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Hello guys, I wanted to share with you an update of my sleeve, which is now completed. It has been made over time by different artists I like, in different cities. Feel free to express any kind of thoughts 😁

or just cover your body in tattoos, in which case minor imperfections are basically not ever scritinized! 🙂

hi and welcome, read here https://www.lastsparrowtattoo.com/rules/ . " There is a 10 post requirement before you can start your own thread outside of the initiation forum. Please do not go posting a bunch of meaningless posts just to hit your 10 post requirement. If you want to ask a question right away - just post it in your intro thread."

Just wanted to share some new flash I got yesterday, my favorite tattoo shop was running a Friday the 13th promotion and I decided to go for it! Getting custom drawn flash is so much fun. you can really tell how much the artists love each one of their drawings and I am always proud to wear the best of their work. Tattoos like this make me very happy 😊 This one was done by Max at Pretty Sturdy Tattoo in Denver. He has tattooed me before, I love his work. Really all the artists at the shop are amazing- the shop is covered floor to ceiling in all their flash paintings and it’s just really cool. I’m pretty sure my whole arm will be covered in their tattoos eventually. This pic is from last night right after I cleaned it up and put my first saniderm dressing on it. I bled a lot more than I usually do with this one, but maybe it was just a tender spot. Today it looks pretty gnarly but it has calmed down quite a bit and doesn’t sting as much. We are well on the way to a smooth healing process

Nobody is saying you're stupid and nobody is happy that you're not happy. Take a deep breath and calm down. We're offering advice so it doesn't happen again. Very few people are happy with every single tattoo they have. As the saying goes, "sh!t happens." If someone is offering advice you don't want, just ignore it. And please stop beating yourself up. The only thing you are guilty of is being human.

If it’s not hot, oozing, or extremely painful, it’s probably not infected. I don’t see anything that points to an infection. It looks like a normal, healing tattoo. It will take 4-6 weeks to heal.

Three weeks in, I’d just stop with the moisturizer for a week and let it dry out. You shouldn’t be putting a lot on. Too little is better than too much.

Not all spontaneous tattoos from an unknown artist suck, but most tattoos that suck are spontaneous and from unknown artists.

I think you should just get more tattoos and not worry about it. Do you know how much laser treatment costs? Do you know that it hurts far more than getting a tattoo? You are assigning way too much meaning to it. Just live with it and find a new tattoo artist for your next one.

First, sorry it didn’t work out as planned. Second, don’t do anything until you’ve lived with it for a while. I’ve seen plenty of cover ups that wound up worse because people were in such a hurry to “fix” them. At the very least you need it to let it completely heal before you start to monkey with it. Patience is your friend. Plenty of people have come to love a tattoo that they initially didn’t like.

Absolutely age is a factor. The older your skin, the longer it takes to heal. I’m 65 so I know.

Yeah, I leave the artist's wrap on for the 1st night. Unwrap the next morning and clean with anti-bacterial soap. Let it dry for 30-45 minutes and then saniderm it. 4 days later I peel it off!

Your artist is full of sh!t. That’s just insulting and that would be the end of any relationship with me. It looks like he worked the sh!t out of it and now isn’t man enough to admit it so he’s blaming you. That’s just weak. Good luck, just take care of it, give it a couple of months. I’ve seen some pretty rough things wind up healing OK.

I hope you have the patience to wait. I’ve seen people swept up in the moment by enthusiastic tattoo artists. Also, be sure you are realistic about laser expectations. It can lighten a tattoo, but I’ve never seen one actually removed. Your tattoo creates scar tissue, laser creates more scar tissue. I’m not saying don’t do it, but if you think it’s going to disappear, you’ll be really disappointed. You have a nice tattoo. Better to have a nice tattoo that you don’t like than a sh!tty tattoo you hate and be looking for coverup #2. Remember, each time you go in for laser or coverup you’re creating more scar tissue, making the next time harder.

I get that about staying private. I may work up to a sleeve,but for now I'm going to go where it takes me. I know nobody can see them, it's just me. I still love it.

66 here. Also, the farther away from your heart usually means longer healing. My ankles and feet took several weeks.

I'm going on 60, I started late.

Hey, thanks for your input! Here's how it's doing now. About 4 weeks now. Definetly not as bad as I thought it would, but not great either. I'll be waiting to get it fixed later in the year. Good thing is it still looks pretty good even if its pretty shit 😂 live and learn! This guy has done a couple full arm blackouts too so I really dunno what's up. It's hard to find someone who has much experience doing this type of work where I live. Have connected with another artist who has also done it and has decent healed pics, and am waiting on her advice too. Also, for fixing it, do you have to go over the whole thing again, or just the dodgy spots? How does using different black inks affect it? Guy wants to touch up in a month or two but yea I don't think my skin will be ready by then lol dya have an instagram I can follow? 🙂

It almost looks like an ingrown hair or something? I don't know. But yeah, I bet it'll clear up before too long.

cool book!😱

Looks good, a very original design. Congrats!

