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pberge · Posted: Tue Aug 17, 2010 12:44 pm Post subject: My First Tatto Experience

I had the outline of my first tattoo done 2 weeks ago and will be going for the first round of color tomorrow night. The artist is Darren Rosa at Rising Dragon Tattoos in NYC. My experience has been great so far. The outline session lasted almost 7 hours with a few breaks. He started by drawing the dragon directly on me. Once the outline of the dragon was completed, he sketched out the Koi and made a stencil.

The pain was only bad in a few sensitive spots. The worst was probably around my collarbone and near the armpit. He said that I sat better than most first timers, especially considering the size of my first piece.

I'm very happy with the line work and I can't wait to see what it looks like when the shading and color is done. I will try to get better quality pictures of the finished product, but here are some shots I took with my phone the day after it was done.

pberge.zenfolio.com/img/s9/v15/p431047495-2.jpg
pberge.zenfolio.com/img/s8/v12/p208833334-2.jpg

pberge · Posted: Tue Aug 17, 2010 12:52 pm Post subject:

My pictures are not displaying, but I just loaded them into my gallery, so check out my profile to see them.

deaded518 · Tattoo addict Joined: 07 Oct 2009 Posts: 840

man, thats some clean work, not to mention thats the biggest first tattoo ive seen in a while. looks great so far, cant wait to see the finshed pictures.
good luck.

pberge · Posted: Wed Aug 18, 2010 7:59 am Post subject:

[quote="deaded518"]man, thats some clean work, not to mention thats the biggest first tattoo ive seen in a while. looks great so far, cant wait to see the finshed pictures.
good luck.[/quote]

Thanks man. I have been wanting this for a long time. My original concept was quite a bit smaller. It wasn't going to go quite as far down my arm, and I had no plans to do my back. But I had a consultation with the artist and he drew a few things on me for ideas. He wasn't going to be able to fit a full dragon in the space I wanted to use and the koi would have been too small if I cut him off any higher than the elbow. My girlfriend suggested the idea of going onto my back. Once he sketched it on me, I knew it was perfect. He did such an amazing job fitting it to my body.

I will definitely be adding more pictures as it progresses.

pberge · Posted: Wed Aug 18, 2010 11:20 pm Post subject:

My first round of color was done tonight. We finished the entire arm. 1 more session should be enough to color the dragon.

pberge.zenfolio.com/img/s10/v16/p270427859-5.jpg

Snakepit · Posted: Thu Aug 19, 2010 7:02 am Post subject:

very nice looking work! you have white skin like me, great for colours, lol. my first tatt, i took my shirt off and the tattooist called all the other tattooists over to check out the 'white canvas', lol

deaded518 · Tattoo addict Joined: 07 Oct 2009 Posts: 840

looking real nice, i love the color on your koi. great job so far.

pberge · Posted: Thu Aug 19, 2010 9:15 am Post subject:

Thanks guys. It's nice to know my pale white skin is good for something! My artist commented a few times at how well my skin was taking the ink.

I can't wait to get the dragon color done. We decided to use the same green that was used for the Koi's eye for the scales, a yellow underbelly, and some other small accent colors.

deaded518 · Tattoo addict Joined: 07 Oct 2009 Posts: 840

it's gonna be nice.

pberge · Posted: Mon Aug 30, 2010 11:25 am Post subject:

Next round of color was done last night. We didn't have time to finish, so it's going to take one more session.

pberge.zenfolio.com/img/s8/v9/p680091608-3.jpg

deaded518 · Tattoo addict Joined: 07 Oct 2009 Posts: 840

almost there. looks real nice, im knda jealous.
cant wait to see the finished pics.

pberge · Posted: Thu Oct 21, 2010 8:27 am Post subject:

After over a month of waiting for my artist to return from a long vacation, I finally got my piece finished. I'm very happy with how it came out and I'm already planning on adding more. We discussed the idea of having the water flow into a pond that would wrap around my arm more, and adding some wind/clouds around the dragon. Time to start saving some money again.

pberge.zenfolio.com/img/s8/v12/p374811472-3.jpg
pberge.zenfolio.com/img/s8/v11/p6050480-3.jpg
pberge.zenfolio.com/img/s10/v17/p368795214-3.jpg

migueltattoo · Posted: Thu Oct 21, 2010 12:12 pm Post subject:

That's a classic!
I envy you and the artist that has done it!
When something is perfect like that, money is irrelevant. But...am I being too impolite if I ask you how much you paid for the master-piece?

deaded518 · Tattoo addict Joined: 07 Oct 2009 Posts: 840

looks great. i love the bright colors. so who did your tattoo, and where? once again, looks great. good job.

pberge · Posted: Fri Oct 22, 2010 3:23 pm Post subject:

[quote="migueltattoo"]That's a classic!
I envy you and the artist that has done it!
When something is perfect like that, money is irrelevant. But...am I being too impolite if I ask you how much you paid for the master-piece?[/quote]

Thanks, I appreciate the comments. I can tell you that it was in the neighborhood of $2k, and well worth it!

[quote="deaded518"]looks great. i love the bright colors. so who did your tattoo, and where? once again, looks great. good job.[/quote]

Thanks man. My artist was Darren Rosa at Rising Dragon in NYC.