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sleewell · Posted: Wed Mar 14, 2007 11:55 am Post subject: my first tattoo, wont be my last

here is my experience with my first tattoo. overall it was an amazing, life changing experience that is hard to put into words, but i will try. i wanted to put a dog tag necklace around my neck, with a cross and my friends name, angel on it. the artist drew it up with some wings on the ends of the name and a halo over the "A", i instantly loved it.

having never had a tattoo before i didn't really know if it would hurt or not, but wasn't really worried. i have a high tolerance for pain, but was a little nervous about the collar bone and sternum region. we put on the stencil and the placement looked great, it was a little hard getting the chain to look right but she did a great job.

she got started with the outline and it really didn't hurt at all. she basically did it in three passes. the first was the outline, the next was shading and finally touched it up with some white ink. the white ink gives it that realistic, shiny look. by the third pass though the skin was a bit tender and hurt the most of all, but honestly not that bad. it was the worst in the area between the collar bone and the shoulder and the shading on the sternum. kinda like someone scratching you with a paper clip over some bad sunburn.

it took about 3 hours, but was a very spiritual and healing time. i got to talk about my friend and dealing with the loss. i prayed a lot and really felt her spirit in the room with us. i am in love with finished product and whenever i look down i know she is with me and looking down at me from heaven.

healing was easy, after about 11 days it was healed and looking awesome. i uploaded pics in my personal gallery, let me know what you think.