Here's my posting to rec.arts.bodyart telling about getting my tattoo
>From: fuzzbox@world.std.com (Void Angel)
>Subject: Finally Fuzzbox has ink!
>Message-ID:
>Organization: Department Of Redundancy Department
>Date: Sat, 1 Jun 1996 01:34:56 GMT
>Lines: 71
So, after over a year of decision making, I finally have my first tattoo..
Wednesday, I went down to Providence, RI (alas, inking is illegal here
in MA..) to Modern Primitives, and I now have a beautiful female vampyre
on my right upper arm..
Here's how it went: I'd decided a while ago on the design that I wanted.
The design was based on a painting by NeNe Thomas, with a few
modifications done to it. In my mind, i shrunk the design down to about
3 inches by 3 inches, then did a computer rendering of it that size.
When I got to MP, after a little bit of sketching, Dave (my artist)
told me that if I wanted as much detail as I had in the original picture
(oh yeah, the original was an 8 X 10 picture), I would have to go bigger.
How much bigger? Try 6 inches by 6 inches. Wow. What I thought was going
to be a small tattoo turned out to be a large piece. I considered backing
out until I looked at the tracing on my arm and I just said to go for it.
so, I sat down to what was to be SIX fun hours of inking. (Remember,
this is my first tattoo. I was already terrified of the needle, and
I didn't even have an idea of how long it would last.) Oh, and I have
come to the decision that anyone who says that tattoos don't hurt is
either a masochist or lying. At points, especially around the back of
my arm, it was ridiculously painful. The first two hours of linework
was fairly consistent as far as pain went, with just a few sensitive
spots hurting more. Then, the next 2 hours of coloring had some
really painful points, but some that didn't really hurt that much.
(blue seemed to be a particulary painful color) After the 4 hour point,
it was nothing but pain. I tried mentally escaping to somewhere else
as the needles hit, but it didn't help that much, plus the fact that
I had an incredible sinus headache by that time, meant that I just had
to sit and endure it.
Now, let me talk about Modern Primitives. Why hasn't anyone here talked
about them before? They were *WONDERFUL*. The shop was small, with one
private room and one semi-private room, but impeccably clean, with a pressure
cleaner placed prominently in the room, sealed and sterilized needles in
plain view (and opened up in front of me), and ultrasound cleaners for
cleaning out the tubes between colors. The waiting room had a very comfy
couch and a noticable lack of flash on the wall. There was flash, though,
in flip-files on the wall, but it was fairly obvious from the artist's
books sitting on the counter that they specialized in original artwork.
They also didn't allow smoking inside the shop, which was an incredibly
great touch to me, being allergic. Ken, the shop manager, always
was polite and helpful to me on the phone when I called, gave me a
follow-up call the day before to make sure I was coming, and even knew who
I was when I walked in the door (OK, so I showed up at the time I said
I would, but it still was a nice touch being greeted by name anyway.)
Next was Dave, my artist. He was so incredibly friendly that I almost
forgot that this person was repeatedly poking me with ink-coated needles.
Once he started working on my arm, he got so involved in the design that
I felt bad distracting him or talking to him. But all through 6 hours
work, he never got frustrated or anything. Even after 4 hours on my
arm, he even was able to have a sense of humor and joke with me.
And what work he did. my tattoo is *beautiful*. from the fine line work
on her gloves, to the shading on the crystal ball, to the details in her
hair, lips and eyes, it's just wonderful. I've been getting nothing
but compliments on it since Wednesday, and even the other artist and
the shop owner, KJ, kept coming over to watch Dave work. (and I think
Dave actually had a great time doing it, as well, by the look on his
face when it was done.)
Hopefully I'll be able to get a good picture of my tatt up on my home
page this week so y'all can take a look at it.
But, if anybody out there is listening- definitely GO to Modern Primitives.
They're wonderful- and only an hour away from Boston....
--
Jason Bilsky fuzzbox@world.std.com + Having a daith means never
http://world.std.com/~fuzzbox/fuzzbox.html + being able to wear earplugs
+ at concerts again.
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