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Dry healing is fine, it just is a bit more uncomfortable to heal and takes a bit longer. Putting ointment and hand lotion on open or scabby skin always seemed counter-intuitive to me.

Eyeball tattoos are a gimmick, the risk of permanent damage to your eyesight is not worth the aesthetic IMO. Get some cheap coloured contacts if you want the hallowe'en-psycho look ... Blackout tattoos are great if you want that specific look and/or want a fresh start over some old ink. I've seen (healed) white over blackout work quite well, but I've also seen examples where the white doesn't quite pop (ie dependent on tattooists skill and how much scarring from covered tattoos below). To each their own, I am starting to enjoy abstract tattoos but the "brutal-blackout" look is a bit crude to me. Creatively I think there are more interesting ways to approach layers, blastovers and coverups...but hey express yourself however you choose. cheers

Looks very overworked. Are you putting any kind of lotion or ointment on it ? If so I would stop and dry heal that sucker out. Not much you can do, aside from trying not to stress. Let the body heal. In a few months you can assess, re-hit the colour in the tattoo, but it's looking pretty scarred up so you might have to wait a bit longer for a re-hit. Talk to your tattooist.

geez you think that looks bad, try dry healing a hand or neck LOL you're fine bud, relax and en joy the new tattoo 😉

I don't really care, I like my tattoos ! Every single one of them. And that is all that matters. At this point in my life, if someone doesn't like me simply because I am a tattooed person they can go f*ck themselves and frankly I don't have time or want to know them (family included). I choose to express myself the way I have - take it or leave it... Now if someone wants to get up in my face and insult me about my tattoos (or be rude in general), well you can guess what kind of response they would receive from me... ----really, the majority of people - friends and strangers - have been incredibly positive towards my tattoo expression. I have the odd conservative person look a bit queasy because of the pain you would assume from some of the nastier spots, but I just smile and laugh. The dumbest comments I have received are along the lines of money ie "how much did that cost" (which I will never answer, I just respond by telling them that is rude) or "that is a waste of money" which I just roll my eyes and end the conversation. It's my money to spend freely and my body my choice...I can guarantee my awesome bodysuit collection did not cost as much as their ugly truck/SUV or cocaine habit haha 😉

Update - awesome time in Belgium and France ! Got to meet my LST penpal danceswithferrets in-person. Him and his wife showed me a wonderful time in Leuven and we had a really awesome tattoo exchange, including this photo op: I enjoyed Belgian sites and people (and beer!) so much that I headed back to Bruxelles after the Southern France wedding for my remaining days. Met some cool people by chance (one of which was a tattooist) within 5 minutes of leaving my airbnb...got this gothic skull blastover made by my new pal Taul Tattoo at his Atome22 Studio: And spent my last day in Bruxelles at the world class Purple Sun Tattoo: Hand poked finger dangler by Indy Voet and this incredibly powerful tattoo from Jean-Philippe Burton As an added bonus I got to see the Wim Delvoye exhibit at the Royal Museums of Fine Arts Belgium and see Jamie the tattooed pig from Art Farm and the Cloaca shit machine ! Very grateful for the experiences the universe and tattoo-karma provided me throughout this trip. It was a spiritual awakening of sorts. Highly recommend Bruxelles and Belgium, I can't wait to go back 🙂

terrible design/composition. and what's up with the solid black flower top? - looks like a biker blackout.

I want to feel ALL of that tattoo. The best. The worst. The excitement. The vulnerability. The fear. The anxiety. The confidence. The strength. The power. I have found a lot of peace and healing through the pain. Some people don't get that and can't. Some of you will no exactly what I'm talking about. Embrace that shit.

I have friends who talk about how they want their sleeves and tattoos, but don't want any part of the pain. -- I don't get that. Never have, never will. The pain is part of the tattoo process. Suck it up or embrace it. If you skip the pain, you're missing out on a major part of the tattoo experience in my opinion. The pain is temporary, the tattoo is permanent....well, i don't even know about that. Life is temporary.

Purple Sun tattoo is in Brussels...so I will likely check that place out. I'm sure Pascal will have some other cool suggestions in around Belgium. Anybody know of any cool shops in Toulouse ?

oh awesome @zetroc ! Poison Idea is playing Paris on July 10, so who knows I may find myself there! Or perhaps stop-in on my way back to Brussels before my flight back home.

