SStu

@Wilhell - trying really hard to avoid the sophmoric humor on this one . . .

:rolleyes:

M/time great ink so far.

Sounds like a great idea. Should easily be adaptable as an image.

Advice: find an artist whose style you LOVE and give him/her some flexibility on the design, and in order to get some detail into the frets and tuners you're going to need to not make it too small.

I was considering putting a snake around my ankle with some roses as an ankle bracelet. As a cover up for a bracelet of flowers that I have never liked.

Certainly as long as the negative space between the coils was being utilized it would be easy enough to avoid the barber pole, Christmas garland confusion. Snakes are great for coverups, too.

Wowsers.

I think we need 2 contests per month. A large piece contest and a small piece contest.

Yeah. I shot or multiple.

Why is it that you never see snakes coiling all the way around a limb?

could end up looking like a Barber pole . . .

@SStu - she must have been extremely slow, for whatever reason. That's a REALLY long time.

I'll tell you what - I was much more comfortable with the 45 minute sessions (with good results) than I was with the 1 x 20 minute session. Regardless of the amount of lightening on this last appointment I'd choose the longer, more tolerable visit any day.

Did they ice you down / do they use a cooler on you?

For your first two treatments, was that 45 minutes of actual zapping, or it took 45 minutes because you needed to take breaks? That whole area should be treated within 8-12 minutes, tops, of actual "laser" time.

No icing, but the cooler is in 1 hand and the zapper in the other.

No actrual breaks in any session, and most of the 45 minutes was laser time for the 1st 2 sessions. Maybe she was slow?

Ok, short story background 1st. I got my 1st tattoo (the "traditional" snake on the left) in 1974. Between then and the early '90s I kept adding on, making the mistakes of a/trying to get the tattooist to replicate my artwork, b/thinking my designs and attempts to tie it all together would work + c/trusting that the last artist could "refresh" the look by re-inking everything. Result = helter/skelter, muddy jumble on prime real estate (all you youngsters - I hope you truly realize what a wonderfull educational tool the internet has become). The artist I now want to do a nice back piece thinks he could cover it without laser, but I want to give him more freedom/options. Here's how it looked last fall:

I'm going to New Look in Houston. They offered/used Dr.Numb for the 1st 2 treatments, both of which lasted about 45 minutes - and this is the result 8 weeks after the 2nd session:

I'm real happy with the progress so far. That's the good news.

Here's where I'm starting to squirm. Had my 3rd session 2 weeks ago tomorrow only to learn that the entire staff had been replaced by management (??!!), they no longer use/provide numbing cream and the tech who I got passed to did an exceptionally painfull session in about 15-20 minutes. I'm going to wait 8 weeks and see how the results are before I buy my own Dr.Numb and book my next appointment.

When the line was tattooed it bled and released the nasty sharpie-ness that was fucking with my skin.

Do you mean when it was tattooed the 2nd time?

Welcome!

Nice, spacey pictures - just what I'd expect from Joshua Tree!

You're in good hands, and we look forward to seeing the finished piece!

Welcome!!

Welcome

It all depends on how specific a piece you want to end up with. If you're letting the artist have free reign and you're both familiar with the image(s) you want done, then no reference materials would be needed. If you like a specific style of Oni or dragon or samurai or you want a specific pose or other prerequisite that you want incorporated then you should bring that. Otherwise you can browse his porfolio and indicate which pieces really hit home with you so that he understands how to proceed with a drawing.

Welcome . . . and CHEERS!

I've been using Dr. Numb for my last few treatments and I think it works great. I go to New Look Houston and they use a cryo-cooler, but it was still pretty painful without the numbing cream. I was also unaware that negative results could be caused by using a numbing cream.

New Look is also where I'm going . . . so you might want to start getting geared up for it not being available any more . . . :confused:

Interesting. These guys use a super-cold air blowing device during the process, too - so hopefully the absense of numbing cream will not enhance eotjer the pain or the ability for the laser to do it's best.

actually, it was the recent Lady Heads (and the lack of black women in it) that reminded me about this piece.

Erica Flannes:

This is a great example of how a tattoo needs to settle in to look it's best. After 7 months you really see what the tattoo looks like and IMO opinion it looks better, blue is brighter and black looks blacker.

I'd tend to agree with you, but in this case the difference could easily be a change in ambient lighting at the time, or aperature of the lens, etc. The skin tones don't match from photo to photo, so the ink tones aren't going to be the same either, really.

So I just adjusted the date on my upcoming 3rd session, and the girl at the counter advises me that I don't need to come in an hour early because they have stopped using the numbing cream. In the course my subsequent questions, she divulges the name of the ex-cream (Dr.Numb) and advises that they've stopped using is because "it doesn't really work".

A very quick search on-line reveals mixed results from other users.

I, of course, have no idea if it works or not since I havn't yet had a laser session without it being applied - but I guess I'm going to find out next Thursday.

Any opinion on the product and/or if there is an ulterior motive for the 'clinic' stopping using it?