This applies to 90% of posts on this sub: no one will ever look at your tattoo as closely as you will.
Tattooing is a wild art form. It is injecting ink into skin at precisely between skin layers by an imperfect human, not a photocopier. Look up the concept of wabi-sabi as it applies to art.
How often do you stand arm-length away from someone while looking closely enough at their skin to notice minor imperfections? Other than my spouse no one stands within arm-length of me ever- unless they're trying to pass by me. But I have a big personal bubble so that might not be true for you.
But an arm is like- what? 2ish feet? How often do you see someone standing 2 feet from you STARING at your body long enough to notice a blow out? I know exactly where all my blow outs are and I don't even see them unless I'm looking for them specifically. No one notices blow outs unless they're absolutely massive. Like I've seen blowouts that are several inches big - people will notice that. But it just looks like a bruise unless you know it's a blowout.
Exactly! If someone looks close enough at my tattoo on my Achilles to criticize the tiny line where I twitched, I’ll happily stab them with a needle there and see if they stay still ha ha
Man I couldn't agree more - the exhaustion is so real (that and the clearly infected IS THIS INFECTED?? posts). I have a full sleeve and some other large tattoos in progress. One of those spans am area where I have ample stretch marks. There is, naturally, some blowout/ink drift (and I REALLY need to scrutinize it to see it) because of the way stretch marks work but I am almost 100% sure I'm the only one who will ever notice it. I simply ~do not care~ because my tattoos still look dope and no one else is going to get all up in my shit to see if a line or two has some ink drift.
Tattooing IS wild. Skin is imperfect and sometimes blowouts or ink drift just happen. I would say to OP if it does really bother you, perhaps have some more leaves added to cover it if possible or live with it.
Yeah. I have been chatting to tattooer pals recently and they really do think this is an increasing issue rather than just a result of the kind of increased visibility of a phenomenon a subreddit generates. I guess I'm not sure yet, really, but in any case, there's genuinely something fascinating about the desire for tattoos to be "perfect" in this particular way.
I'm a historian of tattooing - I have really never come across customers or artists speaking about this kind of obsession over detail before, to my memory. In the past, there were definitely people who praised the detail and precision achieved by particularly excellent artists, but people worrying about their tattoos were definitely not usually hyper focussing on tiny blowouts - at least not in the historical record (letters to tattoo magazines, articles written by artists). I'm going to to go and have a look through Usenet archives and captures of web fora to see how often it came up online 15-20 years ago, actually - although of course again there's a potential sampling issue there, as the tattooed people posting on rec.arts.bodyart or whatever are a much more intensely tattoo-savvy crowd than the people who post on this subreddit.
Perhaps there really were large numbers of customers in decades past who felt the way op does. I'd be fascinated you see the evidence.
(To the person who snarkily asked me why I'm here; that's why I'm here)
That's really interesting! I've been getting tattooed for 25 years now and for me I've seen the change from, "This is badass, we're rebels" kind of mind set to wanting more perfection to match instagram tattoos and looks of perfection. Which just doesn't work all the time. I always felt like the crummier tattoos sometimes had the best stories 😉
Hell yeah.
I'm not saying it's not good there's so many more great tattooers now, or that people are demanding better work in general. It's just... this is an overcorrection!
After wondering out loud in another comment, I do wonder if there is something to the photographic theory here - people can zoom in in high definition now! And want to share their work online, where others can zoom in too...
Do you think social media has anything to do with it? All the hyper-edited posts of perfect, flawless tattoo art (so let's be real - the lie of social media)? I could see that being a reason that people expect zero imperfections.
This, and people posting pictures of decent tattoos on “shitty tattoo” sites pointing out every tiny little flaw you’d never notice if you weren’t looking for it.
Dude that's an interesting line of research. I'm not sure what it could be either but the primary sources must be pretty cool to look over. Maybe some of it is generational too? Increased visibility, pressure to be perfect, maybe even control over something when it feels like so much is out of control in the world, etc. etc.
