JazzyMac

3 hours in the chair last night. Shading is next. Maybe some coloring if time permits.
 

OP here, the tattoo is pretty much healed up now. only a few skin scabs here and there but no redness no puss etc. and the original colour seems to not have faded as much as I had expected it to. I am very surprised at how quickly it has started healing
The tattooist has offered to give me a 50% refund. 

..let me know if you find anything wonky.
Thanks

Been lurking for a while, first post. The information on this forum is so helpful - thanks to all of you.
I've been getting tattooed for over 20 years, starting with the obligatory celtic knot on my ankle in the early 90's (later lasered off). I took a long hiatus from getting tattooed and then dove in with a large back piece from Greg Whitehead in 2014.
I'd been considering getting something more visible for a while, but needed to wait until I could fully commit mentally. I'd been following Robert Ryan for a few years on Instagram, love all of his work, and knew I wanted him to do my tattoo. Finally took the plunge last weekend and couldn't be happier. The design is taken from one of his paintings, Bardo Thodol. We left the bottom of the tattoo intentionally open-ended so I can add to it later. Wonderful experience at Electric Tattoo in Asbury Park, great people all around, and VICE was there shooting a documentary on Robert for the Tattoo Age series. My tattoo might be famous! We'll see if it makes it into the final cut.
Anyway, great to be here!
 

I am so sorry dude.  While I have never gotten an infection I did get one messed up tattoo from a professional studio that came highly referred by friends.  Pissed me off to no end.  Some was due to my inexperience and some was outright deceit on the shop owners end.  It happens to a lot of people.
Did the Dr do a culture right away?  MRSA would be my main concern.

Hi,
First post, long time male lurker from Long Beach, California, 43 years young.  Love Japanese style/themed and American Trad.
-Mike

Brand new shoulderblade piece, 4 days old. Inspired by the cedar waxwing, my favorite bird, and my grandma's pansies (she would have been 120 years old on Friday!) Tattoo by Darcy Nutt at the Richmond convention, blending in beautifully with her previous work the past two years on my SA cichlid/floral half-sleeve. I'm definitely one of Darcy's "nuts"
P.S. All of Darcy's tattoos are free hand

how about a map of egypt? Use the outline of the country and incorporate the pyramids

Hello and welcome!

Hey folks, I'm Samantha. Everyone calls me Sam, so that's my default. I've browsed this forum before, usually to look at insight about different methods of healing. Got my first ink on my 25th birthday in 1989. But most of what I now wear happened after my 50th birthday a few years ago. I call my current count 21 tattoos. I tat around. I like that artists refer to someone like myself who wears various artists work as a Tattoo Collector. 
I love conventions. I'm not ashamed of the fact that Ink Master is one of my favorite tv indulgences. 
I'm in the South Jersey area, Philadelphia adjacent.

Forgot to update this- 
Well, yeah I don't have any tattoo reference points as it was my first tattoo, but he started on my ribs, worked up into my armpit, then outlined across my collar bone, and on my nipple. This was all Excruciatingly painful.
I once crushed my finger off in an industrial guillotine, I would do this again on all 5 fingers and it wouldn't feel as painful at that. I'm not being pussy about it, i'm just stating how much it hurt for me, in all honesty. Someone mentioned rubbing sunburn? Maybe if Edward F***ing scissorhands was doing the rubbing, I dunno... anyway.
After about 2.5 hours, the artist tells me its taking longer than he expected, hes moving slower because he can tell it hurts, I'm lying there still and quiet, but i think if i tensed my other bicep any harder it would have popped, so he actually told me to take the cream because if he didn't finish today, I would be leaving the country and I wouldn't be able to come back for another session to finish.
So I got experience with and without.
Once the cream went on it wasn't just less painful, it was nothing, literally nothing, I swear if it wasn't for the vibrations i could feel in my bones or the buzzing I wouldn't know I was getting tattooed. So at this point he doubles his pace and I can feel how much faster the lines are going down. He said it would take 3-4 hours, it took a little under 5 in the end.
Notes -
When I could watch him tattooing it hurt less than staring at the ceiling.
The perfect way to describe how it felt was slowly pulling a stanley blade across yourself like our a surgeon making an incision. I've slipped a few times with my stanley lol only difference is as soon as he lifts off the pain stops immediately.
I dunno, I felt like a massive pussy taking the cream but I needed to finish up, my next one i'll still go in for with no cream.
So there is my embarrassing, but genuinely honest experience. (better that just the BS 'It barley hurt I was fine' lie haha)

So I am wanting to get something similar to the picture I attached, but I'm wondering how small I could go with a piece like this. I want to do it on my lower leg where I have one very large shin piece. So I'd like to keep the rest smaller so I can obviously fit more on my short legs!
 
