Number five
It's been quite a while and this past Thursday was my latest appointment. It's tough to plan the sessions out when I have to fly down to San Jose to see my tattoo artist, who is routinely booked 6 months in advance. I really like the results though so I'll keep it up for what should be 2 more sessions.
So I flew down to San Jose on Wed. night for my appointment Thursday afternoon. I had a 1pm - 7pm appointment, but 6 booked hours has in the past usually turned into 3.5 - 4 hours under the needle. One thing or another will slow progress. My Artist is casual about the schedule and isn't the kind of guy to sit down and power through 6 straight hours with a tattoo machine in his hand non-stop.
When I got there, I caught up with Ron for a minute and then he looked at my leg and we talked about colors. We'd started with a green/purple theme and I wanted to move out to some brighter colors in the mix. I didn't want a rainbow going up my leg or anything, but a hotter center in the middle of my leg with some yellow and white that made the middle section sort of "fit into" the bottom portion sounded good to me. Ron had some pretty good ideas and after talking to him for a bit and thinking about his suggestions I was happy with the decision we came to surrounding color. My problem is that I'm not good at visualizing what I'd like the finished product to look like so I didn't have many suggestions. Ron on the other hand, having spent thousands of hours coloring in Biomechanical tattoos, had some good ideas.
It's been11 months since my last session and I've totally forgotten what the pain feels like so right out of the gate (after he shaved my leg and got his colors ready) I was surprised how much it hurt. He started low on my leg and worked his way up. The first 15 minutes was pretty hard to take but then while he was doing the middle of my leg and calf someone turned the pain volume way down and it was just a mild annoyance. I talked with Ron for the next 2 hours while he worked on my leg. It was interesting to hear about what he's been going through in his personal life with his band and other hobbies. As he started to get higher on my leg the pain came right back into focus. The tattoo only goes up about 2" from the back of my knee but coloring that part felt like he was cutting the back of my knee out with a hot rusty nail. That section along with the front of my shin were the worst bits. The last 45 minutes were pretty much spent trying to concentrate on breathing and counting the seconds that each burst of color took. Even the young woman at the station next to me with her shirt off getting an upper-body tattoo was no distraction.
Ron wanted to get to band practice by 7 so I was happy to wrap up at 6:45. With the amount of pain he was dealing out I was very happy to stop after 4 solid hours of tattooing. The result is that most of the outside of my leg is done and I'm looking at probably two more 4 hour sessions. I'm totally impressed with the work, it's better than I thought it would turn out so far.
Pictures to follow:
One
Two
Three
So I flew down to San Jose on Wed. night for my appointment Thursday afternoon. I had a 1pm - 7pm appointment, but 6 booked hours has in the past usually turned into 3.5 - 4 hours under the needle. One thing or another will slow progress. My Artist is casual about the schedule and isn't the kind of guy to sit down and power through 6 straight hours with a tattoo machine in his hand non-stop.
When I got there, I caught up with Ron for a minute and then he looked at my leg and we talked about colors. We'd started with a green/purple theme and I wanted to move out to some brighter colors in the mix. I didn't want a rainbow going up my leg or anything, but a hotter center in the middle of my leg with some yellow and white that made the middle section sort of "fit into" the bottom portion sounded good to me. Ron had some pretty good ideas and after talking to him for a bit and thinking about his suggestions I was happy with the decision we came to surrounding color. My problem is that I'm not good at visualizing what I'd like the finished product to look like so I didn't have many suggestions. Ron on the other hand, having spent thousands of hours coloring in Biomechanical tattoos, had some good ideas.
It's been11 months since my last session and I've totally forgotten what the pain feels like so right out of the gate (after he shaved my leg and got his colors ready) I was surprised how much it hurt. He started low on my leg and worked his way up. The first 15 minutes was pretty hard to take but then while he was doing the middle of my leg and calf someone turned the pain volume way down and it was just a mild annoyance. I talked with Ron for the next 2 hours while he worked on my leg. It was interesting to hear about what he's been going through in his personal life with his band and other hobbies. As he started to get higher on my leg the pain came right back into focus. The tattoo only goes up about 2" from the back of my knee but coloring that part felt like he was cutting the back of my knee out with a hot rusty nail. That section along with the front of my shin were the worst bits. The last 45 minutes were pretty much spent trying to concentrate on breathing and counting the seconds that each burst of color took. Even the young woman at the station next to me with her shirt off getting an upper-body tattoo was no distraction.
Ron wanted to get to band practice by 7 so I was happy to wrap up at 6:45. With the amount of pain he was dealing out I was very happy to stop after 4 solid hours of tattooing. The result is that most of the outside of my leg is done and I'm looking at probably two more 4 hour sessions. I'm totally impressed with the work, it's better than I thought it would turn out so far.
Pictures to follow:
One
Two
Three