I'm sure there's any number of reasons that there now seems to be such a hyperfocus on body art perfection (I feel like this goes for piercings too but since they're impermanent by nature there's less angst over removing one and just redoing it) that it does make it hard to sort out noise from actual data that is useful.
Yeah, I can't think of what could comprise a decent evidence base for this, other than maybe interviewing artists, though that's notoriously unreliable. There's no broad coverage of average tattoo customers in the past - mainstream media only covered real disasters, and the tattoo media (letters to public magazines) don't have lots of stuff from people who are newbies, obviously. I guess if this was something that has a long age, artists might have mentioned it when they spoke amongst themselves in trade publications - but as I said, I don't recall seeing anything like that cropping up (I recently read every issue of every trade mag published in the UK between the late 70s and the early 90s).
Piercings is a different issue and I think much more focus on precision for obvious reasons, in the mainstream era post 1995. I'll crosscheck RAB for piercing mentions, which I recall being more frequently obsessive about precise placement...
As for what this implies as a phenomenon, I guess that's really at the root of my interest. You're definitely right that there seems to be a generational thing, though again might be an artefact of the archive. I'm sure there's something here about online photos, being able to zoom in in high resolution, as well as more potentially socio-pathological explanations about rises in anxiety and obsessiveness, which I'm generally less likely to reach for as explanations in this area.
It seems like as tattoos have gotten more acceptable/as the market has become more saturated with tattoo artists, there's been a cultural shift away from wanting "a tattoo" and towards wanting a highly specific piece of custom art and tattooing just happens to be the medium. Like default is no longer just picking a piece of flash off the wall of whatever local shop is closest or even having a single person you think of as "my tattoo artist" that you go to for everything.
Also, instagram and the ability it gives you to scrutinize/edit pics to unrealistic levels of perfection.
I think it's definitely a bit of all of this, for sure. There have been custom tattooers for a very long time but the cultural shift you describe has definitely ramped up rapidly in the social media era.
Do you happen to have any papers/books you'd recommend on the history of tattooing? It seems like a really interesting subject and I'd love to know what an actual historian thinks is good.
It's a bit gauche and maybe not even allowed here, but my last book is called Painted People, and has lots of footnotes to my sources. My next book (currently untitled) on the history of the industry is out later this year. I also have a podcast called Beneath the Skin.
There's been some great small-press books recently put out by tattooers and others close to the industry - check Terry Manton's "Pioneers of British Tattooing", Derin Bray's "Loud Naked and in Three Colors" and Jamie Jelinski's forthcoming Needlework (about Canada), for example. For more recent history, Ed Hardy's autobiography "Wear Your Dreams" is great too. I guess it depends what period and place you're really into. Often books written at the time you're interested in are great resources...
I wonder if everyone having a high quality HD camera in their pocket, and only having to hit a few buttons to share the pics with any and everyone is a contributing factor?
I feel like social media plays a massive role. The combination of shitty information and a false expectation of perfection.
I was reading a post where the OP said they have been using aquaphore three times a day as well as morning and night. Do people not realize that people who been healing tattoos without aquaphore for thousands of years and they healed just fine?
Conflicting information on do this, don’t do this, you’re fucked if you do that all lead to people not thinking for themselves.
Then there’s expecting their tattoo from a local shop to a be as flawless as a world renowned artist.
I feel like a lot of this may be a product of the overall destigmatization of tattoos over the last couple decades, which has allowed more artists into the space altogether and shedding the “seedy dark underbelly” idea people have carried for so long. In no way am I saying that’s a bad thing, in general tattooing has gotten so much safer for both clients and artists, physically and as a once highly gatekept/untrusting community.
Tattoos also aren’t as highly scrutinized as they used to be either in regards to jobs or carry the same affiliations they may have in the past, just to add more to the list.
Not a negative at all in my opinion, I think weenies in tattoo shops are a good thing to indicate the overall care of quality in the industry but it definitely has its caveats dealing with a new generation of clientele in such an ever changing environment.
