Tristan Did A Thing

Tristan has talked about wanting a tattoo for several years. His desire was for a full back tattoo of an eagle with the wings coming over his shoulders and down his arms. I suggested he might want to do something a little smaller for his first tattoo (I was thinking something on a shoulder or pec that could be finished in one sitting. He opted for a half-sleeve on his right arm.

Six weeks or so ago, we had our consultation with an artist I met at the barn. She does a lot of grey scale tattoos and Tristan didn't want any color. We met with her and he talked about what his expectation for the design was. She finished the design and sent it to Tristan, who wasn't sure until he talked to her about what the finished product would look like. Sunday morning, our whole herd, including J and Tia, accompanied him to the parlor for his first tattoo.

 He thought he was going to listen to music, but my witty conversation kept him distracted better than music.

 Bands are hard, but our tattoo artist did a great job.

 The ditch is a bitch.

At least he will be able to see the best part of the design.

 Design touch up with Sharpie.

He sent this pic to one of his friends and his friend asked if it had hurt.

Tristan was like "dude, it's sharpie."

Made me laugh.

 Overall design.

 I was so proud of him. He sat without moving that arm for a solid two hours while she inked the lines. We knew he had to finish the lines in one setting and he rocked it.

He asked her to start on the shading, since he was doing okay and we still had an hour to go in the appt.

 She shaded the bottom band. It was pretty sore. I could feel the deep tremble of his body trying to deal with the shock of the trauma by the time we were almost done. I recognized it from my own tats and told him he was about done. Between the pain, holding himself still, being hungry and where they were in the tattoo, it was time to stop.

I did offer at one point to whack him in the balls to help distract him.

He said no.

This was right after. It looks even better a couple of days later. The lines are crisp and well done.

There was no blood, just a bit of fluid from the skin. No sign of scabbing.

He's already talking about what to do to finish the sleeve.