Hmmm…I think this is my fourth post about tattoos on this blog. Which, I guess isn’t THAT crazy considering I’ve been blogging for almost 11 years now.
Let’s see, I first posted Tattoo back in 2014 where I talked about my first two small tattoos and my plans for a half-sleeve on my arm. Then, in New Ink: From Start to Finish from 2016 I went through the whole process of deciding on my half-sleeve and answered a bunch of questions. Finally, on More Ink: A Tattoo Update my sleeve grew a little and I added another row of flowers to bring it down closer to my elbow.
Well, looks like it’s time for another tattoo update.
I finished the main section of my sleeve about 6 years ago and then “the addition” about 5 years ago. Well, over the years all the colors have held up beautifully… except one specific purple. What started off as a beautiful, vibrant dark orchid shade had faded. It turned into a light lavender and you could see the gray shading at the base of each of the leaves.
Here’s a comparison photo:
The left image is from when I shared my initial sleeve on the blog in 2016. The right image is the one I sent to my tattoo artist to show how that one particular color didn’t like my skin.
Anyways, I wasn’t happy with it so I decided to do a little color maintenance. I made an appointment with Eric, my fabulous tattoo guy, and it took a couple months to get on his schedule.
I figured, while I was getting poked at… I might as well address another small tattoo issue. I had wimped out about having the tattoo wrap further around my arm because frankly the closer you get to the inside of your bicep the more painful it gets. I mean, the whole tattoo thing doesn’t feel great, but DANG the closer you get to the white underbelly gets really SPICY!
Anyways, since this was going to be a short session, I figured I might as well go for it. I asked my artist to bring the tattoo around a little further with leaves and shading. He’s the expert, so I just told him to do what he wanted to and let him buzz me.
With this last session taking a little over 2 hours, it brings my sleeve total hours up to right around 20 hours.
That’s right, I’ve had a tattoo gun on my arm for TWENTY HOURS. Completely worth it to me though, because I love my sleeve. Even more now with the recent additions! Also, it’s fun when young men come up to me (it’s always the 20-year-old bro’s) and ask how long my tattoo took and I tell them about 20 hours and watch their eyes bug out of their heads.
I tried super hard to get comparison photos of the before and after and I have to say it is REALLY hard to get angles of your own arm.
Here’s the front of my arm from before and then after my recent session:
And here is a better before/after of the purple mum which is now a medium pink mum with much more consistent shading:
While Eric was in there, he also did some fresh outlines and shading on the top of my arm, which you can see here:
As always when I finish a session, I tell my tattoo artist that I’m done. Completely done now. And he every single time he says, “okay, I’ll see you next time.”
So, until next time!
Do you ever think of doing a little on the other arm? I love the colors and flowers, the shapes of them, too. It looks great!
No, I like the look of just one sleeve for me. I have occasionally thought of getting a small tattoo on my right arm — I have to have my blood drawn every few months and it typically takes multiple pokes to find my tiny veins. So I’ve tossed around the idea of getting a small bee tattooed with the stinger pointing to EXACTLY where to stick me!