To the tattoo studio!… on Wednesday morning. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. Yep, two consecutive days of being inked up with a big bad boy of a tattoo needle.
Live the dream, Jase. Live the dream.
The first task today was to complete the outer ring of my knee. I was told this could be a little delicate as there was some slight swelling from the ink action the day before. Piss easy mate. Piss easy.
Some rather deep conversations followed between myself and my ace tattoo man. He most definitely has sussed me out, knowing that keeping me engaged distracts from the pain.
On the big telly screen was non-stop Japanese food preparation via YouTube throughout the day. I wasn’t expecting this. It’s always good to get a different perspective of things you would never normally watch. Apparently it’s a genre all of its own that is increasingly popular with the Bright Young Things.
Basically it’s a tour of local Japanese villages and towns, dropping in at their local patisseries. It was shown how the fine art of preparing Japanese bread and pastry takes place.
At the other end of the cultural scale was a rather cool Americana playlist throughout the studio. Tom Petty in particular raised a smile and managed to distract me from the scratching away of the big bad boy needle.
Once the outer ring of the knee was finished, the next task was to add a drop shadow to join up the work from yesterday and today. This is where the magic numbing spray came out. I was then wrapped up in cling film like a 20th Century Mummy to help speed up the tattoo anaesthetic process.
The actual drop shadow inking was pretty painless. It looks the bollocks in the way that it links two very tricky parts of the knee.
The afternoon session was spent planning what comes next with the bottom half of my calf. Working together we came up with a great compromise joining a couple of ideas that I had brought along to the session.
The needle on my calf was pretty painful. I noticed the aroma of my cheapo Lidl deodorant increasing, which correlated directly to the level of pain being inflicted.
On the telly for the afternoon session was some motorbike cross-country head-cam footage. Like I said, it’s always good to get a different perspective on things you would never normally see.
We realised that my knee is a little wonky as we tried to join up the earlier session with a calf. My tattoo man said not to worry, most people have wonky knees.
The music then shifted to Dexy’s. This helped me get through the final half hour or so.
A bloody decent session with plenty achieved. My tattoo man is the best.