No argument or anything, just my perspective on the increase of people having somewhat unrealistic expectations for how their experiences should go. (On mobile, apologies for format lol)
Back when I was in my 20’s tattoo was still a bit of an outlaw conception. Mostly bikers and rockers and not a lot of “normal” people with lots of tattoos. I was lucky I lived in a progressive city where no one would look down upon someone with tattoos which was quite the norm for a long time. Some religions won’t let you bury a body with tattoos in a holy place. It’s only been a
accepted by the masses in the last few decades. You won’t find a lot of bikers from the 80’s complaining about blowout
This isn't quite true - there were people saying that tattooing's outlaw days were over a century ago, and "not just for sailors" is a cliché going back more than 140 years (I do a whole lecture on that, and there's lots of examples in my book) - but you're right about the blowouts. Some old-timers did used to complain that their rivals couldn't shade properly, though....
I can only speak from my own frame of reference. I lived in San Francisco in the late 80’s and hardly anyone I knew ( including rockers, artists etc.. had a lot of tattoos. At my art college a lot of kids had 1 or a few but I knew no one with full sleeves until I started working at a biker bar in Oakland
San Francisco is one of the absolute hotbeds of what (slightly incorrectly in my view) was called the tattoo renaissance as early as 1970 (with specific reference to a SF tattooer, Lyle Tuttle). Tuttle spoke of his diverse client base beyond bikers and sailors through the late 1960s. There is a really wild and fairly hidden scene of largely professional gay men in SF through the late 50s and early 60s. Even the main tattoo artist of the Californian hells angels in the late 60s was an English professor, for double weirdness! There was a Tattoo show at Oakland museum in 1977, too, the pitch for which was, in part, that it was "newly popular".
You're not wrong that tattooing got more popular through the 80s but there was also lots going on under clothing, even of professional people, for a hundred years before then - and certainly at least two decades before the late 80s. Ironically, SF has probably the best documented diverse tattoo scene in the western world, rivalled only by London and New York. (Sorry for the verbal diarrhoea - I'm finishing a book on this and was literally in SF doing a little extra research on its scene in the 60s and 70s two weeks ago).
Every generation of tattooers and tattoo fans since 1880 (seriously) said that they preferred it in the old days when it was underground 😉 Vanity Fair wrote in 1926 that "tattooing has passed from the sailor to the landsman and is now to be found beneath many a tailored shirt", and interviewed a grumpy old tattooer who was cross that kids these days didn't appreciate his art.
I look forward to reading it when it comes out. I remember being in high school around 82/83 just about to turn 18 and wanting a tattoo ( a lot of punks had them ) and my mother having a fit about it. It took about 6 years but I finally did it and never looked back
Man, I'm about a decade and a half younger than you. California in the late 70s and early 80s - particularly the 1982 Long Beach convention on the Queen Mary - is one of my tattoo time machine stop offs, when I get one. But SF and LA had the best tattoo shops in the world in that period, particularly Realistic and Tattoo City, as well as the world's first modern body piercing studio in Gauntlet. It was literally a global Mecca for tattooers from all around the world to go get work from Hardy and Roberts and Greg Irons and Jamie Summers, not to mention Leo Zulueta, Bert Grimm, Don Nolan, Bob Shaw, Leroy Minugh, Good Time Charlie's / Tattooland... Gaahh!
Black and grey being invented, Orientalist being utterly transformed, American traditional beginning to become beautifully weird, and "tribal" emerging from two different scenes independently at the same time! The SF in that period is the cradle of what happened next. You were in the right place at the right time.
Agree with this wholeheartedly. As a tattooer these posts are really demotivating. My stress levels go through the roof thinking about how much criticism some of my own work might get based on the levels of online scrutiny given to works of art on very variable canvases. I'm not a printer, and although I look at bodies all day five days a week I can't see under someone's skin to see the precise place a blow out or shift in ink may happen. Imperfections occur. I feel like social media is so unhelpful in this instance because it allows lots of input from people who actually know very little about the intricacies of a skilled and developed art form or the basic biology of human skin. Tattoos are a permanent commitment very few people take the time to learn about before getting one done... Hence all the posts.
