This is about a tattoo project that didn't start out that way. Five years, two children, and discovery of an FDA-approved blacklight-reactive ink turned the "small moon and stars tattoo on my shoulder" into a full-blown five-sitting project. This experience is of epic length and for this I apologize. I also refer to the individual constellations and parts of them as they're done, so bear with me if you get a little confused.
At A Glance Author Moony Contact Moony@bme.anon IAM Moony When Six months ago Artist Bryan, Steve Studio Rochester Tattoo, Unusual Expressions Location Rochester, Adams, Austin MN I have a fascination with the night sky that never ends. When I was contemplating my second tattoo four years ago I knew I wanted something that went along with my first, a smiling moon with starbursts. I also knew I wanted it on my shoulder and I wanted it to be round. While perusing the flash at Rochester Tattoo-2 I came across a sketch of a sun with a moon and three stars in the middle. I decided to get just the moon with stars, changing the colors of the moon and stars to my liking. The artist copied the drawing onto paper, changing the stars slightly and suggesting that she add shading next to the moon to give it a bit of depth. I looked at the drawing and pronounced it perfect.
I got into the chair and became very nervous. I knew it was going to hurt a bit more than my ankle tattoo did because despite being overweight my shoulder blades aren't very well-padded. She placed it so that it was on the flat of the blade and said it wouldn't hurt at much to get it done but my bra straps would probably rub it more than placed to either side. I liked the placement so I said to go ahead. She was right-it actually hurt less than my ankle tattoo. I paid her, left a tip, and headed out. I used A&D ointment and avoided wearing a bra as much as possible. It healed wonderfully within 10 days and I was very pleased with it.
Fast-forward about 18 months. I had gotten married and my older son was born. As an anniversary gift my husband was going to pay for more ink (it was the only thing I wanted!) but I wasn't sure where to put it. I browsed the internet for ideas, and then it hit me-I wanted constellations to signify myself and my son, and no better place to put them than next to the moon and stars on my shoulder. I decided that I wanted Orion the hunter for my son and Cassiopeia the queen for myself, but I wanted the stars in the constellations to be to scale with the sky and different sizes according to magnitude. I took the book to the same studio, and she copied the constellations out of the book exactly as it was. Then she went over the dots, drawing in stars in the same style as the stars all ready on my skin, and showed me the result. I loved it very much, and even more so after she suggested putting some lines of shading between the stars to outline the constellations.
Then I had to decide how the constellations would be placed around the moon. After moving the transfers a few times we decided on putting them to the right and the bottom of the moon, again trying to avoid the boniest parts of my shoulder. The tattooing did hurt a lot more this time. Cassiopeia went on to an area that has very thin and sensitive skin and Orion's bow falls on the back of my clavicle. When doing the bow I felt as if my jaw would rattle right off from the vibration of the needle, and the vibration of the clavicle was quite uncomfortable. The pain for Cassiopeia was very sharp, the whole time feeling like the same sharp "razor blade" pain that I usually feel for outlining. I healed it again with A&D ointment and again healed within 10 days.
Go ahead another two years. Another anniversary, again I only wanted ink and ink I got. I wanted to "complete the circle" around the moon, so I started thumbing through the astronomy book again. My second son had been born so I needed to put a constellation on my shoulder for him-after all, it's only fair. I came across Sagittarius and thought it perfect for him-Sagittarius is also a hunter, like Orion-so Sagittarius it was. Based on what size I imagined it would end up being I determined I would need two more constellations to fill the circle.
The second one was fairly simple to decide-Draco for my husband, his favorite mythological creature. At first I wasn't sure if I wanted to have anything signifying my husband permanently inked onto my body, but I finally realized that no matter what he was permanently bound to me through the boys and therefore deserved a spot in the "circle". Then I needed a third in case I needed it to fill space. Though my younger son was only a few months old at the time I knew that he and his brother (barely two years apart) were complete opposites in every way physically, emotionally, and in their personalities. I found that they were both Gemini and was intrigued that ironically (but circumstantially) two such opposite brothers ended up together under a star sign signifying twins. So for my "just in case" third constellation I chose Gemini to signify my boys together.
I went again to Rochester and had a different artist, Bryan. He copied out all three constellations (again to scale and star magnitude and in the same style as the rest of the stars) and we contemplated the best places for them. We decided that adding just two more would make the "circle" too square and his price for all three constellations was within my budget so I went for it. We discussed the best arrangement for them so as not to crowd them together but still keep the circle balanced. We fine-tuned the placement of each one ("to the right a little...now up some...nope, too far!...") and finally had it perfect. Gemini was to be no problem pain-wise toward the middle of my back, but Sagittarius was to be squarely on top of the back of my clavicle and Draco was to be below and to the right of my shoulder joint and on thin, tender skin.
I braced myself for the pain and was shocked by how much more Draco and Sagittarius hurt than I thought they would. Draco's pain was comparable to Cassiopeia's times two, but the vibrating plus "razor sharp" pain of Sagittarius was about ten times more than Orion's bow. I had to take several breaks during tattooing Sagittarius to calm my nerves and stop shaking. I was tensing all my muscles to hold still and getting very stiff plus the pain was definitely more than I could take in one lump. An hour and a half he finished it off and it looked incredible. I was deliriously happy with my "project" (as I had come to realize it was) and considered it "finished". I healed it with A&D for the first five days and lotion for the other five, and again healed in ten days.
