these dangerous faces you kiss

Adam’s new sleeve, Day1, part 3…

The tattoo story… continues!

Six hours. That’s how long my artist wants you to keep all that cling-film on. Six hours. It’s a worthwhile step if you can manage it. So, as 8pm ticked around, I was strangely eager to give my friend a pair of scissors so he could cut away all the tape and the wrap began to come off.

Usually, this is not a good point to try and judge how the tattoo has gone. For one, you’ll be covered in dried blood, dried grease and bits of surplus ink everywhere. Mixed in with the sweat of your limb after those six hours of cling-film. Still, getting that stuff off, the relief is palpable…

As you can see, the arm is a bit swollen and red. It was worse in the places that had hurt, too… as you can see, the inside of the elbow was a nice mix of purple transfer, dried blood and sweat…

Whilst the less sore outside was not as bloody, there was some interesting swelling around the tattooed over scarring…

But… the best bit of getting the wrappings off is getting to run some hot, hot, hot water and slowly, gently wash that manky, ganky skin. Fingertips only.

This is especially a treat, because there in the back of your head, you know that these rare moments of lovely water on your skin will be the ONLY times you can touch your arm for a WEEK. Yep. But once the sink is black with bits transfer, bits of left over ink and all that other rubbish, you look at your new tattoo clearly for the first time and…

Kinda fall in love. Realise that the permanent ink you’ve just had applied looks great and you start to really dig it…

And then you start to think… “soon, i’ll be able to scrub the purple dye from my arm”.

:D

Adam’s new sleeve, Day1, part 2…

So, fast forward to 4 hours later…

I stumbled away from the tattooist, happier, poorer and bleeding somewhat for the sake of my art. A quick cup of tea on the way back to the park and ride bus was restorative. Driving home, I was very, very glad - as glad as I have ever been - to be the owner of an automatic transmission vehicle.

Not really in pain - that, in my experience fades quite quickly - but uncomfortable and a little bit sore. And a bit light headed, too. As if I’d been beaten on one side of my body with something blunt.

And then, there’s trying to keep the cling-film that’s around my entire arm from coming loose…

Lots of cling-film…

I had to go for a doctors appointment shortly after this, and he stuck a needle in my stomach. By the time I got home from this, I had seriously had enough of needles for one day.

Adam’s new sleeve, Day1, part 1…

Last Friday, the 10th of February, the waiting was over.

I woke up from my nervous, detached slumber, showered and got in the car to drive to the park and ride. A ball of nervous energy, on the way to get my latest tattoo.

At this point, I currently had just 3 tattoos, not loads but enough to be excited about the process.

The plan was to have a sleeve made up of hardcore punk logos:

To go with the existing Black Flag bars logo on the inside of my right forearm.

I rolled into Bath on the bus, and after a quick stop at Caffe Nero for strong, black coffee, it was 10am and I made my way to Broad Street Studios and my appointment with Marcos.

The first thing that became apparent was that my sheet of logos were all too small. I’d made them so for two reasons. One, to get them on a couple of pages and two, because I simply didn’t think all those logos would fit on my arm if I made them too large.

Marcos disabused me of this notion quickly. “There’s no point in having them small,” he said, “you won’t be able to see them”. So the logos were resized whilst we discussed placement. That was easier than you might imagine to decide what would go where…

Transfers:

And more transfers…

And still more transfers…

By this point, nervous excitement is out of the window, I’m properly excited. The logos already look better than I thought they were going to, much bigger and sharper.

As the needle starts to buzz, I’m a happy, happy fella…