At A Glance
Author	der_narr
Contact	der_narr@bme.anon
IAM	der_narr
When	Three months ago
Artist	Steffi
Studio	Ink, Blod & Rock 'n' Roll
Location	Moenchengladbach / Germany

Dear reader, in this experience I will try to tell you all about my first tattooing experience.

Introduction:

Last year I became friends with a girl who I later found out was tattooing at a local studio in Duisburg with – let's say it that way – not the best reputation. But still all the works I had seen until that very day made me decide that she should do my first tattoos. So after visiting her in her former studio several times, she told me she was about to open her own studio in Moenchen-Gladbach. So I asked her, if she needed help setting up the studio and moving there and she was happy about me helping her.

When the Studio was finally finished with new walls / paintings / counter etc it was around June and so my birthday was not too far away – so I invited her to come to my party. Although she was not able to come there, she decided to make my first tattoo my birthday present from her to me. She by that day already knew I wanted to have oldschool – roses on my chest with banderols including the words "mother" (on my right chest) and "father" (left side) – so she drew them for me and presented them to me on -->

Tattooing day:

So on that day I woke up quite nervous – as I didn't know about the pain level of tattooing - and went to the main station in Duisburg to take a train to MG. On my way there I bought some bananas and a bottle of coke. After about one hour of travelling I finally arrived at her studio called "Ink, Blood & Rock 'n' Roll". We talked for a while and she showed me the sketches she had drawn for me – I had very little complains about the design, as the banderoles were too small in my eyes, so she fixed that for me until I was perfectly happy.

Then I took off my shirt and she transferred the designs onto my chest (I had shaved that morning) and asked me about placement etc. I was totally fine and she had some trouble positioning the other rose exactly mirrored onto the other side, but when she was ready I was totally happy about the placement.

Then the actual tattooing process started. Needless to say that all the stuff she used from then on was properly sealed/ sterilized etc. In the beginning she wanted to do the outlines with a single needle, but that was – as she said my skin was extremely stretchable – not the best option, so Steffi (yay, I can really spell that name) changed for a three-needle setup. The outlines hurt quite a lot and it was a really sharp and burning sensation, that got worse when she arrived at my collarbones and when she went towards my armpits. When the outsides of the "mother" – rose were finished, she tattooed the "father" – rose onto my left chest. This time, the pain was about the same as on the other side.

We then went for a short break during which she spotted a red stripe running down my right body side – but that quickly went away so we continued with the shadings of the right rose (which is done using only black ink) as I wanted the roses to be black and grey. The outlines had taken us about two hours, but now shading the tattoo's was way quicker, after about 30 minutes on each side I was nearly done and when looking into the mirror, I was more than glad about what I had just gotten.

After the actual tattooing process Steffi cleaned my fresh "wounds" using paper towels and water spraying from a "gun" and washed off excess ink and blood that hat come out of the tattoo. Then she took some plastic wrapping and attached it to my chest using tape, so that my tattoos were covered on my way home. When putting on my shirt the wrapping slipped off so she had to re-wrap my chest working under my – dumb me – slim fit shirt. But when that was done, I was ready to go :-)

I tipped Steffi some 70€ for the work she has just done so that at least her expenses were paid for as she even sent home the next customer...

Aftercare:

I for the first days used some Bepanthen – Ointment to help my skin heal. Apart from that I simply didn't scratch my chest for some time and now, three months later, the tattoo looks perfectly done – no spots missing ink etc.

Thanks very very much for doing this to me Steffi !