The experience is EVERYTHING in tattoo, at least to me.

it looks fine, you can read it and you know what it says. don't overthink it, just live your life with it. it's just a tattoo.

what's up friends I'm going to Belgium & France for 2 weeks in July...my best friend is marrying a french gal, so the wedding is in Montpellier, Southern France. I will be flying in/out of Brussels, Belgium. Going to check out Ieperfest hardcore music weekend festival as soon as I arrive in Brussels, planning to meetup with my LST penpal Pascal in-person, then will go with the wind to get to Toulouse and Montpellier areas to meet up with my friends for the wedding. But I also have a bunch of free days after the wedding before I fly home and have to make my way from the South coast of France back up to Brussels...seems like a great opportunity to smash on a new european tour tattoo ! Any suggestions of tattoo shops for a walk-in? Or cool ideas/places to check out? I've never solo adventured before, so I'm taking advantage of my new freedom. thx budz 🙂 Eric

let your body heal from a surgery...

$800 CDN / hour ?!? ... that is outrageous. you could fly to Switzerland, Belgium, Arizona, New York or Japan...have a holiday and fly home with a really incredible tattoo from an OG tattoo legend for much less than it's gonna cost ya to go sit in your local shop and get tattooed by a Chinese 'grandmaster' for $600USD/hr. You could even get a crappy celebrity tattoo from Bang Bang for half that amount. there are so many local and accessible high calibre cats around that high quality tattoos and top tier artists are accessible and affordable. if you want to pay for the brand / name ... well, go for it, it's your money. i'd rather buy a nice looking, reliable Toyota that's gonna last until eternity myself...

Medicine Hat...you will be closer to Calgary and they have a large number of skilled tattooers. But the tattooer will determine whether they would want you to hit a few laser sessions and do something completely fresh OR if they would be ok with re-working everything (really, depends on the tattooer). Look up OllieXXX, he works in Calgary/Canmore. His shit is so heavy he'd run over everything and you won't be able to see any sign of the past. There's also https://www.heavyhorsetattoo.com/ in Olds, Alberta, might be more your style. Shawn Hedley or Rich Harding at Champion Tattoo probably clean you up no problemo, great guys and easy to work with...they are in Edmonton but moving East to Sherwood Park at the end-April. You're gonna need to go talk to tattooers face-to-face to really see what your options are...Alberta road trippin' buddy !

update - i've been flying solo for 3 months now. it's a different feeling but I suppose things could be a lot worse. there have been some pretty dark days...but there have also been some really fun and exciting days with old friends and new. my friends have been amazing I just finished repainting my house. In vivid colours like I always wanted - mystical purple and electric orange...like it's purple from one angle and then from the opposite angle you only see the bright ass orange. twilight zone haha. everything else is a warm white. It is a bit symbolic, as the house never got repainted (it was this dated,ugly, flat light green from the previous owner)...kinda sad my wife and I had 4 years in that house and couldn't even agree on simple paint job. So I just got it done and it looks great.Got a bunch of new tattoo and kung fu art - yknow cool shit like dragons, eagles, tigers, etc - framed up ready to cover the white walls. Starting to feel like home and ok with the new me, new life. cheers friends and thanks for the support

ah, thanks @JAC1961 honestly this is all for best. I don't think I have ever had an opportunity for life freedom like this. Just shy of 40 and everything else in my life is going awesome, so I'm focusing on that. New beginnings...hey prob some more tattoos 😉 in places that weren't approved under the marriage contract haha.

well, I had to put down my beloved pug-dog 2 months ago. My wife and I are separating and she moved out of our house this weekend. It's -40 Celcius in my city and my winter beater died. ...but hey, my tattoos still look awesome, so everything is gonna be alright...sigh...

I don't think there is anything wrong with getting one artist to do full cohesive and integrated pieces. Those tattoos are quite spectacular. I think though when you mix up styles, work with different tattooers you get a different experience and new perspectives. The tattoos become very collaborative between the receiver and the maker. You get to keep going on the neverending journey. You may make some mistakes, you may make great decisions, but the mash up of style and experience makes for very very interesting and real tattoo collections with many life lessons and realizations woven into your skin. You become a living quilt or "colouring book" as i say. At least that's what I'm going for.

mix em up, collect lots, get tattooed by many people make your experiences wide, exciting and memorable cheers

haha that's great. people should ask and talk to each other more when they see interesting tattoos, sometimes us tattoo people get too-cool to just open up, yknow.

If you want to get f*cked up, take the drugs and get f*cked up. If you want to get tattooed, get tattooed. Pain is part of the rite of passage of tattooing. I believe is being lost because of how accessible everything is now. Take a swig of navy rum, bite down on a leather belt and take it like a champ.

"it’s just lines, how hard can it be" ...well, clean line work is the foundation of any good tattoo. A good solid tattooer can just run right over it with a fatter solid line at the right depth under the skin.