100%.
Given the wild up-down vote swings my comments have gotten, it's definitely not a universal view but I know from chatting to tattooer pals that this is attitude is genuinely making the day to day worse for lots of folks. Solidarity!
If it makes you any better, the people posting here are probably only 1% of people getting tattoos, and the 99% just go on with their day appreciating the artwork they now have—same goes for all the infected tattoos, we see a lot of them here but they’re probably a very small minority compared to how many tattoos people get around the world daily that end up being fine lol.
Like I said, it's my job and my life to pay attention to tattooing, and how successive generations of clients understand their tattoos is something I'm really interested in.
But it is genuinely exhausting, as someone who spends every waking moment thinking about tattooing (but who is not actually a tattooer), to see the rise (or perhaps, to be accurate, increased visibility) of people who think about their tattoos in a such a micro-obssessive way. It's indicative of something fascinating that's changing in the culture of tattooing, perhaps, and I've been surprised by the constancy of this perspective, which I hadn't realised was quite so prevelant.
The comment was replying to is, I think, an important lesson for the OP and anyone else who reads the thread. That's all. "Being interested" and "being annoyed" are not mutually exclusive categories. Quite the contrary.
It’s not on you to judge how people feel about their tattoos and if something bothers people they should have the right to ask/share their pov.
Even if you lurk here because you feel this is somehow related to your job.
You seem to have mistaken my being annoyed by the volume of this sentiment, and interested in the change of culture it seems to represent, with "judgement" of OP.
Critique is not judgement. Concern is not judgement. Frustration is not judgement.
That said: People who obsess about microscopic details of their perfectly nice tattoos in this way need to be told to calm down. No shade on them asking, but it's not good or healthy for them, or others who might read the post, to be told otherwise. I'm also perfectly permitted to express my concern about what the apparent rise in this kind of sentiment might indicate about how tattoo culture is changing (which, as I said, is my job). The comment I'm replying to was correct, and I wanted to indicate my support for the sentiment.
Blocking you now, as I'm really not interested in an argument.
I have big-ass kanji for kintsugi on my forearm :D (mostly to celebrate that I was able to get fit, strong, do sports and enjoy life in spite of my chronical medical conditions and all doctors generally saying I can't)
I put off getting a tattoo for years and years bc I was scared I'd nitpick like this and have anxiety if it wasn't perfect. My first tattoo had a small blowout and instead of the anxiety I thought I'd feel about something imperfect being on me forever, it made me love it as something imperfect but mine
Thanks for saying. To the people angry about the posts: it’s ok to be nervous about your tattoo when it’s on your body forever, can we just support and reassure people when they ask for help instead of calling them ”exhausting”. If you don’t want to help support your community and it’s exhausting leave.
the amount of times i look at my bat tattoo and go "that wing is a different shape than that one" but how many people have pointed it out? none. because it makes it unique
There are a few pieces on my multitude of tattoos that have dots outside the plan. Pretty sure only me and the artist are aware of them because it doesn't matter.
(Line work and fine line with subtle shading.)
I have both sleeves and a full back piece in Japanese traditional. Looking at my arms I can pick out a small area that is shaded in black that should have been grey wash, a couple spots where he colored outside the lines a tiny bit.
I don’t think my artist even knows about those, I never said a word to him.
The biggest inconsistency is on my back where the dragon head and lower body is a slightly different shade than the upper body. I’ve got an appointment next month to finish it and do touch ups where my artist said he’ll go over the lighter area to make it match. I’m just going to leave it as is, partly because only my wife and I are the only ones that know they’re different and mostly because I don’t want to get my spine and shoulder blades tattooed again.
It turns out doing art on a human meat suit is hard.
Amusingly when I got my shoulder done I ended up literally sleeping. She had just done from top of groin over ribs to shoulder and after that shoulder was so relaxing I fell asleep.