I think it depends on the person but it does fade a lot. After healing the white dulls off and on me it is barely visible. You can see it if you look closely but it’s mostly just skin colour. It may help your tattoo stand out initially but I don’t think it will make a massive difference over time.

That’s good, I think after a certain point you just get used to things. What worried you at the beginning is not important. All tattoos are imperfect, if you look hard enough there is always a flaw. I think once you get over that perfection thing it definitely helps. 👍

this what I do and it seems to work good for me, I don't put the saniderm on until about 24 hours after getting the tattoo, before I get the tattoo I shave the area around where I am getting the tattoo, and where the saniderm will be applied,the saniderm sticks betterwith no body hair, for the first 24 hours after getting the tattoo I keep cocoa butter on it, and I wash it every few hours with anti-microbial soap or what ever you use, and keep applying a light coat of the butter, and I use saran wrap to keep it covered, then after about 24 hours I wash it one more time and apply the saniderm to dry clean skin (no cocoa butter) most all of the liquid is done oozing at this point and it stays on for 4 or 5 days ,no more liquid build up happens.

I was freaking out when I first saw all the bruising and thought it was all blowout but actually now that it's calmed down a bit it doesn't look nearly as bad as it did in those pictures. I do have blowout, but an amount I can live with and not one that looks like a permanent bruise, yay! This was a lesson, though, in maaaaybe not getting a spontaneous tattoo in a sensitive place in a foreign country 😬😬

Yes, it sucks, but there's nothing you can do about blowouts. If you get enough tattoos, in enough places, everyone's going to have one sooner or later.

How do you not see that explaining it like that is actually what would have been helpful in the first place? Even just saying how you did go through that and your feelings. It's called validation, as soon as you feel like your feelings are acknowledged about a situation, it can help you calm down. idk if that makes it worse, since you know what it feels like and decided to take another route? This isnt about playing the victim, it's just there are SO many ways to help someone feel better about something like this. I DID take responsibility in my first post, like I keep repeating. I listed EVERYTHING I should have done, saying i KNOW that. How is that not taking responsibility? I was never ignoring where I went wrong. Saying what I didn;t like doesnt mean I'm blaming the artist either, it just means I'm pointing out what I dont like and how wrong everything went. Okay, and that's it's a good way to say it. So why not say it like that in the first place, say it nicely to someone? Just validate that yeah, there are artists out there who wont make me feel that way? You did not say that at all, instead you framed it like I'm stupid for not realising this could happen. That point didnt come out when you're too busy making me feel like an idiot for not being able to be assertive in that moment. Assuring me that there are artists out there who would be able to actually manipulate elements and come up with something is much more helpful and comforting. In that moment with this artist, I was made to feel like that wasn't possible. it's not about coddling or not being a victim. Thinikng someone shouldnt be a "victim" isnt an excuse to make them feel stupid.

Seriously stop saying that! you’re just saying things I already said. That’s not what I asked about. I'm not saying it's an attack, but I am saying it's extremely insensitive and unhelpful. What I'm saying is there's no need to keep hammering this part home, when I also had actual questions in the post. I was never asking what I “should” have done, I clearly KNOW what I should have done, because I SAID it. But it wasn’t as simple as that in the moment. I explained how it happened and how I didnt think to leave, because I wanted to trust her. If you can't understand how that happened in the moment, please just leave me alone. Because it happened. All of this I know for next time, but I was never asking you what to do for next time, I already know all that, I said it straight up in the post. I posted wondering if anyone else has ever felt pushed like that, or wasnt able to be assertive, or you don't think it's weird an artist would just straight copy something I didn't even ask for, but clearly you are all fine. Good for you if you’re all the kind of people who were more prepared to walk away your first time, I don’t know how I F***ing wasn’t able to, and can’t stop beating myself up about such an expensive (and soon painful) mistake and needed to vent about it. And now I just want this post F***ing deleted but they wont let me, because you’re not getting the point and making me feel worse.

yeah, that tattooist is pushing off his heavy handedness on you. Pure bullshit.

A tattoo takes 4-6 weeks to heal. That skin looks over worked so it may take longer. Yes, some pain on skin worked that hard would be normal.

