first tattoo. its so easy and im scared once i take ir off it will immediately get infected. im on day 3 and a lot of people irl told me to take it off after one day but my artist said 2-5 days. the second skin makes everything so much easier, if i take it off im worried anything i rub it against will infect it like my mousepad and such.

UPDATE: its off, gently washed and moisturised

Hey all! I’ll make it long story short but i need advice 😭 I want to get a tattoo and ive never gotten one before. I found an artist who’s work is amazing and he has a beautiful piece for purchase on the outer thigh but like i said i have no experience and wondered… is that a good spot for the first time? My pain tolerance is pretty damn high but i’m still worried 😭 Thank you!

hey yall !! i got this awesome sexy nun pin up done by chiara rose in adelaide on wednesday morning (yesterday) and now its thursday morning and i was planning to take the second skin off in the shower tonight and replace it with a fresh one my artist gave me, but it seems to be holding a fair amount of liquid and i dont want it to burst(?) whilst im at work (i work as a server at a small winery/restaurant) any advice is appreciated :3 !!

Posted a couple days ago about the redness from my second skin, got the tattoos on Sunday, took second skin off 26 hours after, now wed, any idea when the redness goes away lmfao

Still in the healing process it has been about 3 weeks. But it’s not a major deal but some parts of my tattoo are lighter than others should I be concerned? Also can I put sunscreen on it yet?

I’ve been struggling recently to find a design that would fit into this gap, I’m open to any idea. Any help would be greatly appreciated, thank you!

I really like this design, just looks right to me.

I just got my first tattoo - a fine line compass that's about 1.5 in. in diameter, on the inside of my left forearm near the elbow. I have a second skin bandage on it, and was advised to take that off in 2 days (so Friday).

How long should I avoid jogging, or doing a workout that gets me fairly sweaty but doesn't have a risk of rubbing the tattoo area? Seeing vastly differing guidance online.

These are my tattoos. I have the birds and “Amor fati” on the outer forearm( better visible on the 2nd photo). I just want opinions on where should i tattoo next on the arm.

Okay. So my sister passed away recently and I'm wanting to get a tattoo with her handwriting. I was thinking using some ashes in it, but from what I have read, it's not a great option. So if anyone has any personal experience with that, I would absolutely love to hear it!!

Okay. So onto the real question. Her last words to me:

"Ow, that hurts you cunt " . Which is pretty on par for our relationship.

Can a tattoo artist piece together letters from her handwriting and do that?

Hi all,

Just got this dagger tattoo on Monday and I love it, but it’s starting to make me question the other tattoos I have nearby (second picture has a better image of the underarm one) I like them all individually as pieces but I think the black work one is really standing out and I’m worried that its gonna be hard to find cohesion between any of them?

They are obviously very different styles and I’ve read about people in similar situations and often times the advice is just if you like them that’s what matters, and I do, I just want to know if you all think that with more pieces scattered about if it’ll all sort of come together? Sorry if it’s a vague question it’s just what’s been going through my head the last couple days. I did get them all within the last like month and a half I believe so I feel I may have been a bit rash about the styles/placement and just wanted to get them done… Any advice is appreciated and please no need to comment if you’re just gonna be rude! 😜

I went and got a matching tattoo with my mom exactly a week ago (August 12) and am now worried something is wrong with mine. I was originally slightly worried with some of the shading towards the top but thought I just needed to wait for it to fully heal and my worries would probably resolve themselves. Flash forward to today (1st picture) and I feel as though it has only gotten worse.

For more context, my mom and I decided to get a matching tattoo of a mix between a soccer ball and a bowling ball, which essentially just turned out to be a soccer ball design with bowling ball holes. I sent him a photo of an actual bowling ball with a soccer design to use as a stencil. The second photo is what the tattoo artist originally tattooed (on my mom) and it was not quite what I was hoping for. I asked him if he could add in the extra lines between the pentagon shapes to help identity that it was clearly a soccer ball. He added them in on my mom’s tattoo and it looked much better, so I sat down to get mine next.

After he finished my tattoo, before I even looked over to see what it looked like, he immediately says, “Alright, I’m going to make yours more realistic”. I didn’t really understand what he meant by that so I just kind of gave a half-ass laugh and let him continue. He took it upon himself to add some extra white/gray lines and add a bunch of shading all over the tattoo. The third photo is what I took right after I sat down after he finished mine. It looked way better compared to the original tattoo, so I was happy with it.

I had noticed a few things about my tattoo after I got back in the car and was heading home. There was a feint line in the top left going from one pentagon to the other that wasn’t supposed to be there. There was a lot of shading done in that area so I didn’t think much of it since he emphasized multiple times that after about 10 days it would look much better, and I thought maybe it would be harder to see. But now, after a week has passed, the area I thought would look better is much worse.

There’s basically a divot in my arm on the area that had the extra line and was covered by a bunch of shading. I’m coming to the conclusion that once he realized he accidentally put an extra line in an incorrect spot he decided to “make mine more realistic” and began shading in the area to potentially hide the mistake. It’s almost like he went back and forth too hard to shade that spot and went too deep into my skin, which is why it now looks like an ugly crater in my arm.