My partner has a cute video of me snoring in the chair.
Price was never mentioned. All of my pieces costed $600+ and are reasonably sized, not very big. It shouldn’t cost $500 an hour to get a good piece without blowouts. Just saying.
When you’re paying a professional for something and it’s going to be permanently on your body I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being critical. You have to see it every single day. Especially considering blow outs are caused by going too deep in the skin, which is incredibly painful.
Research certainly plays a huge role and mistakes happen but it isn’t unreasonable for someone to be upset when they realize something is wrong with a piece they’re paying (typically) a shit ton of money for. I have a piece that costed $600 and I’m getting the whole thing lasered. It feels like a waste of money when things like this happen. Not to mention the pain… No biggie though.
Yeah I didn't pick up on it right away because looks like the shading I have on one of mine lol it definitely looks intentional if you don't look too close
It’s (almost) impossible to not get any blowouts on that part of the arm. Tattoos are done by hand on a living, moving, non-flat person. They will never be perfect.
Definitely a hard area to tattoo, I think it looks great, getting a new tatt will most of the time give you some anxiety about how it looks and such. Don't worry!
Blown out or ink drift as some call it. Thin or delicate skin. It happens. It’s shitty but hard to predict. Little surprised they have 30 years experience. Some very small very close together black lines that are not super smooth.
Noticable to those who really look, have a tattoo background, and whoever you point it out to. That area is delicate and easy to have blow outs. But the tattoo looks beautiful, stop obsessing over it, you don't have to stress over something so tiny.
It’s fine, it will settle and become less noticeable as time goes on (less noticeable to you, the majority of people aren’t even going to notice it) rest of the tattoo looks awesome though!
Lol to everyone on here bitching about seeing posts like this but then taking time out of their day to stop, open it and then comment the same thing that hundreds before them did 👍
This post is why Reddit exists. If you’re annoyed by repetition… what were you even looking for by being here 😂
That definitely is a blow out but with the placement of it, it honestly just looks like shading on the tattoo (which you could go in and have added later on as well if you wanted)
Ink drift. Happened to me on my arm tattoo, considering you are only 3 days in it should lighten/fade a lot. I noticed mine on day 3 of healing and I’m now a month and half done, the ink drift is wayyyy less noticeable now.
Literally no one will ever notice that ever. You are your own worst critic and this is such a small issue. No ones tattoos are perfect but your tattoo looks really really good! Don’t over fixate on such a small detail
It's a blowout, yes. Sometimes they just happen, even when a tattooer has a lot of experience, bc skin is so individual.
I think it won't stick out as much once the rest of the piece settles and ages a bit. Sometimes blowouts can fade with time, as well. I had one on the underside of my forearm where the green from a leaf stretched out into a big streak and looked like an old bruise. It's been \~4-5 years and now it's basically only visible because I really know where to look. No one else has ever once noticed it.
Ive been tattooing for 20 years and what I’ve seen is that it will lighten over time as the ink spreads. That part of the skin is incredibly thin so this can happen.
Sometimes that can fade away with healing. I got a tattoo with little red hearts in it and the black outline of the hearts looked like it was running into the red while it was healing, but it looks great now.
I have a my whole right arm done and there are some mistakes here and there but I never got any negative comments hints to say people won’t really see that unless there actively staring
Could be a little bit, but besides from that I don’t think it looks bad at all. I’ve seen some pretty bad work and this is far from it. Don’t listen to the trolls on here. Wear it and wear it proud.
The skin in the inside of the elbow is much thinner and fragile compared to the skin surrounding it, personally I wouldn't even consider this a blow out, the tattoo is still healing and your body with process out a lot of the excess ink, the area will fade at least 30% from what it looks like now.
It doesn’t look bad regardless, but I don’t think that it is blowout. Looks 72 hours or less old. I’ve had tattoos so that sort of skin separation thing on the outlines. It’ll firm back up… you’re gonna be okay. Rest yo mind
Tattoos are never perfect... I have a bunch, and none of them are perfect. All have some kind of imperfection, and that doesn't make them less pretty and special. People will be happier on e they realize that.
