My First Tattoo - Left Upper Arm Tattoo

So some tattoos, not all, sometimes it just looks cool, but sometimes tattoos do have a story, message, meaning, or something more to it. All of mine do for the most part, lol, as crazy as they are, I’ve decided to share. Starting from my first tattoo to my last.
I always knew what I wanted for my first tattoo. I had the image in my head since high school. In high school I took a digital graphics class and learned how to play with Photoshop. I took those skills and made an image of what I wanted for my first tattoo. I had the old image on my computer but it broke and I lost all the files on it. If I fix it some day and can recover those images, I’ll update this with new pics. I lost the pics I had of me getting it done too. I got into real estate at 20 and with one of my commission checks I knew exactly how I was gonna spend that money lol.

I printed the image that I made with Photoshop and shopped it around to local tattoo shops and NOBODY wanted to do it. I got a lot of drums are hard to tattoo because they’re to detailed. It would be too cluttered. The image I had was of real drums. I think they thought I wanted the drums to look like real drums. Finally, I changed the way I worded it. When I was living in AZ there was a band by the name of Where Eagles Dare. They opened for Bleeding Through in Flagstaff and I was blown away. Later I found out the lead singer was a tattoo artist. I looked up his portfolio and I really loved his tattoos and what he could do with colors. I saw that he would be coming to the SF Tattoo Convention at the Cow Palace, so I shot him a message through myspace and e-mailed him the image. I said I know this realistically isn’t tattooable, but feel free to play with it and make it tattooable. He responded with he’d love to do it and was excited about it. SCORE. That’s the response I’d been looking for.

I met him at the convention and he showed me what he had drawn up and I loved it. Because he was only in town for the convention we’d have to do the whole thing in one sitting. Normally you wouldn’t do a big tattoo like that in one sitting. You’d do the outline/shading/color in different settings so it can heal, otherwise you risk it bleeding too much and the ink wont stay and it can come out. 7.5 hours later I had my first tattoo. A huge one at that. I remember people would walk by and would be like wow wait, thats your 1st tattoo?! Thats huge! and I’d be like yeah, I’m a G… lol, k, not really, I wouldn’t really respond with that. I saw Trinity (an old friend from H.S.) that day, I hadn’t seen him in years. I guess he’s a tattoo artist now. I also saw Mark Palmer (another old friend). He was promoting his ambigrams as flash art. Since then I’ve seen his myspace and facebook and he’s done quite well for himself. He turned his designs into a clothing company and has celebs and everything wearing his stuff. I think he also has a shop at Knotts Berry Farm.

The number one question I got/get is did it hurt? or How much did it hurt? Over the years I’ve decided the best way to describe it is if you peeled off the top layer of skin, so it was raw and then poured rubbing alcohol on it. That would be the equivalent pain. Yeah it hurts, but its tolerable. Except for when they get to the bone. I’m still not sure how to describe that pain and there’s no way I could do 7.5 hours of only shoulders and elbows. 2nd question is how much. Simple answer $1,000 not including tip. Sometimes I get “What did your parents say?” I thought my dad would throw a huge fit and my mom would be cool with it and it ended up being the exact opposite. My dad was cool with it and actually liked it and my mom, well, I came home and it was wrapped up and bleeding A LOT and it was super swollen, it kinda reminded me of when you buy meat and it still has blood in it kinda thing, and well, she cried, lol. Yeah she was pretty upset that first night.
Now as to the actual tattoo. I wanted my first one to have meaning behind it.

For most of my youth I wanted to be a Magician. It was either that or a professional wrestler lol. I had seen every major magician (Lance Burton, David Copperfield, even Siegrfied and Roy before he got bit) Then I got bored with magic. I knew how most of the tricks worked and unless you’re doing close up magic, buying magic tricks can be expensive. I used to do birthday parties and everything. I still liked magic, I was just bored with it and stopped paying attention to it all together. Then I saw Criss Angel. I mean first season Criss Angel before he was the mega douche he is now. For the record, I still love Criss Angel, I think the way he looks and acts now fits his persona and especially after seeing David Blaines last two specials, Criss Angel is still about a billion times better; Angel actually keeps me entertained. I’ve even met him to show my tat and he took a pic of it to add to his collection I guess. He said it might end up on TV.

Anyway, I saw Criss Angel and was blown away. I instantly fell in love with magic again.  This time though, I stopped wondering how he did it, ok, I’m lying, obviously i still wonder how he does things, but the difference is I don’t NEED to know. I can sit back and just enjoy the art form of it. He’ll tell you straight up what he does isn’t real. It’s an illusion. But some of the stuff he does IS real. like when he was hanging from hooks. It’s up to us to figure out what’s what. So that’s pretty much why I got the magic stuff and the mask the guy is wearing is one of Criss Angels logo mask things. It’s a little off because JSN (tattoo artist) didn’t know it was supposed to be exactly like the pic, not knowing it was a Criss Angel thing.
Nobody’s asks me, but I’m pretty sure people wonder what the fuck is with the pink drums and the answer is in short they’re Alex Gonzalez’s signature drum set from DW. He’s who inspired me to pick up the drums. I’ve always loved the drums since I was a kid. I had one of the cheap ones you get at ToysR’Us with the paper drum heads and quickly went through that. Then I saw Maná, I’d say my first major concert and I fell in love with the drums and Alex Gonzalez. Maná is one of my top two favorite bands ever.

Then Alex switched from Pearl to DW drums! Drum Workshop is my favorite drum company. So Favorite drummer ever + favorite drum company ever = Alex Gonzalez Signature Drum Set = beings I love music and obviously the drums, and was gonna have a drum set tattoo’d on my arm either way = Mr. Gonzalez’s drums on my arm. And its roughly the same set up as the real drums, with the chinas on the sides and everything.

The camo shorts we’re a joke. He asked me what I wanted him to wear and I was like I don’t know, camo shorts, and he laughed and tattoo’d camo shorts. Camo shorts for those who don’t know, are one of the stereotypical things hardcore kids wear.
the lightning represents the energy and excitement of playing drums and the flames, well who doesn’t love playing with fire?
p.s. I think this was done in 2006, I forget what month though.