Zookeeper

Can't afford it right now, have to cancel appointment and reschedule for a few weeks. There was a mistake with my pay at work and I won't be paid for weeks. My tattoo money is going to have to pay my bills unfortunately.

Talked to artist last night, black is going to take 2-3 hours (This is NOT including the massive amounts of color in the tattoo) . Appointment to add black is Jan. 17th. I'm actually pretty scared for the first time, usually look forward to new tattoos and piercings.

I tried really hard to stay still, but I have a disorder that causes me to be very sensitive so I was jerking so hard at times that some lines don't connect fully or are shaky as hell.

On 12/28/2016 at 4:53 AM, marfil98 said:

Well, I've never gotten a tattoo in the area you described BUT I can relate in that of my 10 tattoos, 9 of them were on my arms/shoulders so I thought that all tattoo pain was created equal. Getting a large moth tattooed on my chest/sternum proved that wrong. As soon as the needle touched my skin I knew I'd underestimated the pain and, like you, I twitched a little involuntary which caused a bit of shaky linework. But then I thought to myself "The pain'll only last a couple of hours, the tattoo on the other hand is forever" I still have to go back in a few days to color it in, but I know that in the end a few hours of pain is worth it for a kick-ass piece of art that'll be with me forever. Best advice I can give you is grit your teeth, tough it out and don't forget to breathe. As for the numbing cream, I've never used it but I've heard good things. Besides, you don't wanna walk around with half a tattoo forever do you? 

Good luck with the coloring! I just ordered the hush cream. I was hoping it would come by friday to help my friend (I'm going with him tomorrow to get his hand tattoo done) but it won't be in till Wednesday. At least I can use it for my appointment.

16 hours ago, Colored Guy said:

I had my first rib area tattoo done last night, only 2 hours with a total of about 5 minutes of breaks. I came close to tapping out and this is my 17th tattoo. I would work in smaller increments up to 2 hours to see if that helps. From my experience, the outline is usually the worst part. Although late into the tattoo the final shading on the border was tough over the ribs.

God, I really hope you are right about the shading being easier. I am in college to be a zookeeper (Isn't it obvious? haha) And I'm a daycare worker and mentor for troubled teenagers at the moment so I have to have fairly hideable tattoos. Meaning that to get the amount of amazing tattoos I want I have to completely fill my thighs front to back, my chest, full back and entire belly and ribcage (All the painful places, yay!). I already have plans for a ball python in a bed of roses, a few parrots (see, animal tattoos!), black bands (can't beat the classics, though I want my own spin on them) and a wolf, coyote and fox probably, although those three are just rough ideas at the moment.

On 12/28/2016 at 2:29 PM, Williams92 said:

I don't really have any suggestions to help with the pain apart from to remember and breathe! Sounds like an amazing tattoo though!! 

Thank you, I'm quite impressed with my artist. He's a good guy, shockingly cheap for the quality of his art work ($100 an hour). Some black, but also tons of solid yellow, blue, purple, red. My lion is completely black so I'm excited for my first color. I get a lot of remarks about the tattoos I choose at my age though, I'm likely a great deal younger than anyone on this site. I always knew I wanted dozens of tattoos every since I was a little girl so these have been years in the making. None of that meaningful anchor or feather stuff...

I started my second tattoo last week, a full color saturated tattoo of the castle of hogwarts that covers the left side of my ribcage, belly and most of my left hip. My first tattoo was a big realistic lion on my thigh about the size of my outstretched hand. Since part of it was on my inner thigh and I managed to deal with it just fine while still talking and laughing through it I thought I would be just fine with my second tattoo.

WRONG.

Started crying twenty minutes into the outline and cried continuously for the next three hours. Cried so hard that the line work is a shaky mess (Artist tried his best, no blame there, he said it will be fixed when I fill in the color and considering the amazing job he did on my lion I have complete trust in him). I have no regrets, still thrilled to be getting this tattoo and will follow through with it but I need a better way to manage pain. There is no world in which I can handle coloring in this tattoo the way I was going. I was going to buy hush cream for my next appointment and try to do the tattoo in one to two hour stretches if I can. (I live in a wonderful state that has legalized marijuana, you know I'm taking advantage of that). What is the best pain management!? Best numbing cream (Using so much of this). Money is not a problem, I'm broke but I have the money to spare if it is worth it (I work two jobs, I'm not scrapping together pennies to pay for my tattoo, I have a good artist and my dream design)

I did end up getting this tattoo early September, painful but not the end of the world. Came out fantastic and I absolutely adore it. Tattooing is extremely addictive though and not even four months later and I have just finished the outline of a massive tattoo that spans over a foot of ribs, belly and hip and had me crying like crazy on the table. It still needs to be completely colored in, it is solid vivid color tattoo of the castle of hogwarts

So I'm looking for a couple of things here, first being advice on tattoo design that I can suggest to the artist (I already had a consultation, artist is working on first draft), second being care of the tattoo, and third being how to prepare for the tattooing session (I've been told it is going to be very long since the tattoo needs to be done all at once since there is not a clear outline).

So I'm getting a large lion tattooed on my lower thigh (probably going to stretch the entire length of the thigh though). It is mostly black with heavy shading and somewhat realistic. Very bright contrasting yellow/orange eyes with splotches of yellow, orange and red in the background. There is a long line running through it, cutting the lion off after the head. I'm hoping to change it to include more of the mane. I asked for the quote 'twenty seconds of insane courage' but I may ask for that to be taken out because I don't think it will fit into the tattoo very well. If it comes out nice and fits the tattoo I will keep it. There are is a very short stretch of African landscape, limited to the black silhouettes of some trees  and several small black silhouettes of birds flying away in the background.