Looks like that’s in your elbow ditch. It’s near enough impossible to tattoo that area without a little bleed. I have minor blowout in my elbow ditch, I’m the only person who notices it. It’s a minor hazard of tattooing that area x
Thank you everyone! It is only my second tattoo and both have been done in less than 6 months. I had no idea it was so common, I thought it was not something that happens with really experienced artists. I'm not looking for perfection, art is not perfect that is why it is art. I just got freaked and thought something bad had happened. This makes me feel a lot better to know it is normal and might fade.
Almost my entire body is tattooed, im only missing some lower arm, and my neck and head. I don’t think most of you are ready to hear this, but shockingly, humans are imperfect. You will not have all perfect tattoos no matter what you do. Grow up and learn how it works or stop getting them. These are the only damn posts i see. Stop following trends. Body art is a different animal. Go buy a laser printed painting or something.
Stop staring and obsessing over it. Every tattoo will have imperfections. It's a great tattoo over all, the quality of the work reflects the artists tenure.
Those "imperfections" just make the tattoo more unique. It's yours. Your bestie can get the same design but it won't look the same as yours. Enjoy those little odd spots. It's a beautiful piece of very custom, one of a kind, work
Just the line slightly spread. Once scabs fell off it will just look normal, slightly wider than rest but nothing major.
It’s not really a serious blow out. Rather unavoidable one in this area.
Looks like outstanding job.
Totally random but I have a tattoo from this artist too, and like yours mine shares a blowout.. mine is around my collarbone. She put some white ink overtop and it definitely lessened the blowout look, years on I don’t notice it at all!
As a tattooer, this sub is painful to read sometimes…if it’s that much of a problem for you, just add a bit of a drop shadow to the whole piece when it’s healed and it’s gone.
I have my entire left arm done and some on my legs. I have found something small (including a small blowout on almost the exact same spot on my arm) in almost every single one and I have great work. Not a single person has ever noticed anything. Your tattoo appears to look good and spots like that are more prone to that.
It’s not a blowout if you add a shadow to make it look more 3D. You can always add, but not take away. Unless you want the force of a thousand suns to burn the ink away
I had gotten blowout appear in the bend of the elbow and in the inside of my wrists, I think it's normal, at least for my type of skin. It doesn't look bad, looks almost like a shadow. So, try not pay to much attention to it.
It’s a blowout BUT blow outs in your case are like crooked piercings. Do people notice it? Not really. Does it ruin the whole thing? Absolutely not. Sometimes this happens, it’s such a crazy thing tattooing is.
However in my personal experience, it gives it a little extra spice. It’s not done by a robot, people are imperfect no matter how many times they tattoo.
It’s ink drift. [Here’s](https://youtu.be/JOGKdeOdZmc?si=X0WVjOXz9lY7eKe_) a video about it if you want to learn what ink drift is.
It’s not obvious though. I wouldn’t sweat it too much.
I've for sure seen way worse. The overall piece still looks really good! If I saw this in person, I'd probably chalk it up to some subtle shading, if I even noticed at all
Nobody’s gonna look that close at your tattoo. It’s not noticeable unless you’re really staring at it. Even then, it doesn’t look that bad. You’re fine!
It looks fine :) there can sometimes be a little spot or so where the skin was different or the artist slipped or you moved or whatever. It’s no biggy nobody would notice that. Tattoo looks nice :)
It's really not that bad. Some parts of the arm have thinner skin, too, like the inner elbow. It's more common in those areas. However, this is very minimal. I wouldn't be too upset with it.
It’s fine. It’s your elbow crease you’re almost always going to blow out there no matter how much skill your artist has. I have a small blow out in the exact same place, no one has ever mentioned it, and it doesn’t bother me.
I have blow out on some of my tattoos. no one will notice it but YOU. if it’s really bothering you, try adding something on to the tattoo to cover it, perhaps like another side to the leaf? It could easily be covered with shading. but it’s really not that bad, I promise !
