This evening I started my tattoo cover-up project. When I started wearing nice, “preppy” style clothes I was amazed that people were willing to suspend their disbelief and treat me like a normal human being in spite of that fact I’m inked up like a sideshow freak. People actually make eye contact and smile at me these days, which was a wonderful novelty when it started happening.
But that’s not enough for the direction I want to go. I enjoy being a tattooed weirdo, but now that I’ve gotten over my post-ETS/divorce fugue I’ve decided I want to do something different with my life, and gangster style hand and neck tattoos aren’t all that conducive to where I want to go. So, they have to go. When I want to do something I do it. When I wanted finger tattoos I just did it. Now that I have decided they shouldn’t be there I’m taking the same approach. Tattooing your own fingers isn’t the most fun thing to do, and neither is an extreme cover-up job. I could go to a doctor and have dermabrasion again, but instead I’m going to cram flesh toned ink into and over the old tattoos and let them battle it out until I win. It’s going to take a long time and is never going to look the way it did before, but I can already tell that I’m going to be happy with the results. I’m going to post the ongoing results in updates with photographs, because this fits in with the blog’s “positive things for Max” theme. So, here we go, session #1:
This is the BEFORE picture. We’re working on the “RUDE” tattoo to start with.
This is after one session with a 6-flat needle and “Tattoo Lou’s Skin Tone” being crammed mercilessly into the skin.
I butchered the “U” pretty badly, it’s currently still bloody, but the rest of it went better than I expected for a first session. The unfortunate thing is that ink in finger tattoos has a bad habit of falling out, especially if applied by someone without much skill. I have a feeling it will take at least a half dozen sessions to get enough ink packed in there to cover over or bleed out the original. It will likely end up as blurry, misshapen blob of mismatched skin tones, but so long as I get it to a point where if anybody notices it what they will see is a determined if unsophisticated attempt to get rid of a tattoo, then I will be happy. When I got the dermabrasion ten years ago for another tattoo it could still be read if one looked at it deliberately, but most people never noticed it. So there is that. I look to maybe have another go at this in two or three weeks.
Reviresco!
I did notice your ink; however, I have stopped judging folks on that in itself. Most I know regret getting it done as they get older (even some old sailors), and some of the things done in my youth just didn’t leave a mark but nonetheless are regretful.
I say “kudo’s” to you and wish you well; just be cautious of infections (you already knew that though, you tattooed “freak”;-)
Kirk
I remember when the question was automatically, “is he a sailor, biker or ex-con?” Things are sure different now than they used to be. I’ll personally feel a lot better when certain specific tattoos are either completely covered or blurred beyond recognition, though.