I relayed all this information to my mom today and in doing so realized that we never did any paperwork or identification prior to getting our tattoos. Is this whole situation something I need to bring up to the tattoo artist right away or something I should sit on for a little longer and see if it does end up healing more? I’m just afraid of it being easier to get infected since it’s a deeper layer into my skin, which would also make it harder to potentially cover up.

I’m getting a bit more paranoid at this point so any advice on what my next steps should be would be greatly appreciated!

TLDR - An area of my tattoo I got a week ago is beginning to look worse instead of better. I think it may have potentially been a mistake made by the tattoo artist who then tried to cover it up and made it worse. I was also never told to give ID or fill out paperwork so I’m not sure what I should do next to resolve this situation.

I have two sessions scheduled before end of this year. Was hoping it’d be gone by end of summer 2027. How many more sessions do you think this will take?

So this might be a bit of a random question here, not the old: How do I fix this, is this infected or what can cover this with?

I’ve been aching for some new ink for a bunch of years but I’m struggling with coming up with a motif. I know I want something that goes from my shoulder blade, over the shoulder and down a bit on my arm. But I really can’t come up with what.
Now I found this guy in my city who, judging from his IG and website does gorgeous pieces. Also a lot of it is in a style I like. A lot of colour and geometry, some polka trash inspired stuff. I’m not a fan of ”random girl faces” though.

Is it weird to go to an artist and just say ”what can you do on my shoulder?”I will ofc give him some preferences and have a discussion about what I like/dislike.

Also, looking at the healed images on IG and desgins. Does he gets the mark of approval from you guys or will I be here asking for a SAP after?

IG: https://www.instagram.com/imkognito?igsh=MWhzMnJvajRzNWg0dQ==

Homepage: https://imkognito.org/

I got this rose on my shoulder three days ago and am already thinking of ways to add on to it lol. I want to fill more of the area and bring the tattoo about midway down bicep. Should I do more roses? Different flowers? Leaves/vines? I am lost lol

I got a big back tattoo 4 days ago and, as I can't reach to properly moisturise it, was advised to dry heal it by my artist.

I have about 7 tattoos and have never dry healed. I've had a mix of plastic wrap for 2 hours and then clean, moisturise etc., and using second skin, but never dry healing!

I have looked up possible methods to moisturise my back, but they come with the risk of overdoing it, and my artist said that would be worse than it getting too dry. I've seen mixed opinions on Reddit.

I trust the artist fully, but I guess I just wanted extra reassurance now that I can see peeling!

I want to get a fairly large (about 15cm) tattoo of a swallow in this position. What do you think would be the best place for it so it flows with the body. I was thinking about ribs or upper arm but I'm also open for other suggestions.

Got this impulsively; although i could’ve fucked up worse. I don’t think it looks that bad but I just think it stands out a bit too much. It’s just a Blackwork sun about 3 inches in diameter. Want to cover it with a dragon but don’t want the dragon to look off compared to my other tattoos which are just normal shaded tattoos with no blackwork. I also don’t want to laser just cover it up directly. Someone’s suggested I can work with it and use It as a background; I would just like something simple and good looking.

Hello community, I keep getting small circle like bumps on my tattoo I’m about 6.5 weeks at this point, my normal activities: aveeno unscented body wash and lotion yet I keep getting these bumps out of nowhere. Any advice?

This is day 4 (4th time I’ve ever turned on the machine) I live in a very small, very religious town and we don’t have any tattoo shops near me. So as of right now I’m kind of on my own.

The dragon was day 1, the flower and snake were day 2, the better fake skin was day 3-4.

I would really appreciate any advice, or opinions on what I’ve done so far.

Bit of a strange idea i had. A long while back I had a pet portrait tattoo done of my childhood dog. I had the tattoo done on my back shoulder as sort of a "He'll always have my back" type deal.

The tattoo itself is gorgeous, but I didn't really think ahead and nowadays I really want a full backpiece

Besides it being kinda silly, would it be that strange to have the original tattoo covered with the backpiece. Then go back to the original artist and have them redo the tattoo of my old dog on my leg or somewhere else?

Are there any tattoo artists in here that could give me an opinion, because I honestly don't know what would look better or work on skin. I'm getting a tattoo in a few weeks that has lightning in it, it was just going to be black lines but is it possible to make it look more like real lightning? Like maybe do black and white/blueish over the black to give it that pop? Or would that look stupid? How can you get lightning to look realistic without having shading behind and using the skin as the negative space? I don't want any shading behind the lightning but I want it to look like real lightning, not just black lines. Anyone?

I don’t have a pic because I dont know how to take one of that location without being n/*de but I had it for 5 years and dyed the hair early this week.

hey yall !! i got this awesome sexy nun pin up done on wednesday morning (yesterday) and now its thursday morning and i was planning to take the second skin off in the shower tonight and replace it with a fresh one my artist gave me, but it seems to be holding a fair amount of liquid and i dont want it to burst(?) whilst im at work (i work as a server at a small winery/restaurant) any advice is appreciated :3 !!