sophistre

Nice! Ahh, I would love to see one of those in the water. :)

I got an email from my artist's PR rep saying he wouldn't make it to the states in April, after all. Too many octopus tattoos for one city at one time, maybe. Alas.

Argh! My artist cancelled my April appointment, because he can't make it to the US at that time for some reason. :( I've been so amped up about it for so long, and now...nada. Time to cancel tickets and hotels in NY.

On the other hand, I guess this means I can spend the money on some smaller pieces instead...

I don't really understand this line of argument. Words bother some people. You are free to choose to use them, sure, but what is the point of stubbornly insisting on using words that bother other people when there are plenty of other functional words that don't?

I mean, I guess I would understand it more if it was cussing and you were trying to make a point, maybe, by messing with people's conservative something-or-other. But this is just...words for tattoos. Choosing the ones that bug people when there are other ones that get the job done isn't shocking or subversive, it's just kinda...weirdly obstinate. Like...you're choosing words that the community hates, for ...no reason with associated value, other than just doing it because you want to, in spite of knowing that it bugs people. I don't think that rings resoundingly with respecting said community.

WTF do I know, though. I'm a newbie and should probably shut my cakehole.

Video

Ugh, he is so ridiculously good-looking.

And that video was amazing. But speaking as someone who puts make-up on on a daily basis just on the face, I don't think it's really viable to plan to do that over a large area. It's not easy to get coverage that full, even with a heavy product, and keeping it 'set,' especially in humid weather, would be pretty much a nightmare. It's a neat option for smaller things, but even then...anywhere that clothing makes contact you'd get a lot of transfer.

Rando bumps: Keratosis pilaris.

I only know this because there is a body scrub I use that is designed to treat it, and it is AMAZING. I don't actually have KP, but my mom apparently does, and she swears by the stuff. It involves a scrub component and a light peel treatment, and it makes my skin so freakin' smooth. It is expensive (fittybux), but I've had my tub for about two years and it works better than anything else I've ever tried.

Just thought I'd toss that out there!

I do, yep! As of the end of 2012, anyway. I was on the east coast before that.

Honestly, I had a rough idea of my concept and it involved a whole lot of fiddly details (geometric, Mendhi, patterns; cramming that stuff into an abstract octopus shape) that kind of narrowed down the likely field of interested artists. Artist availability kinda narrowed it down even more.

I'm still a newbie when it comes to tattoo stuff -- I know just enough to realize how much I don't know. I spent a lot of time plugging relevant keywords into google image, scouring images and related images, and bookmarking possibles. I'm glad I discovered LST, because that'll make researching future tattoos much easier. :cool:

@scubaron: Peter Walrus Madsen, a Danish fellow who apparently does resident guest stuff with Sacred Tattoo. The subject matter isn't his usual fare, but the style works really well with what I've got in my head.

And the world gets smaller, because China Mieville is my author mega-crush, for reasons professional and otherwise. :( I actually went to see him read from Embassytown when I was living in Cambridge (MA). (Kraken was better. :) Predictably, The Scar is probably my other favorite...if I had to choose.)

This thread makes me so happy. I'm also a diver (recently landlocked, though; life has been busy), and I'm also getting an octopus tattooed on myself in April, in NY. It's going to be pretty abstract, though. I've thought about where I might put more sea life on myself. I hope you guys update with pictures; I'd love to see what you get!

I just spent two hours reading this thread and looking at the amazing stuff in it. It just reinforces how little I actually know about the recent(ish) history of tattooing. So fascinating.

I'd contribute my stepdad's tattoos, but I'm not sure he'd let me take pictures of them -- I think he's self-conscious about them. He was placed in an orphanage in Chicago along with several of his siblings in what had to be the early 40s...and at some point got his hands on a bottle of ink and decided to tattoo not only himself but most of his siblings, too. The Sisters at the orphanage finally caught him, though, so some of them escaped, heh. I was always amazed he didn't have any from his time in the Army, since he lied about his age to get in (maybe he does, and just didn't tell me about them). Just crazy stories about backing a tank into an officer's car, and playing drums in Chicago with all-black jazz bands before that was a comfortable thing for a young Italian guy to do.

Unrelated: @Chemical Burn, I think I recognize you from another forum. Haha.

On topic -- I don't have my tattoo yet; my appointment is for April. My mother is progressive and supportive of decisions I make as an adult, but she's always been a little bit squeamish about body modification in general...she's just a product of her generation, I guess. The other night I sat around writing a little thing about being tattooed. It involved my mother, and on a whim I sent it to her. I thought maybe she'd identify with the self-ideation aspect, since she's moved across the country and remade her own life twice now.

