooked O and none of the conscience of a responsible tattooer for obvious reasons. And yes underside of a finger regardless of who did it is a bad idea period.

[Tesseracts]

Irezumi, I didn't know the inner finger skin was different, that's good to know. That explains why I don't see a lot of palm tattoos. I think the hand I linked to is by Jondix.

I think the only ok healed inner hand tattoo I've seen is this, which is 2 years old, but I still see blowout.

[irezumi]

There is a small small number or tattooers who can properly put in a palm tattoo, and I've never seen any bottom of finger tattoos attempted by any of them.

[CultExciter]

but I still see blowout.

That's about as perfect as it gets. Your hands naturally wear and parts tend to drop out. I don't see a single blowout on that however. That is just normal spreading.

Guy Le Tattooer is a really good tattooer.

[Tesseracts]

Sorry to hijack this thread yet again but what about this stuff? Fantastic Tattoos Made from Dots. Kenji Alucky, Japan's Traveling Artist, Hits New York. I think the tattoos on the inner finger look really cool.

[Graeme]

Can I suggest that we talk a lot less about hand and finger tattoos on here? I feel that if you're in a position where you should be getting hand tattoos you don't need this or any other forum to find out information about them.

[OutOfIdeas]

@Tesseracts im not saying he doesn't do great work, but i dont like that the article makes it sound like he's the one and only tattoer that works in that style and manner.

Amd I agree Graeme

[Tesseracts]

@Tesseracts im not saying he doesn't do great work, but i dont like that the article makes it sound like he's the one and only tattoer that works in that style and manner.

Amd I agree Graeme

Yeah this website isn't great, it's just the first place I found the images.

Graeme you have a point, I'm not in a position to be getting tattoos on my fingers.

[deadsp0t]

Yeah this website isn't great' date=' it's just the first place I found the images. Graeme you have a point, I'm not in a position to be getting tattoos on my fingers.[/quote']

Only position you have to be in is in tattoo shop with some money. Hand, finger and palm tattoos are not nearly as taboo outside the community as before, and many reputable tattooers will tattoo them too. Just make sure you don't visit a hack, and you can get a great tattoo, there's no special club anymore, regardless of what some may think or say.

[tatB]

I think financial and emotional independence from parents. And an established career are minimum requirements.

[Pugilist]

Only position you have to be in is in tattoo shop with some money. Hand, finger and palm tattoos are not nearly as taboo outside the community as before, and many reputable tattooers will tattoo them too. Just make sure you don't visit a hack, and you can get a great tattoo, there's no special club anymore, regardless of what some may think or say.

I would say this is the worst advice ever posted on this board, but then there was your advice re: sexual harassment the other day, so...

(No seriously, to any lurkers stumbling upon this thread: hand tattoos are not socially acceptable and reputable tattooers don't just hand them out like candy.)

[Orangutango]

What they said^^^

Wrote (and then deleted) large rant about people with warped tour body suits, then remembered it's on the internet, so it doesn't really matter. I'm fine with other people doing stupid shit, as long as they are fine with consequences.

[JAllen]

@irezumi pretty much covered everything that needs to be said.

[Matthew Thomas]

I have tattoos on both hands. My tattoo artist's assistant is also a hospice nurse. He provides hospice care for teens with developmental disabilities. He has a hand tattoo as well as other visible tattoos. And on that subject, a visible tattoo is a visible tattoo, on the hand, on the forearm, on the neck, etc. They also have several kinds of makeup which can cover tattoos. Hand tattoos are not socially acceptable? Maybe I don't understand the meaning of the word, but none of my family or friends has ever had a problem with me having tattoos on my hands. If they did, they never said anything, and to be honest I don't think it would bother me anyway. People don't stare at me like a freak of nature in public either. Perhaps what you may have meant was professionally unacceptable, to which I might agree because it might bother some people in the corporate world. Since I have no interest in the corporate world, again, don't care. I'm a blue collar guy, and no one at any job I've ever had has cared that I have tattoos on my hands. Of course, I am planning to change to a career where people would definitely be much more accepting of my tattoos, but that's neither here nor there. This is a tattoo forum, and for people that have their hands tattooed, it's something to talk about. Those who don't have or want hand tattoos are free to not join in the discussion.

