I have two large ish tattoos on my back. Both of these I found absolutely excruciating. I hear people describe tattoo pain as ‘not that bad’ or ‘discomfort’, but I can honestly say every long minute of mine were unbearable. And this is coming from somebody who has survived childbirth and would do that again (not that I’m saying it’s worse than childbirth, mind! Just making the point that I’ve lived through real pain before!).
The next tattoo I have planned is another back piece, a lot of double lined writing so will take quite a while, and although I’d never let the pain stop me from going ahead, I was just wondering if you thought it was worth trying to find a different artist? I don’t wish to eliminate the pain by any means, it is part of the journey, but I would like to experience some of this ‘discomfort’ people are on about instead of the agony of my last two! Do you think it is likely that I just have a low pain threshhold and will experience the same level of pain with all back tattoos, or could the artist be a factor? I’m happy with his work and he is the artist all of my many tattooed friends use, although I would certainly say he isn’t the best by a long shot, so it wouldn’t be too much of a push to go elsewhere. I have no other recommendations though (and can only stay relatively local), so do you know how I can go about looking for a decent tattooist without the benefit of personal commendation? I’m in the Leicester area of England. Or shall I just bite it and stop being a wimp? Haha.
cheers
Lots of possibilities but I’d try changing the artist, tattoos should not be that painful these days. Visit a few other studios and see what kinda vibe you get. Check out the work they are doing, ask around a bit. Reputation tends to be the ometer in this game, but no point in getting a recomendation off people or one person only who doesn’t know what they are talking about and can’t tell the difference.
Good luck
Some people hurt more.. It all depends on how they run their machines and if they like to dig. Sometimes barely touching the skin hurts more than pushing it in. There are a lot of factors.
A little trick I learned is to stay relaxed. Dont even clench your teeth. If you tighten any muscle in your body it makes it works.
Xanax helps.
Marijuana makes it worse (I dont know from experience, Im not a junky)
You obviously dont understand me.
Everyone runs their machines different.. It depends on what people are comfortable with. Some people like to use a longer throw with higher power.
Personally, for shaded stuff I use a short throw and a long throw for solid stuff.
Some people have to push harder to get good lines because their machines arent running efficiently. Its not that they are trying to cause pain, its just how they tattoo.
You ever see any clips of Joshua Carlton tattooing? He looks like he pushes hard and he dry rags.. It looks like it kills, but I dare you to call him a shit tattooist.
A little trick I learned is to stay relaxed. Dont even clench your teeth. If you tighten any muscle in your body it makes it works.
Xanax helps.
Marijuana makes it worse (I dont know from experience, Im not a junky)
Me neither – smoke plenty but nothing illegal since becoming a mummy 🙂
Tried the whole relaxation thing last time, had my ipod and tried to zone out, I really couldn’t have had better motivation than last time as it was a tribute tattoo for my recently passed mother, and I did hope the inner pain might override the physical pain, but apparently not!
Think I may ask the other artist at the studio for my next one, see if he’s any different, as I’ve seen plenty of great tattoos inked by him… wish me luck!
Haha… well I hear a lot of people saying the same, so I think I’m a rogue wimp honestly, well when you think about it a deep cat scratch is actually pretty painful (or I think so anyway!) and I guess in a way it is like that but instead of one scratch it’s hundreds of scratches over and over again on the same spot for X amount of hours – that’s how I’d describe it for myself anyway, but I think I do have an extremely low threshhold for it as I rarely hear people complaining as much as me! 😛 But as I said in my post, even I wouldn’t let the pain put me off future tattoos, a few hours or whatever are well worth what you get for life as an end result, and it’s true that if it’s hurt you then afterwards it makes you feel like you deserve it much more, it’s just the same with childbirth haha – hours of pain (far more pain than tattoos I’ll add!) but a lifelong result, and if you don’t wimp out and get the epidural then you feel like you deserve it that little bit more 😉
It isn’t but you can get drugs in childbirth to make it better 😉
Nah, honestly, I think you’ll be fine, without wanting to be sexist against my own gender, guys often seem to deal with pain better than girls, and I know plenty of girls that say getting tattooed isn’t that bad.
If it’s a smaller tattoo then it won’t matter anyway because the pain’ll be over so quick, and if it’s larger and it does get too much then you can always ask your guy to break it down into sessions, perhaps the outline in one and the in fill in another. Good luck!
Just get on with it and stop being such a pussy ya big wimp:D
Haha, good to know, only difference is I think that a couple of minutes into mine 😉
Ah well, what doesn’t kill you makes ya stronger! 😛
i find the women i tattoo handle the pain far better than men, some newbies ive tattooed thought it was going to be alot worse. One tecnique i use if im not handling being tattooed is to take a good breath in and slowly let it out while theyre doing the line work, thats the most painful part, and also depends on the part of the body also, but hey at the end of it you’ve hopefully (if you have a good artist) have a really nice piece of work to show for it. Worth it in the long run, 🙂
You must be logged in to create new topics.
