Flowers and masks

We did it! We have our new ink! We took lots of piccies so I'll let them tell most of the story.

Since my tattoo was only going to take about 40 minutes, I went first.

That's Tim, our tattooist at All Star Tattoo. Some could perceive that look on my face as apprehension, but it's not, it's toughness and strength.

Here is my finished product later that night. I chose to have part of a painting by Audrey Kawasaki, her paintings are amazing. At the time I saw it I felt like this part of the painting really signified a time in my life when I was really discovering who I was and letting myself be that person without reservation - taking off all the masks and letting them fall away. I love it.

Shan was really nervous. When I asked if she was nervous about the hours upon hours of pain, she said no - she was scared it wouldn't look good. Here, Tim places the outline. He got it right first time on both of us.

The outline of the flowers is complete here, this is about half an hour after they started.

This was the 'ouchy' spot. Shan was reading a magazine through most of her tattoo, except for this spot when she was squeezing my hand like a mo-fo.

About an hour after starting, the outline is done and Shan takes her first break.

Tim shades all of the flowers. The colours look really amazing on Shan's pale skin.

The back of her arm seemed to hurt a little bit.

Done for the day. After 4 and a half hours, she was ready to go home.

The semi-finished product. It looks totally awesome.

As much as I hated seeing Shan in pain, I love that she loves her new tattoo. And she does, it's everything she wanted. But now I think she's kinda hesitant to get it finished. We'll have to wait a month or so til the memory of the pain subsides a little before we go back to have the shading on the inside of her arm done. I won't judge her if she cries during that part. She won't though, I would, but she's way tougher than me.

You can check out all the videos I took of Shanny getting her tattoo here.