Very much to my surprise and amusement, it was the image of an aspiring doctor standing over my willed-to-science body some day hopefully far into the future, and looking at my future tattoos with amazement, that won her over. She said the whole thought just made her smile, and ever since she's been really positive about it. The email I got from her about her visit sometime this summer said that if she chooses those travel dates, she'll be able to see my "gorgeous" tattoo.

Who knew that the way to her heart was through the morgue? Hahah. Wild.

Thank you for the link, @Graeme! That's actually pretty familiar stuff, fortunately, because I also love cycling. :) Although I haven't done it in a few years. But still, every little bit of useful information helps. The hardest part for me to control going into it will be the rest, sadly, since I've got sleeping problems and travel tends to exacerbate them, but I arrive the day before and can spend the evening trying to relax, at least.

Thank you for the reassurances! It's definitely going to be an experience...and I'm guessing it's going to be a pretty brutal one, especially since I fly home the day after the second appointment. At least I know I get to sleep it off and take it easy when I get back.

I'm not sure that I want to use numbing agents for a variety of reasons, some of which are hard to articulate, but most of which have to do with the fact that I don't want to risk the tattoo being compromised in any way in the healing process. It just seems like if numbing stuff were the best for tattoos, everybody would use it, no...? Maybe that's faulty thinking on my part. In the end, I will probably go with what my artist and shop feel is best, as long as it's nothing crazy involving vaseline and saran wrap. ;) (They would never suggest that!)

I wasn't familiar with Henning Jorgenson (I'm actually not really familiar with big names in tattooing these days :o ) but the googled art is lovely! It's funny...the last serious push I made toward getting a tattoo was (first) with Horiyoshi III (we exchanged faxes, that ought to tell you how long ago it was), and later, after he stopped doing large pieces on foreigners at all, I sent a handwritten letter to his former apprentice, Horitaka, and we exchanged emails a little bit. Sadly, after that, my life got turbulent for personal reasons and tattoos sort of fell off of my priority list. I still feel that old amazement when I look at Japanese styles, though; especially floating world concepts. Maybe someday I'll follow through on that. There are so many intriguing 'new' (? ...new to me, anyway) styles out there now, though.

...which is all a big, long ramble. I guess that's what happens at 1:30am when I can't sleep. But no, my appointment is with this guy. My concept is not his most usual fare (it's an abstract, deconstructed octopus sleeve), but his style seemed just perfect for it.

Thanks for the reply!

From what I understand, my artist doesn't like to use stencils (or uses them minimally?) and prefers to draw on skin beforehand, and I suspect that's going to take up a lot of the booked time. (Of course, I might just be telling myself that to make myself feel better, haha.)

I've read mixed things about numbing agents like Bactine, like that they can interfere with how well the ink takes. Is that true? I've also read that taking non-aspirin medication (ibuprofen) can help keep swelling down during a long session (that seems really optimistic to me, but maybe?).

Because the guy is from Denmark, I have a lot of incentive to stick with it...but there's only so much I can do! I think if the worst happens and I can't handle as much as he planned for, I'll pay him for his hours anyway and hope I can see him whenever he comes back. Luckily, he's a resident guest artist, so it's not a one-shot, never-again deal.

I'm just poking my head in to say hello, and thank you, because this forum is chock full of useful information.

I'm finally going to be getting tattooed for the first time in April, and I'm so excited. I've wanted tattoos pretty much all of my life, but the time was never right, or the artist wasn't available...you know, just the usual life-getting-in-the-way thing. It took a little over thirty years to get to the point where I can choose to go ahead, but the time is finally here, and I'm thrilled! Things appear to have changed a lot in the 10+ years since I last gave serious thought to getting tattooed.

I've been saturating myself in everything I can read about the process ever since I booked the appointment. It's a back-to-back, two day appointment, from 12pm-8pm both days, and I have to travel to NYC from the PNW, so it's a little bit intimidating, not gonna lie. I'm highly motivated, though, and trying to soak up as much advice and information as I can in advance so that I can feel prepared and confident when I show up to my appointment. Mental armor, I guess. :) In the end, I think I'm less nervous about how it's going to feel than whether or not my body will be able to put up with as much time under the needle in one shot as I would like it to. From what I understand, I can probably tip the odds in my favor, but will have only limited control over when my body chemistry starts to slide. Still, I am hopeful! I hear my artist (Peter Walrus Madsen) has very light hands. :o

Anyway, I'm probably just gonna lurk and read a lot, but yeah. I'm really grateful to have found such a good resource for information. I think it'll help me get my headspace prepared!