Well, today was the big day -- get the tattoos fixed, after years and years of procrastination.
Unfortunately, things didn't exactly go as planned.
For starters, I didn't remember to bring the original designs with me, so Mike -- the artist -- was forced to simply eyeball it. Secondly ... well, the kitty cats *might* not be fixable. The long story short is that it sounds like
Dave didn't really leave enough negative space for the detail elements, and/or he may have used too big of a needle and/or gone too deep (all of this is possible; when I got Zaphod -- my arm kitties -- done, Dave was just starting out with his own tattoo shop and was likely hella inexperienced).
Long story short: Mike punched up the eyeballs and teeth with white, and we're giving it two weeks to heal and then I'm going back. When I go back I *will* have the originals with me (well, hopefully -- the original Zaphod is a picture frame, so I know exactly where that is, but the original shoulderblade kitty was from a little drawing in a magazine. I found a photocopy in an old journal, but the xerox has faded and chipped. I'll keep looking, tho), and then the plan is to redo the black, and then redo the white *again* and hope that that at least gives the details a *chance* of popping.
I need to do a massive photo dump (hopefully later tonight) since I've uploaded a grand total of
one picture this month, but I wanted to share the pictures from today (mostly compliments of
curious_mold):
![](http://pics.livejournal.com/hopita/pic/004zzztk/s640x480)
Before
![](http://pics.livejournal.com/hopita/pic/0050076g/s320x240)
Detail. To give you an idea of what was missing,
this is a Peruvian tunic with a very similar design (mine weren't exactly like this, but close).
![](http://pics.livejournal.com/hopita/pic/00501dr2/s640x480)
Shoulderblade, before. She still looks exactly the same, BTW.
![](http://pics.livejournal.com/hopita/pic/00502cfg/s640x480)
After. The whites won't stay nearly this white (I feel like they've already faded considerably) and may not even take at all. I'm crossing my fingers for merely *some* improvement over the "before" pictures.
![](http://pics.livejournal.com/hopita/pic/005033xd/s640x480)
Blurry, blurry detail
![](http://pics.livejournal.com/hopita/pic/005043ky/s640x480)
![](http://pics.livejournal.com/hopita/pic/005058ag/s640x480)
![](http://pics.livejournal.com/hopita/pic/00506hhh/s640x480)
![](http://pics.livejournal.com/hopita/pic/0050789q/s640x480)
![](http://pics.livejournal.com/hopita/pic/005087ac/s640x480)
![](http://pics.livejournal.com/hopita/pic/005097p0/s640x480)
![](http://pics.livejournal.com/hopita/pic/0050aexe/s640x480)
![](http://pics.livejournal.com/hopita/pic/0050b6xa/s640x480)
![](http://pics.livejournal.com/hopita/pic/0050c7h0/s640x480)
curious_mold has a moth consult
![](http://pics.livejournal.com/hopita/pic/0050dc52/s640x480)
![](http://pics.livejournal.com/hopita/pic/0050eff7/s640x480)
![](http://pics.livejournal.com/hopita/pic/0050f50w/s640x480)
curious_mold is getting her moth redone tomorrow and I'm hoping to go with her. Then hopefully in two weeks I'll have pictures of my Shiny! New! kitty cat tats.