Not to be argumentative, but four months should be enough time to heal and just looking at that skin tells me it's overworked. You really just need to wait and see how it looks. I had one of my sleeves extended about an inch and initially, there were two shades of black ink, but eventually you couldn't tell the difference. Can't imagine how much you paid. It doesn't matter how good an artist is, everyone screws up once in a while. The only thing that matters is how good they did YOUR tattoo.

Nice!

Love it!!

Nice work. I like surrealism.

looks 100% normal to me.

I’m not sure what you are trying to say. It’s a blowout, there’s no fixing a blowout, and I don’t mean this unkindly, but this is why you do your homework BEFORE you get a tattoo. You would have known that small delicate lines on thin skin are prone to blowouts.

Welcome to the internet - you don’t always get the response you want. Being snippy with the long timers is not a good way to get advice.

Sorry your tattoo didn't go as planned. I like it though lol

Same here, @Hogrider. I trust my artist, and both of my sleeves were designed by him with pretty much no input from me.

Honestly you have a really nice tattoo!! Objectively its pretty great. Especially for your first one, my first tattoo was nowhere near that good. I know it’s not exactly what you envisioned but that’s kind of part of being tattooed. There is no such thing as a “perfect” tattoo. It’s a living work of art and you have to manage your expectations. I don’t mean to sound condescending, but I do think that first-timers tend to be overly picky about details. In explaining so many details, it can be confusing to an artist, as they don’t know what is the most important from the 10+ notes and references you gave. Part of that comes down to communication which sounds like was lacking a bit. For future tattoos I would keep it as simple as possible. Set yourself up for success and pick an artist that you love literally every tattoo they do. Then pick 1-2 reference photos and say what exactly you like about each one. The face expression, the background etc. Pick 1-2 details that are the most important to you. And then let your artist do their job. the more you try to control the outcome, the more disappointed you will be. But if you hate it you hate it, and that’s okay too. Just please give it a year. If you still hate it, then laser is an option and you can have it lightened and covered up. Best of luck to you!!

Seems you like the Japanese style. I’d go with a dragon or koi dragon, some flowers, water and call it a day. Actually, that’s just what I did per my artist’s suggestion. I told him I was open to anything in the Japanese style and just sat back and let him work. My first sleeve I didn’t give any input at all.

I'm not stupid. I know it's an expensive mistake. I never imagined I would want to laser my tattoos once I decided I wanted some. It's an extreme resort to feel like this. I'm too upset about it not being what I wanted. I got a mole laser removed on my face and it was horrible, so I feel like I know what I'm in for....

Although I agree with @oboogie, if you want suggestions, it would be helpful to post pics of what you already have.

I would talk to a trusted tattoo artist and let them work something up. We are all collectors here, not artists. Plus, any decent tattoo artist will want to draw something up themselves, not have someone come in with random ideas from strangers. Just tell your artist what you want and let them have a go.

Thanks for your nice words. I know my friends won't see it that way, but if they are enthusiastic about it I just can't fake it. And I dont want to admit it's not what I wanted. I just can't get past why she would pick something else to copy, why not copy one of my refs if she's going to do that? They were all from the manga, it's not like the scale was different. It's so weird

Your tattoo has really nice line work. Sorry it's not what you envisioned, but no one will look at that with the same critical eye as you. Remember your friends have no expectations about your ink. They'll see what we see, a clean nice tattoo. Live with it for a while at least through the entire healing process then see how you feel. When I got my first tattoo I was disappointed because of lines that weren't as clean as I had originally imagined. The first thing I thought was laser to correct it. But after advice from this site and looking at loads of other tattoos, I considered the big picture. Like you I'm getting more. So in the end it's just one part of my tattoo experience. And, I love it now, and it's imperfections.

She’s asking opinions and we’re providing them. I don’t need to be a doctor to know the symptoms of an infection and she doesn’t have them. As to allergies, if you look at the medical literature, the number of actual documented allergies is tiny. The chances that this is an allergy is close to zero. What many of us with years of experience getting tattoos have seen is tattoos like this caused by someone tattooing like they were using a jackhammer. When the most likely explanation covers all of your symptoms, it’s probably the correct one. Last, YOU don’t set the rules here. If you want to be the big cheese, start your own forum.

I really like the way it looks now. Not sure if it cleared up or I just got used to it, but the area that bothered me doesn't stand out at all anymore. I am thinking about my next tattoos already.

Looks really good. Also it’s just a tattoo. Don’t expect too much from it. I’d be happy if I had that piece.

If you can’t take the heat, don’t post your tattoo in a public forum. End of story. 🤷🏻‍♀️