[kingofcosta]

Only position you have to be in is in tattoo shop with some money. Hand, finger and palm tattoos are not nearly as taboo outside the community as before, and many reputable tattooers will tattoo them too. Just make sure you don't visit a hack, and you can get a great tattoo, there's no special club anymore, regardless of what some may think or say.

Dude, they're not called 'job stoppers' for nothing! I often turn kids (18-21) away from my shop who are looking for hand or neck tattoos (usually as their first tattoo). When they inevitably get in a huff and ask why I usually tell them that I pay tax, and I don't want that tax to be supporting them for the rest of their life when they find they can't get a job because they are being judged on their hand or neck tattoos. Sometimes I can't be bothered with them and just tell them they haven't earned the right to have hand tattoos. This confuses them, and they just go to a scratcher shop down the road and get a really badly executed hand tattoo anyway.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[deadsp0t]

....

[irezumi]

There are some interesting points brought up here, some I agree with and some I respectfully don't, but I have to agree with @Graeme in that we don't need to be talking about hand or finger tattoos on this forum and for the same reason he mentioned.

That brings me to a thread de-railing topic.

It is the nature of things and people to evolve, everything around us in life and in the digital world is evidence. Not always a bad thing, but often brings about mixed blessings.

This forum is evolving and in its own way that is/was the point of it, to talk about and educate people about good tattooing. The initiation thread has been blowing up with new members constantly and that's a great thing to see because it shows the amount of people that are interested in learning more about good tattooing, or (although fewer and fewer) people with vast amounts of experience and information come to share it.

It is a positive thing to try to help fairly new people to tattooing learn about topics that they might not know about yet, just out of sheer ignorance(The word ignorance not to be taken in a negative light). It's great that there is a place for people to share this kind of information with each other. But personally for me it is rapidly evolving into me sitting at the front desk telling every single customer the bad news they don't want to hear. This is a topic that I've been doing for years and years and years and pretty much still tell people every single day in real life. It is becoming more difficult to want to participate when all I'm doing is basically saying the same thing I do every single damn day to people. This forum has been kind of a refuge for me when I wanted to escape the bullshit questions that I face all the time by people who like I said just don't know better yet. This place was almost all professional tattooers and or people who were heavily tattooed, which is what was the appeal to me. The number of professional tattooers that still post here has been dwindling at a fast clip over the last year or so. And I think I know some of the reasons why without having to ask them. One reason is "busy working" but that's not what I'm talking about.

Hogg, I know you have asked us to save you from hearing "this place ain't the same anymore" (although it is undeniably true) but I am trying to show that there is a positive side to this evolution. Like I said it is merely just mixed blessings, not something BAD. I'm just a little bummed because it's evolving into an animal that I probably wouldn't of been interested in if I were a recent arrival.

Thanks for letting me soapbox for a minute. I still like a lot of you people.

[Pugilist]

@irezumi - I appreciate your ability to think critically about this while still trying to stay positive. I get what you're saying and what I wonder about a lot is how this space can stay educational in the important way that it aims to be while not becoming a "this is the same as my job" drag for folks like yourself.

I will say that my own concern with the advice-giving part of a forum like this is exactly what you can see in this thread - the internet makes all advice seem equal. But "hand tattoos are no big deal" is not good advice at all, and I get panicky when I see people say stuff like that on here because then it's on here forever, and people googling shit about hand tattoos see it, and if they don't know the larger context (who is giving the advice? Are they a tattooer, serious collector, random dude? Etc.), then it just seems like, well, a piece of advice given on this forum. So I am very, very grateful for experienced folks who do take the time to set the record straight when stuff like this comes up, even if it does feel like they're at work.

