While I too just started the whole blog thing, mine are never going to be informative posts. They will be posts purely on my opinions of things. Using a forum as a source for a paper is ignorant unless the writer says something like “thetattooforum.com” as their source and they don’t do any direct stealing.

Everything is stolen on the internet. I have been noticing all the -students- recently trying to study us as if we’re lab rats. It’s getting sort of ridiculous…

Next if people are sending you hate mail, it means our forum is getting big. You should be proud of that. There are always going to be haters and people just trying to get a rise out of you. They are jealous of what a great thing we have here. Don’t be upset or let their actual -words- get to you because that crap really doesn’t matter.

My emails back would be: I’m honored you took the time to get in contact with me because that means my forum is getting really big.

1. It would look best with either more than 5 or they need to be spread out further away from each other.. You need them in proportion to your body length.

2. They are only temporary because eventually they get super annoying (or so I’ve heard) How do you make any piercing more permanent? You have to keep something in it all the time… So when it’s not threaded you need something keeping the hole open.

3. You can thread them as soon as you get them but it is going to depend on your pain tolerance. My recommendation is to wait until they are done “healing.”

Have anymore questions? Ask.

There are generally a few KEY elements to every design. There are things you can do without as well. The artist generally knows these things. If you are wanting a very busy design, give the artist those things that HAVE to be in the piece then give them random other things to choose to tie it together. These things are small and usually easily duplicated for backgrounds. Yes and go and look at an artists book and see what they’re working on when you go to the parlor. Make sure their work is to your liking. You’re living with it on your body for an eternity. Hope this helps.

Example: I’m getting a sleeve. I want it to have a window, chair, and a book shelf. These things have to be in it. If you can fit in a tv and a fan that would be great. I really like the argyle pattern so if you could make that the background to tie it all together, that would be great.

Get it? (Not that I’d get a living room as a tattoo…. this is just an example. lol)

5 of hearts. Have the artist stylize it in a girly way. It would be really cool to make it a card.

Another idea is to connect them like a tree. Have each heart be the leaf on a branch or whatever.

http://bumpyduey.deviantart.com/art/Hearts-and-Horseshoes-47589310

This is fractal artwork. You could have a spiral sort of coming from your ankle. Smaller to bigger, heart point out. It sort of looks like a star once you’re done.

What does each heart represent? Give it personality…

5 cards each of hearts in a girl’s hand or something… She could be blowing a kiss. who’s the card holder?

What holds these hearts together?

These are some questions you need to be asking yourself when you are creating/thinking of your design. Hope this helps a little.

I have a rib panel line work piece. I’m getting it done this summer with shading.

To answer your main question: It hurt like fuck.

I don’t take pain well. I screamed for the first 30 minutes. It was a four hour sitting. I just couldn’t get used to the intensity. But I’m a very skinny/boney person. The entire piece sucked. Shading is supposed to not hurt as badly as line work, but I guess I’ll be able to compare once I have it done.

I don’t have any other ink done besides that.

Pictures can be found in my albums HERE.

I shook and got cold sweats. I had to take breaks frequently. It was like surgery for me because I slept on my ink for a very long time after I got it done.

If you have anymore questions ask.