But was the project finished? Oh, no! Skip forward another 18 months. I had gotten deeper into the world of body modification and had added another tattoo plus a few piercings to my body. I had been a member of a busy body modification community and one day ran across a post about a new blacklight-reactive ink on the tattoo forum. I was immediately drawn to it, almost drooling at the thought of having ink that glowed in my skin. Soon I decided that I wanted to turn my project into a virtual planetarium-if you have stars, why not make them glow? I gathered information on the ink and talked with the administrator of the forum (who is also the owner of the company that distributes the ink on the East Coast and holds the trademark for it). In the end I was confident that this was something I truly wanted to do. I decided I would get all of the stars in my project covered in white UV ink so as not to interfere with the present colors.
The biggest roadblock to getting the UV ink added to the project was not getting the ink (it's available in small amounts to individuals to take to an artist to be used) but finding someone willing to use the ink. I first approached Bryan, my favored artist (he had done the last sitting on the project and my other tattoo since then) armed with information about the ink. Eventually the shop owner decided she didn't want the liability should I have a reaction to the ink. This was completely understandable-I had no illusions that artists would be jumping at the chance to work with this very unknown ink whose predecessors had proven to be very unsafe. I started keeping my ears open for word of another artist who I could possibly approach to use this ink on me, and in the meantime did more research on the ink and its safety to make sure I was fully prepared for any complications that might arise.
One day someone mentioned an artist and piercer named Steve who had a shop in a tiny town about 45 miles from my town. She highly recommended him and said he had years of experience. A few days later I called Steve and asked him if he would be at all willing to use this UV ink. He told me the short answer was yes, he was interested, if I could give him enough information to show it was safe, his personal research showed the same, and my husband (who had also decided to get UV tattoos) and I were willing to sign any forms necessary to release him from liability should something go wrong. We went to his shop that weekend to check out the shop to make sure it was clean and "up to standards", then chatted with him for over an hour about his shop and his work plus the ink and what we wanted done with it. We told him that we would provide the ink and a good blacklight to use while tattooing as a blacklight MUST be used while tattooing with the ink. He said he'd have to do so me research on the ink to make sure but he was truly interested in using it as he'd used the older unsafe UV inks and wanted to make sure he wasn't going to end up with a mess again. He knew how to handle the very thin ink and knew there was a market for this kind of ink just waiting to be satisfied. When we got the inks in the mail (cobalt, green, and white) we were to give him a call to check in and see what he'd decided.
Six weeks and some frustrating shipping mix-ups later we had the inks in-hand. Instead of calling we went to his shop to have him do a hood stretch for me and pierce a friend's tongue and to talk to him in person. He told us that he'd found nothing concerning about them and was willing to do it, so we set up a time for us to come in and have it done. A few weeks later we headed back to the shop, marveling at the fact that this was actually happening and we'd have beautiful ink within a few hours. My husband went first and had his first two tattoos ever done completely in white UV ink. It took Steve a little while to get the hang of working with the ink due to its thinness and tendency to splatter badly, but he had it well under control by the end of the first tattoo.
Then it was my turn. I was extremely nervous and shaking when I sat down in the chair. I have extremely sensitive skin that swells badly when tattooed, and I was worried that something would happen and the tattoos wouldn't turn out well or worse, I'd react to the ink. I kept reminding myself that I'd done the research and there really was no way that anything could go wrong. We discussed exactly how I wanted the stars covered-within the lines of the stars, completely filled-and got ready to do it as I kept breathing deeply and trying to relax. As he put needle to skin I was pleasantly surprised to find that it really didn't hurt any more than it did with regular ink. It did hurt just as much as it had to get the pigmented ink done in the first place but I was able to distract myself from the pain by focusing on the video game that his kids were playing across the room. As he was tattooing he kept saying "This looks so awesome!" and the other employees and customers in the shop kept sneaking peeks at it and saying the same. My husband held the blacklight and kept adjusting it as Steve tattooed different parts of the project so Steve could make sure that he was filling everything in evenly.
When it was done he wiped it off and let it "bleed out" for a while I had a smoke to calm down. Then I sat back down in the chair, he wiped it off again to make sure it had stopped bleeding, and examined it for any uneven spots. On a whim he suggested using the blue UV ink on the moon and the green UV ink on the stars inside the moon to make the whole project "come together" under the light and I agreed. After adding the blue ink the moon looked much brighter and better under regular light, and the total effect under the light was startling. We let the new ink "bleed out" while we all discussed how much we liked the inks and the likelihood that Steve would start using them on a regular basis. He checked it out one more time, pronounced it "Wicked!", and we paid him (with a LARGE tip!) and left.
A few days later I became very ill with a kidney infection (NOT related to the ink) and the tattoo didn't heal well. I still had scabs two weeks later though I was babying it. A month after that I went back and had it all redone with the white UV and used A&D for 12 hours then Lubriderm when it got dry after that. It healed completely in five days-I was absolutely shocked! It's still just as bright as it was the day it was touched up and I love it so much. I carry around a miniature blacklight to show it off, and people are very intrigued and curious about the safety and process of using the UV inks. What I would say to anyone considering getting a UV tattoo is to do your research and decide if this is something that you want to do.
Overall I'm very pleased with my "project that didn't start out as one" and am very happy to have it on my body permanently as it has so much meaning. Down the road the UV part won't matter as I highly doubt I will be going anywhere with blacklights when I'm 70. For now it's beautiful and an interesting conversation starter. I already have plans to get an all-white back piece done of more constellations once my new nipple piercings are healed enough to do so.