Tat-Who?

About 10 years ago I decided to get a tattoo.  I had wanted a tattoo for ages, but was never really sure what I wanted. I am a MASSIVE Beatles fan. One morning I drew this and went into Manchester to get it tattooed on my actual body. Forever. It was an impulsive decision.

This is what I ended up with. 

It's more of a caricature of what I drew. I liked it because of what it represented. I was never totally happy with the rendering of what I asked for though. I spent a lot of time putting it out of my mind. It's not nice to be unhappy with something on your body. Especially something you have put there. Forever.

Over the past couple of years the buried unhappiness has made its way to the forefront of my mind. Sharon has mentioned maybe getting something done to improve it. I found out you can tattoo a tattoo over the top of a tattoo and revitalise/improve/replace a tattoo that you already have tattooed. 

I decided I would get something more generic over the top. If it's not meant to look like a person, then it can't not look like the person. It doesn't mean my love of The Beatles has waned, just that my love of this tattoo isn't all it should be. I've always liked the Maori style tattoos. A swirly pattern of the Maori/Celtic variety just has to flow nice and it is cool. It doesn't have to look like John Lennon.

I like doodling and drawing swirly pointy things. I've drawn a couple of things on and off to be a new tattoo. I'd never really worked out how to cover John.

Recently I decided to seriously commit to sorting out a design for a coverup tattoo. And to stick with it until I had something I was happy to get tattooed on my arm forever. Then go and get it tattooed on my arm forever.

Sharon traced over my tattoo with a tissue. Here is a scan of the resulting trace.

It didn't need to be a perfect copy. It just needed to show the area taken by the tattoo so I had something to work with. She did that perfectly. The next thing was to make that a piece of paper I could draw over. I cleaned the scan up and sketched over it and ended up with this.

The next step was to design something over the top of it. I had looked at lots and lots and lots of pictures of tattoos on the internets. I quite liked Maori style and even saw one as a coverup. It was a large area of black, but done to incorporate some Maori swirls around it. It was an obvious coverup, but it looked cool too. I sketched something over John.  It was this.

It just flowed in one and I liked it straight away.  It obviously needed work, but was a good start. I drew it again, but neater and with some refinement. Here.

Cool. How would it look in actual black black? Rather than pencil. Not a lot of pencil tattoos last very long. Ink (injected under the skin) is the key to a tattoo that doesn't rub off.

Looking good, but I wasn't quite happy with the big circle of BLACK in the middle. It is an obvious attempt at a coverup. I wondered if I could put other colours over as well. I did a bit of research. It was certainly possible. I started doodling some red swirls on there.

I liked the red boomerang type shape on the left, but wasn't so happy with what I had done on the right. I sketched some other circular shapes on the bottom of the page. The sun type one looked ok.  I drew it up a bit neater.

Done. Exactly as I pictured, but the red didn't flow through the entire design. It looked like an afterthought. It was an afterthought. I tried putting red in other places over the whole design.

Better. There was a consistent theme throughout the whole design. Although that big block of red triangle needed breaking up. I drew it again, in what I thought was the FINAL piece, and added some black lines across the red. Reminiscent of the lines at the bottom. As I got to the sun bit I decided I really didn't like that after all. It didn't flow with the rest of the design. It needed something else there. I just didn't know what.  I tried to design on the fly, on the FINAL VERSION. It went wrong. I got angry and just doodled shit on there in a way I wouldn't do on the FINAL VERSION because that would be too risky. Bollocks to it. It got a bit uneven so I put swirls in and was just about to ditch it when.... Hang on. If I repeat that swirl again there and there. FUCKING HELL.... I really like that. Here is the actual "gone wrong" version drawn OVER the sun.

I showed it to Sharon. She said she liked it but thought that the red boomerang thing on the left was a little too much. I looked at it with fresh eyes. I agreed. Too many lines going on. Good spot Sharon. She suggested losing the outside red line and then making the black bit red. I said that was complicated and it would be better (easier) to just lose the inner bit and make it black. She didn't agree. I didn't care. I did what I said. Like this.

It looked shit. I started again and did what she said.

Good call wife. I wasn't happy with the bottom bit of the boomerang though. It didn't flow right, in my mind, with the white triangle below it. I woke Sharon up in the early hours and put her glasses on her sleepy face and tried to explain this with pointing and diagrams. Surprisingly she didn't get what I was saying. Or care. I decided to just draw it again and try and rectify it. Like this.

Better huh? At the risk of repeating myself in a way that you won't see, like Sharon couldn't see. The boomerang thing and the white triangles flow in a way that looks that could be from one shape. You see? No. Sharon neither, but I do and it's going on my arm.

