I finally had my first tattoo session last night with Chris Trevino. I can't say enough nice things about this guy.
We had only talked for a few minutes last summer about what I wanted, but he remembered everything, and had a really firm idea in his head of how he wanted it to look. He spent about 90 minutes drawing the design freehand on my arm with markers, then two hours inking it in. I got two short breaks at the 30 minute and 90 minute marks.
I had forgotten how much this hurts, and I had no idea how much the inside of the arm or the pectoral muscles could hurt. I'm a little nervous now because I have a four hour session booked Thursday to start on the shading, and I'm not really sure I'm up to it unless I can find some good drugs (anybody? anybody? Bueller?). Yeah, yeah, I know.
Anyway, it's beautiful, I love it. Two pictures here. This one shows the swan, wings furled like it's taking off, with that frothy Japanese-style water on the bottom. The pink and purple stuff is not my skin, it's mostly magic marker from his initial sketch that I haven't managed to wash off yet.
Beautiful. I can't wait to see the color.
Yeah, it hurts. The coloring isn't as bad though. But yeah, I know exactly how much that hurts.
"Ow! Why am I doing this? I hate this!"