Friday, September 14, 2012

Sitting 16


[NSFW pic at the end of post - so if you're at work stop scrolling!]


Date: August 10, 2012
Time: 3 hours
Breaks: 1 (10 minutes)
Location: Kings Ave Massapequa
Total Tattooing Time: 51.5 hours

I swear the cab drivers are profiling all clients of King's Ave.  Another guy and myself got into the backset of a yellow taxi at the train station and the driver said to the other fare, "Where are you going?  I know where the other guy is headed..."

Indeed, I didn't even tell him my destination, he just pulled up in front of the tattoo shop a few minutes later.

I don't have a lot of color-commentary or story-telling to do on this sitting.  Partially because it was a month ago (this one took a long time to heal; more on that later) and I've forgotten the nitty gritty and partially because there isn't much to report.  How often can a man type, "It hurt, I was uncomfortable, we bullshitted about music?"

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So... This session was all about fire - both the burning of the needle and the flames which wrap around the dragon's mid-section.  As I've mentioned before (in regards to my half-sleeves), I don't heal reds very well and this piece - as you can see - has a lot of red in it.  Unfortunately, this session was the first time when the reds didn't heal very well; in fact, that's why I've delayed blogging about this sitting for so long: I was waiting for the scabbing to finally settle in.  Fortunately, it was only in the lower-right portion of the flames (which you can probably see by enlarging the image above) and if we blast over it again, I'm sure we'll easily be able to even out any discrepancies/fallout of the color.

For no particular reason, Rube had switched over to a rotary machine for this sitting - which I always find to be more tolerable than a coil.  I'm sure there's a minute level of mechanical engineering that attribute to less pain with a rotary, but I remain convinced that it's primarily psychosomatic and perhaps even a demonstration of psychoacoustics at work.  Simply: the coil is loud and whiny, so the brain perceives it as being an implement of pain; the rotary is quiet and whirs almost serenly, so the brain perceives it as being... well... less painful.

(I was thinking about this early this week after my dentist had to give me three shots of novocaine before working on a tooth - work which I could still feel, mind you.  Perhaps if dentist's drills didn't sound like something from Josef Mengele's lab, I wouldn't sweat through my clothes every time I have a cavity...)

Rube also filled in the horns with a beautiful combo of brown/yellow which matches the horns of the dragon-koi on my right arm.  Once we fill in the dragon's hair (which we've discussed doing in a purple/lavender), it's gonna be an amazing contrast.

We're definitely in the home stretch here; the light at the end of the tunnel is growing larger and brighter.  We have to finish the dragon's head/face and bang out the last of the cherry blossoms on my right shoulder.  From that point, it'll just be small details and accent-work.

One more session... maybe two?  While it would be a shame to shutter this blog in the next month or so... it begs the question: are you every really done?

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5 comments:

  1. Really amazing work, thank you for keeping us updated on it. I really love the translucency of the water

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  2. I am pretty sure that rotary hurts less. I had my left hand done with a rotary, right with a coil machine. The swelling was worse on the right hand for sure and the whole thing hurt more. However, I feel like the color is more vibrant on my right hand. Same artist, btw.

    Also, you can always find something to work on. However, I am almost done with my full suit but at this point, I'm not sure if bittersweet is the right emotion. More like relief? It all hurts so much at this point (collarbone, tits, strip down the middle)

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  3. @graeme - thank you, kindly!

    @iamwhoiam - i concur. eventually, i would like to "cap" my sleeves at the 3/4 length and finish the backs of my thighs... but let's be real: this shit is expensive and every sitting seems to hurt more than the last.

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  4. @brian - there's always something to work on. Even at this point I'm tempted to laser some really bad shit off my upper left arm (it was the 90s, I was young and stupid, and it's just BAD work) and eventually redo it. lol. I love technology! Oooh backs of the thighs...that's going to be fun. That's a "spicy' spot as a friend says. It is expensive. I had 2 sessions in the last week and I was like, ow, my bank account. And it hurts worse and you run out of nice spots really fast!

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  5. If only we could all have lavender hair! Looks fantastic dude!

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