[nomadland]

There are some interesting points brought up here, some I agree with and some I respectfully don't, but I have to agree with @Graeme in that we don't need to be talking about hand or finger tattoos on this forum and for the same reason he mentioned.

That brings me to a thread de-railing topic.

It is the nature of things and people to evolve, everything around us in life and in the digital world is evidence. Not always a bad thing, but often brings about mixed blessings.

This forum is evolving and in its own way that is/was the point of it, to talk about and educate people about good tattooing. The initiation thread has been blowing up with new members constantly and that's a great thing to see because it shows the amount of people that are interested in learning more about good tattooing, or (although fewer and fewer) people with vast amounts of experience and information come to share it.

It is a positive thing to try to help fairly new people to tattooing learn about topics that they might not know about yet, just out of sheer ignorance(The word ignorance not to be taken in a negative light). It's great that there is a place for people to share this kind of information with each other. But personally for me it is rapidly evolving into me sitting at the front desk telling every single customer the bad news they don't want to hear. This is a topic that I've been doing for years and years and years and pretty much still tell people every single day in real life. It is becoming more difficult to want to participate when all I'm doing is basically saying the same thing I do every single damn day to people. This forum has been kind of a refuge for me when I wanted to escape the bullshit questions that I face all the time by people who like I said just don't know better yet. This place was almost all professional tattooers and or people who were heavily tattooed, which is what was the appeal to me. The number of professional tattooers that still post here has been dwindling at a fast clip over the last year or so. And I think I know some of the reasons why without having to ask them. One reason is "busy working" but that's not what I'm talking about.

Hogg, I know you have asked us to save you from hearing "this place ain't the same anymore" (although it is undeniably true) but I am trying to show that there is a positive side to this evolution. Like I said it is merely just mixed blessings, not something BAD. I'm just a little bummed because it's evolving into an animal that I probably wouldn't of been interested in if I were a recent arrival.

Thanks for letting me soapbox for a minute. I still like a lot of you people.

Don't get me wrong mate you raise some valid points here..

Not a gripe at you personally but the amount of self righteousness and self entitlement that pervades this forum is ridiculous...yes I have a lot of tattoos but no I don't think that because of that I have more right to talk about tattoos or get certain types or places tattooed..I think ull find that there are plenty of cleanskins more knowledgable about tattoos than 99.9% of those who are heavily tattooed..the forum police on here need to get a fucking life and stop acting like tattoos are some form of sacred entitlement that only those who embrace the culture can understand...tattooing is as natural to humans as breathing and yes I'm sorry to all on here that tattooing has gone from a sub culture to mainstream but word of advice get the fuck over it...

[RoryQ]

The 'signal to noise' ratio can be a problem on any forum which, at a certain point, has a lot of experienced people posting on a topic. That knowledge base pulls in a lot of new posters, keen to ask questions, sometimes not getting the established culture of the forum, and you can get noise that dilutes the content to an extent.

The thing is a closed-door or overly insular forum can be no better, because you end up with cliques and group think.

The most successful forums I've seen are the ones which manage a kind of dynamic balance. I think LST is managing that now, just about.

But like @irezumi alludes to, LST has lost out when tattooers stop posting. If we ever end up a forum which is entirely populated by collectors only, however educated, then that'll be the end for me.

[RoryQ]

@nomadland

I actually agree that the whole 'forum police' can be a trap people fall into, but at the same time when is it that and when is it more a case of someone like @irezumi speaking up and just giving to the point, professional advice. Is that 'forum police'? Seriously, he gave the best advice in this thread hands down.

The internet gives everyone a platform to voice their opinion, but I'm sure you agree they're not all equal in value. Why would we not give more weight when a tattooer weighs in, reluctantly in this case, on tattooing?

[Tesseracts]

Ugh, the last thing I wanted to do was start a debate over who has the "right" to get their hand tattooed. I just wanted to know how risky it is to tattoo certain types of skin and why. I understand that not everyone needs to know everything but I like to question how things work, it's just a problem I have. I'm sorry if I'm contributing to the forces that are driving away people that actually know things.