Ever since I was relatively young, I had been interested in tattoos. My mom, on the other hand, was totally against me getting any body modifications until I hit 18. I convinced her to let me get my eyebrow pierced a few years back so I knew I would be able to get one early. With months of pleading, I finally talked her into letting me get one on my 16th birthday (which was today!!). We had been shopping around in local tattoo shops for about a year or so looking for a decent artist.
At A Glance Author ^8^tRaCy^8^ Contact mindlessness_17@hotmail.com When It just happened Artist Tony Studio Tony's tattoo shop Location CT
A few days ago we finally got around to the shop we had been hearing good reviews about for a while and checked everything out there. I had narrowed it down to either: a red and black nautical star, a killer whale (my favorite animal), a tribal dolphin, the eye of Horus, or a turtle. So my mom talked to the owner and asked him close to a million questions about underage policies, and appointments.
Because she seemed so interested in his policies, I presumed everything was okay and would get my first tat as soon as he opened the next day. WRONG! I woke up this morning and my friend went home. Last night a bunch of my mom's friends called and I told them everything and most of them thought it would be ok as long as it was something I definitely wanted. I figured I would wait a while after my mom got home before I mentioned anything about it. So the time finally came and I through it out into the open. Well she got mad and said that I should just drop it because I wasn't going to get a tattoo at 16 years of age. However, when I put in the fact that my dad was going to pay for it as a birthday gift, and how most of her friends thought it would be ok (most of them are against tats but since it's in a concealable area they thought it was reasonable) she thought about it for a while longer.
About an hour later, she came into the living room and asked me where the shop's card was. I gladly gave it to her and she called the place and told me that we were going to head down there, but that nothing was definite yet.
We got to Tony's and went in and asked him some more questions about covering birthmarks. I have a birthmark on my lower back which I absolutely despise (which is one of the reasons I wanted the tat to begin with). I told him I wanted it on my lower back showed him the birthmark and the different designs I was thinking about getting, but there was a problem- the birthmark is slightly off-center. The designs wouldn't cover the whole mark unless they were over to the left side of my back and larger than I wanted to get. No one else was waiting for a tattoo so Tony helped us look around for similar designs for about 45 minutes.
Finally we agreed upon a six point star. We gave him our ID's and filled out some forms and we were good to go. We watched him take out the needle and sterilize everything. Then he cleaned the area, got the stencil and applied it. We all felt the size and placement was perfect so we proceeded. I was quite nervous by this time, but approached the chair and sat down. Tony started with the tattoo and it hurt –I will admit that, but the pain wasn't unbearable. I made my mom hold my hand like the wimp that I am and about an hour later we were all done!
My leg was numb from sitting in that position but other than that, I was ok. The tattoo is about 3 inches high by 2 ½ inches wide. It consists of a 6 point red star with black shading in the middle; there is a thick black outline around it, followed by three bubbles between each point. The middle bubbles are purple and the rest are red. Then behind the middle bubbles there is a black spike. I only saw the finished product for about a ½ second because he wanted to take pictures, but everyone that was with me says it looks great.
He bandaged up the area, gave me a list of aftercare instructions and a little packet of Bacitracin, we paid the $70 plus a tip and we were all done. I can take the bandage off soon so I can't wait to inspect it. Now it just feels like I have bad sunburn, but I can deal with it. The experience was totally worth it and I can't wait to go back and get more, too bad I have to wait until I turn 18 to get them. I would like to get some more stars in a few various areas. I now understand why everyone says tattoos are addicting!