London 06-07/2016 - Day 8: oh, the pain

I waited nearly two years (I had to check my blog to find the date) to finally extend my back tattoo (thanks to my blog entry I'm also reminded that this was the plan back then already). I contacted Emanuel a little while back and eventually managed to get a date in the diary, this time at Shall Adore where he now works.

I had sent him some images for inspiration. At first, I had been keen on a sun (or moon) and picking up the motive of my three birds. Then I saw some pics of a waterfall and reading up on the meaning, I really liked that idea. And that's what we went with in the end. I would still like to add the sun - see the idea below - but we agreed to postpone this to another time. Just like last time, the pain was pretty tough to take. I was pinching my arm to distract myself - hence the red marks on my upper arm which have meanwhile turned blue.

It took about 45 minutes which made me so very grateful as he had estimated 1.5 hours and that would have been very tough to take. Just like last time, it is not deterring me from planning the next one though. 45 minutes or an hour of pain are simply worth the result in my view.

sketch; tattoo right after completion; my tortured upper arm

The new tattoo will hopefully 'fade' quickly, so it matches the look of the old one.