Britney, Christina, and NKOTB, Oh My!

Today's session went quite well. Pat wasn't there, which was a huge relief. I was about 10 minutes late, but that ended up not being a big deal. They'd had time to do the opening odds and ends so when I got there, we could just get started. Of course, with Mark, nothing is ever done quickly.

He showed me the sketch (posted at the end of the entry) and I loved it. She even had eyelashes! It's details like that which really make a piece, in my opinion. It took a while to fiddle with the size and placement, then figure out a way to make sure they were even. Mark put together a method that I think worked quite well. He taped the stencils to a strip of paper, then lined it up on my chest. The first time I didn't think they were even, but the second time worked out just fine. There's also a chance that I'm uneven. Also what slowed us down was this group of girls coming in. One of them had called ahead, but Mark wasn't too thrilled with the idea of tattooing her because she wouldn't say what she wanted. Once she showed us what she wanted, it made total sense. It was a stick person with a square head, holding a shamrock and a sign that read "NKOTB 4-Eva". Oh. My. Lord. We all looked at each other and started cracking up. Then another one of her friends wanted a heart with "NKOTB" in it and a third wanted your generic, boring butterfly. He told them he still had to work on me and they'd have to wait. He was definitely hoping they wouldn't come back. Sadly, they did and I'll have to find out what actually became of that situation.

As for me, we didn't start the actual tattooing until 1:30. My appointment was for noon. He decided to completely finish one and then start on the other one. The first one (Christina) only took about an hour. It hurt, but nothing totally unbearable. Of course, I'm comparing it to my last experience which was probably the most pain I'll experience being tattooed until I get my other side done. There were some parts that were more painful than others. Closer to my armpits and near my collarbone were tougher than closer to my sternum and near my boobs. As usual, color was worse than the outline. We took a break after he finished the first one and then moved on to Britney. Britney took about 20 minutes longer because he wanted to make sure the shading and whatnot was all the same. The only current difference between the two is the blue background. He did Christina's last and did Britney's somewhere in the middle. He'll probably darken up Christina's at some point.

I wanted to hang out for a bit, but I had to run off to work. Somewhere along the way, I manged to leave my debit card there. *facepalm* Now I have to go back tomorrow. Mark also gave me the original sketch so that no one would ask for them. He said they're for me and me alone and he won't do them on anyone else. I was flattered. It's also helpful because it saves me taking pictures of two bloody and swollen birdies.