I had done this last alteration in Photoshop. I slipped with the brush tool and accidently put a black dot on the red. DAMN IT! Actutally.... I liked it. I put some more in a line. I got this.

Looking about done. Or so I thought. A quick chat to a tattoo artist prompted some thicker red lines in the boomerang thing. Thinner red lines surrounded by a lot of black are likely to blur into each other in time.

Here is the FINAL VERSION.

Next I needed to find a tattoo artist I was happy to draw on my arm in a way that wouldn't wash off in the shower... FOREVER! I looked at lots of places on the internet and came to two conclusions. 

1. The artist was drawing my design. Their designs didn't matter THAT much. Of course they mattered, as an artist will always put something of themselves into anything they produce. 

2. What REALLY mattered was good execution of tattooing and a steady hand.

Basically I needed to see photos of previous work, especially in the style of my design, and see if it flowed in a way I would be happy with.

I asked on Facebook/Twitter for some ideas of local places to go and also did some Googling. After eliminating some, by looking at photos of their work and it not being what I was after, I got it down to 2 people/places I wanted to go.

I went to the first (actually my second choice, but closer to where I had parked) and showed my design and existing tattoo. He said it would certainly be possible to cover it, however there may be a little shadowing through the red. He suggested adding darker colours into the red.

I went to the second (the place I liked the look of the most) and showed my design and existing tattoo. He said it would certainly be possible to cover it, however there may be a little shadowing through the red. He suggested getting it done and then if there was shadowing he would go over the red again, free of charge, and that should eliminate it.

I liked the second answer best. It meant not changing my design. I quickly tried putting darker colours in. I didn't like it nearly as much. I decided to go for the second place and go for the design, as is, and if there was shadowing to get the red redone. If I still wasn't happy I could then address adding darker colours over the areas of the shadows I was unhappy with. If I was happy, then ACES, I was happy.

I booked an appointment, with the second place (Skin Graffiti on Rochdale Road in Bury), to get A FOREVER DRAWING ON MY ARM!

A couple of weeks passed and the BIG DAY arrived. A Saturday. Sharon and I made our way to the tattoo place for the arranged 2pm. Andy (my tattooist) was running behind so we lazed about on the comfy couch in the shop for 45 minutes until he was ready. He called me through. 

Here we go.

He did the expected things of preparing the area, by shaving it and cleaning it with alcohol. Everything looked suitably clean and I was happy. He got the transfer and put it on my arm. Just the purple lines looked aces.

I was happy with the positioning, so it was time to start getting repeatedly jabbed with an inky needle.

And we're off.

No, that's not Wayne Rooney. It's Andy, the very cool tattoo artist.  Sharon got bored, probably because I didn't look like I was in pain, and went for a wander around Bury. I sat chatting to ex-programmer, pinball enthusiast, ace tattoo artist, Andy, for a couple of hours, while he drew on me in what was (best once described by my mate Dave) bearable pain. Some bits hurt more than others. Some bits didn't hurt at all. After a couple of hours even the most painful bits were totally fine. You just get used to it. There was a nice moment when someone brought me a brew and I felt very English. Sat there, GETTING TATTOOED... and drinking a nice cup of tea. Unfortunately Sharon didn't capture this image.

There isn't a great deal to say about the rest of the process. It's just a lot of sitting and chatting and waiting. The hardest thing about it is sitting still for hours. Eventually it was done and I paid my money. First port of call... well, actually, it was Superdrug for some coco-butter to put on it. That was the top tip recommendation by the artist. Second port of call... the pub, for a well earned pint.

I had CLEVERLY worn a white t-shirt for this expedition in body art. It was lose fitting on my arm was my thinking. My thinking was not of BLOOD! In the pub I noticed a patch of red on my sleeve. Closer inspection showed it was running down my arm. Whoops. I went to the bar and asked for some of the blue paper towels they use. The barman, Martin, said it wasn't a problem and wandered round the bar. He walked straight out of the other side towards my table with a CLOTH! I shouted him and made my away across the pub and explained why I needed the towel. He insisted on seeing the tattoo. So I looked like one of those pricks who lifts his sleeve up in a pub to show off his new, bloody, cling film covered, tattoo. He went and got me a wad of toilet roll instead. I will be clear here. I wasn't using bog roll on my actual OPEN WOUND. Just to mop up any blood that ran down my arm. I'm not a total mental.

After the pint we went home and I removed the cling film. Held on by SELLOTAPE! That hurt about as much as the tattoo. A quick wash and coat of coco-butter and we have the nearly finished article. Here is the moment you've all been waiting for. The actual tattoo on my actual arm. It will need a bit of a touch-up job in a couple of weeks where the old tattoo is shadowing through the red. But this is it pretty much done.