I had always said I wouldn't get tattooed below my elbows. That changed one day while I was looking at the scars on my arms. Months and months of Mederma didn't work. I tried another scar cream for months. Same results. Vitamin E helped too, but if I ceased using it, the scars would come back. My right arm is my good arm. My left arm will never be tattoo-able unless I get plastic surgery. My mother said she'd pay for plastic surgery on both of my arms. However, my right arm hadn't been cut too terribly much and the scars were flat and white.
At A Glance Author San Contact San@bme.anon IAM BlueStar When A month ago Artist Rather not say due to circumstances. I decided I wanted to cross that border.
Let me give some background. I'm a 19 year old college student on break until September. I took General Arts and Science to decide what I wanted to do, and a program came up that I had never heard of before: Photonics. After some mistakes on the school's part, I was accepted into the 4 year Photonics Engineering BAT (Bachelor of Applied Technology) program. This is a fairly uncommon program, and the industry is starved for engineer's. I don't plan on working out in the public eye for my entire life, so after careful though I decided it was either people seeing the scars, or the tattoo. (Plastic surgery is very expensive and takes a long time. I don't think my insurance would cover 'self inflicted wounds'.)
I asked my mother. She said she'd rather see a tattoo than the scars, but I'd have to pay for the tattoo. I must give my mother prop's, she's been very good about me getting pierced and tattooed over the years. My dad just doesn't say anything anymore.
I decided I wanted My Little Pony's. Old ones. I have a huge collection, as I was very young in the 80's. (I feel so old now!) A little flashback to my childhood, right? So I talked to X (we'll call him X for now) and he made fun of me. So did everybody else, except a girl I went to school with, who also collects the ponies. I'm also a horseback rider and a volunteer for horsey programs. I wanted to have the ponies done with a portrait of "my baby", Dallas, a paint stallion. At the time I was unsure if I was going to get on a horse again, let alone Dallas. He's a handful. So I took him out of the design.
I was at the shop one night. I forget why. I think I was dropping something off. My friend Eric came in and I dove on him, and realized I had something of his at home. So we drove home, and I grabbed the ponies, for X. Since he's "not much of a 'My Little Pon'y draw-er". He looked at them for a bit, I got teased, then I put them in his booth, where anyone walking by could see them. My piercer made a gay joke (I'm gay, and his jokes don't offend me) about the ponies being in X's booth. X said he'd do a Paul Booth sleeve on my other arm. Doing something to use the scars as part of the image.
I booked a date with X, the next day at 7. I left for the shop at around 6:30, knowing damn well X wouldn't be on time. He was tattooing somebody I previously met, and we chatted and X thought he was way behind, because I'm always early, except for 8:30am Physics. After X finished with the man, we sat down and he drew the tattoo on my arm in red marker. I had no idea what was going on. He did tease me about the ponies. My friend Warren later told me that he "expected something far more evil" from me. After the ponies were drawn on in red, X went for a smoke and I wandered around inside because I don't smoke, and I don't like going outside when it's cold.
X came in, and drew over the red with black, and I could see what was going on. Ponies, and a swirl of stars going up my arm, and combining into a happy dancing pegasus I have on my shoulder, and missing the Impossible Trident (M. C. Escher's original design). Everything fit together well. Drawing took a long time, so X could only dry-line (dillute black ink and leave a faded sketch of an outline, so he could do a full outline next appointment). I watched him draw on my elbow and tell me that the elbow "doesn't hurt". (It wasn't that bad, acutally.)
He started on the top of my wrist. After having a complete backpiece finished this was absolutely nothing for me. It felt hot, that was it. He flipped my wrist over and said "This is going to suck" and lined the (oriental style) clouds. It stung, but nothing big. He went up my arm, and it got a bit worse as he went up, but it never really got that painful. I could have fallen asleep. He told me "this is going to suck" again when he went over the crook of my arm (where blood is drawn) and it wasn't that bad.
I could no longer wear a t-shirt and jeans and have no visible tattoos.