This is just a mockup I've made with reference images to give my artist an idea of what I'm looking for, so obviously the design will change.
 

 
 
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

So I'm here to revive this thread and talk about my first experience with back tattoos.  I have never in my life felt so much sharp pain for such a long period of time.  The back will be the hardest tattoo I ever finish and not just for the pain levels.  The way muscles contract, certain spots have this anxious bad "tickle" to them, how adrenaline will betray you and run out not before your butt is done butt right in the middle of getting it done.  If I ever see the other side of this tattoo experience while this forum is up I will complain on this forum all the up to and including the day I finish healing from my final session
Things that happened: going into mild bodily shock, shivering and teeth chattering for no reason, having stretch marks put in me from tattoo artist fighting muscle tightening, adrenaline running out while my butt is being tattooed, adrenaline running out after 2 hours during a 5 hour session, flying home on hot thighs overnight from the other coast.
Things that didn't happen: quitting, having a good time, smiling about any of it, any variety of talking with my artist

Step 2 of my cover up/re-work journey done today:
Before is the red/pink flowers and after is the (slightly angry and a little bloody still) black/grey.
I'm really happy with how it's looking  Still got some more shading and finishing off to do, plus the first rose needs going over again as a lot of the original red has popped back out as it's healed. I'm back in another 3 weeks for another 2 hours and hopefully that should be it done then. 

I have an appointment with Chad Koeplinger on Sunday. Pretty stoked. 
 

Hey guys hope everyone is well my first thread so please be kind :P i am getting a tatoo done in a few weeks but i would be interested in finding out how long this particular tattoo would take about the size of a hand? inside the bicep :) any feedback would help

Hey JazzyMac, Oh I totally freaked out BEFORE. Seven years of trying to get my head around it. Didn't sleep the night before but then woke up super excited. I had booked in three times and cancelled. So yeh, I had before AND after remorse. I am slowly getting over it and while I keep getting that feeling like someone is whacking me in the stomach I am now catching myself and going "um, why exactly?".

She doesn't remember???? Was she black-out drunk when she got it? Sorry, but that's really hard to believe.

I checked her out on IG and her works looks great.  It seems like you'll be able to get the coverup you want and need with this artist.  Best of luck with your consult!

You're not doing anything wrong.  THEY ARE.  It doesn't matter if it's a tattoo shop.  You're a customer, and you deserve good service.  As long as you're not walking around being a douche, they should be treating you like a customer.
To me, one strike and you're out--honestly speaking.  If they contacted you in advance, apologized, was sincere, contrite, etc...then maybe hey, sure, reschedule.  But if they just decided not to show up, or they're pushing you off on someone else, chuck deuces and move on to the next.  There are plenty of fish in the sea.
I'd keep researching anyway.  Seems as if your hard earned money would be better spent somewhere there are good artists, that show up, show prove, and do their job.  That's all.  

That's a suave tattoo design.  I can't tell you how small you could go because I don't know you and I'm a very bad visualizer.  BUT, your (good) artist will definitely let you know that some of your elements need to be big enough so that they don't blob together after some years or are hard to see.  Like the moon, or the details in the pearls above the ribbon.  So keep in mind it will have to be big enough to make sure those can be seen/or tattooed clearly.

Done today at Dead Presidents lounge in Albany NY

Hi, I'm fine!
Well no.  But thanks for asking.  Your puppy sounds awesome.  The time flies no matter what we do is what reality always slaps me with.
 

Thanks, name of my girls and wife :)

Welcome to the forum!  Such a wonderful baby name!