Getting a Tattoo

Some background:

It’s a big step! You’re making a permanent change to your appearance and potentially investing a significant amount of money to do so.

How do you make a good choice, the right choice for you?

Hopefully this blog will help you to do precisely that.

I was a tattoo collector for many years before I became a tattooed, the experience wasn’t always positive. The industry was different back then and I was young, tattooers weren’t the same as they are today, they were in fact quite intimidating. For my first tattoo I walked into a studio with outlaw motorcycle club affiliations and was told to pick one as the tattooed pointed at the wall, I sheepishly pointed at a rose from the flash and he asked where, 45 minutes later I was the proud owner of a rose and stem on my chest, I was stoked but after a half a year or so I realised that the tattoo didn’t fit my chest well, I had a long thin tattoo best placed on a forearm in a position that would’ve been more suited to a piece with a more overall round shape to it.

A few years later I had some tribal added to it in an attempt to fill the space and make the tattoo look better, this temporarily satisfied me but overall the tribal I chose (off the wall again) still wasn’t ideal for the position. I can hardly blame the tattooers, they both did exactly what I’d asked of them and both performed the technical side of the tattoo well. Tattoo experience number three was a Celtic bean around my wrist, this was a difficult tattoo for the artist to get the stencil on and meeting correctly and creating and endless knot as a Celtic design should, a few months later I had the same artist add some flames up the forearm. I was super happy, it was the early 2000’s and I’d joined what was a pretty small percentage of the population with exposed tattoos, back then the vast majority of people didn’t tattoo below the short sleeve line on their arms. Add another couple of years to my tattoo journey and I met a tattooed that was genuinely passionate about his craft, he worked upwards from the flames and turned the existing tattoos into a full sleeve. While he was working we talked about tattoos, styles, subject matter, placement, flow, all the stuff that no other artist had ever mentioned.

Now I had some inside, my next tattoo was drawn as a full sleeve, I was educated on the possibilities, the styles available and was able to make the artists job easier when asking him to draw the piece and in the end received an amazing tattoo that both he and I were very happy with.

The take home from this:

I always wanted a lot of tattoos, I worked with three artists that were great at their craft but they didn’t understand their broader responsibilities as a tattoo artist.

In my opinion part of the job is to inform people of the possibilities, educate them when possible on the pros and cons of what they are contemplating. Of course while doing this, as tattooers we are walking a thin line, it’s still your body, your tattoo and as humans we are all different so I cannot count the amount of times I’ve said “I’m simply giving you the best advice I can from my experience as a tattooer, at the end of the day it’s your tattoo and we are here to provide a service so as long as what you want doesn’t reflect negatively on the studio or myself we’ll do our best to make you happy”

These artists that worked on me early in my life could’ve all had more from me, more job satisfaction, I was open to ideas and wanted to get tattooed, and more money, a lot more money because once I found someone that could work with me I got a lot of work done.

The breakdown:

Do some research, take a look at all the different styles available and see what resonates with you.

The subject matter can generally be made to work in the style you prefer, for us as tattooers when a customers says I want a lions head we really don’t know how to move forward with the idea but if you tell us I want a western Traditional (Trad) Lions head we have a pretty good direction to work in.

Generally our next question will be placement, where you want the tattoo will define how we draw it, if it’s to be on the sternum we might suggest a symmetrical Lion, somewhere on the sides of the arms and legs and we’d possibly prefer to do it more side on.

Size, bigger is generally better, try and fill the body part if possible for a better overall look. Bigger tattoos will age better and leave much less chance of the tattoo becoming an unreadable blob.

Upside down or right way up? Most artists will agree that the tattoo should be the right way up for other people when they look at it, occasionally customers will say “but it’s for me”

I always explain that it will be the right way up for you the 5 - 10 times you look at it after it’s done but it’ll be upside down for the rest of the word forever, always followed by “I’m simply giving you the best advice I can from my experience as a tattooer, at the end of the day it’s your tattoo and we are here to provide a service so as long as what you want doesn’t reflect negatively on the studio or myself we’ll do our best to make you happy”

I mean it, I want the customer to be happy, a lot of tattooers get annoyed at clients wanting this, myself included when I was a younger tattooer. These days I simply want to give the customer the best advice I can and for them to leave happy.

I once had a colleague that was a very respected and well know tattooer in his style tell me there was three types of client for him.

The first type would say they loved his work and gave him total freedom in the design process, he said they always got a nice tattoo but inevitably it was his tattoo and they just got to wear it.

The second type were the rigid ones that had a very fixed idea in their head and would ask him to make multiple changes to the design and didn’t allow him to create a piece he was 100% happy with, he is the absolute definition of a professional and would always do his best but he said those piece were always what he regarded as his worst work, those clients were also the ones least likely to return to him, or any of the other tattooers they’d been tattooed by.

The third type, they would come on for their consultation with 6-10 references of his, or other tattooers in the same styles work, they would say something along the lines of

“I love all of this but it’s just ideas, but their photo and this photonics really love and want to see something very similar in the design’ they;d still often request some changes after the design process but they’d be generally minor. He said these were the best clients, they got a great tattoo and were involved enough to feel like it was their tattoo.

Reference:

It’s great for tattoo artists if you bring in a photo of a tattoo you like, it’s even better if you arrive to the studio with 4-10 that you like. Unless they’re all completely different and leave us confused as to how to help you. It’s great to see the style you like and to have the freedom to create you a unique tattoo for yourself. Very few genuinely good tattooers will be comfortable doing a blatant copy of another persons tattoo and we are often left wondering why you don’t want your own piece drawn especially for you.

Summary:

So in summary research is key, spend the time and it will be reflected in your final result. Research the styles so you understand the possibilities. Research who you want to do your tattoo, do they tattoo the style you want, look at their work and be certain they can do it well.

Find a professional artist in a professional tattoo studio, if someone’s working from their living room you need to ask yourself why, and maybe weigh up the long term consequences of saving what will amount to just a few dollars a year for the time you have the tattoo.

I hope this first blog helps you in making good choices and in getting a tattoo that you love.