GardenSirens

Thank you

AutumnColorsღ

Thanks Felicity

Matt, those are awesome as hell. I love them. Since you showed yourself I will have to post a myself of me to everyone knows the face behind the pc I will do it on the OT thread.

GardenSirens

Im glad you like them!! One day, ill share the stories behind them!!

CityGal

There are stories associated with them?! Okay now that's intriguing.

GardenSirens

Yes. I don't believe someone should get a tattoo just because it looks cool. Of course, there's nothing wrong with it, just a personal philosophy. Although, the one leg with the guy ripping out of my skin, leaf demon and unfinished piece (tattoo artist murdered night before he was to finish it)...those all have no meaning. Now that the artist is dead, though, it's kind of a memorial of his work so it took on a meaning AFTER applied.

AutumnColorsღ

Oh nice, my cat tat doesnt really have a story to tell expect that I love cats but the ribbon butterfly is of course for my grandma. We both had love for butterflies. I have 3 colors that was me and her favorite, and she battled breast cancer 3 times too.

GardenSirens

Well a love for cats constitutes meaning behind a tattoo. The only time I really facepalm to tattoos are of chinese letters, tribal or crosses. Not that there's anything wrong with them, just horribly generic and no one knows what they mean. Also, when I'm at the studio, I'll see 18 year old girls come in and pull out the reference folders they have there and pic a tattoo from there. I"m really not okay with that. Only because a tattoo is permanent and you need to think about it longer than you can hold your breath.

CityGal

Thanks for explaining that and nicely stated.

GardenSirens

Thank you

AutumnColorsღ

Yeah I agree, it took me awhile to figure out exactly what I wanted permanently on my body. I want to get one more on my upper shoulder blade but not sure what. I do love owls so I was thinking something along with an owl in it.

GardenSirens

Get more! Take that idea and just take it to a good tattoo studio by you. I love letting the artist decide the exact design. I did that on my sleeves. I told them what I wanted to say and they did it artistically. Both my sleeves were drawn on me freehand with sharpie then traced with tattoo needle/ink.

AutumnColorsღ

That is what my latest tattoo artist did with my breast cancer ribbon. I told him I wanted a butterfly design with pink breast cancer ribbon and he drew one up, loved it.

GardenSirens

I think that, in turn, makes it MORE personal to have it that uniquely individual.

CityGal

Okay, now I have a question....it seems tattoo shops are plentiful. So do "artist" have a reputation and some more renowned than others or does the artist really not matter because it's the "client" that determines the work and the "artist" is a copy and paster.

(hope that made sense. clearly this is not an area I know anything about) But I have seen some beautiful work and some awful work, what surprises me is that most likely the beautiful work is one the client picked or drew out and not the tattoo parlor artist. So I'm usually confused.

AutumnColorsღ

I think Matt might give a better answer but I think it really depends on the artists doing the tattoo. Some people will just go in and look at tattoos in books and pictures on walls and even the artist portfolio and just pick same tattoo. But most the time if the artist is really good, they should be able to draw whatever you want and even give suggestions like my last artist did on mine. Right now I am thinking of getting an owl tattoo on my shoulder blade. I had friends on Facebook posts a bunch of picture ideas but I am one of those people that want the tattoo to be mine personally and not just a copy of another. But sometimes the artists will just it for their portfolio.

Hopefully I am making sense too