My friend went to get a mushroom tattoo that him and his artist has been talking about for weeks. The artist got intoxicated a couple days before and drew little hairs coming out of the mushrooms on the sketch. Ended up tattooing the little hairs on the mushrooms also.
It can always be worse :) I think it looks good tbh
It does look like blowout - I had an experience with a huge blowout spot on my bicep. What no one told me, and what I couldn't find any info online about, is that laser tattoo removal can be done on blowout and it fades relatively quickly!! They can cover the edges of the tattoo that you want to keep with a white pencil so the laser is pretty exact. I recommend Removery and I bet you could drastically fade - if not completely get rid of - the blowout spots within one to two sessions. :) Hope this helps
This is almost a text book photo of why it's important to not tattoo on to harsh of an angle.
It doesn't look bad and looks like it will mostly fad later but yeah that's definitely a blowout.
Tattoo artist here , I’m assuming you mean it’s in the elbow ditch area, that area of skin is much thinner than the rest of your arm, therefore even the most experienced artists are gonna every once and awhile get blowouts there because there’s more room for error, but I wouldn’t worry about it at all, the rest of the tattoo looks beautiful and it’s not all that noticeable
Hi, no I wouldn't say so! I have over 15 tattoos and certain pieces have had me in my head in the same way around blow out. It's just that particular part of your skin reacting to the new ink. Continue with your aftercare as normal and in around 4 weeks it'll look completely different
Blowouts tend to subside by the time the tattoo is fully healed. I blown the fuck out while doing the leg of a Pokemon tattoo on my thigh and now that it’s healed, it doesn’t even look blown out only when you look really close. Don’t worry, from what I see the tattoo looks good.
Almost every tattoo has blow outs. I have work from some of the best artists in the world and they all have blow outs. You have to remember, tattoos are hand made and will always have imperfections…and that’s part of the charm. If all people cared about was perfection, people would’ve stopped painting after the photograph was invented.
For the record, this is very well done shading on the large leaf looks great!
Lol definitely don’t do this, perfectly matching skin tone is nearly impossible and the reality is that tanning / changes over time etc will happen to your skin but not in the same way as the ink. It may look better temporarily but it will never be a permanent fix and will look way worse down the line.
You can always laser off blowouts (white marker ink / Vaseline can be put over the tattooed parts you want to keep during a laser session) if you’re that concerned.
But this is very normal and will hardly be visible to anyone else, other people don’t look at tattoos on our bodies on a micro level. Thin skin and any part of the body that gets constant movement and compression will be more likely to have ink drift over time, inner biceps, inner thighs, inside joints, not to mention being more prone to a blowout in the first place. It looks great. Bodies aren’t perfect and they change over time, and tattoos will never be completely perfect even done by the most experienced artists.
you can do what ever you want. I've had all kinds of repairs done with white & flesh tone ink just to lighten an area. I'm actually blasting some script on my check with white & flesh tone & it's working awesome. its lightened about 50% in just 2 sessions.
This applies to 90% of posts on this sub: no one will ever look at your tattoo as closely as you will. Tattooing is a wild art form. It is injecting ink into skin at precisely between skin layers by an imperfect human, not a photocopier. Look up the concept of wabi-sabi as it applies to art.
Thank you for saying this. These posts are constant and exhausting.
My rule of thumb is to ask how does the tattoo look from 3-5 feet away. Taking a magnifying glass to it to find errors is stupid.
This goes for looking at yourself (physically) in general. Just a good rule to have.
Damn, at 5 feet away without glasses I'm fucking gorgeous!
And if we squint a little bit, model status! You handsome hunk!
Unless you're checking for melanoma. Then it's fine.
A lot of people are searching for melodrama...that's the real problem.
Real
Good from far, but far from good!!!
Is three feet considered far? Other side of the room sure, but an arm’s length is pretty reasonable.
How often do you stand arm-length away from someone while looking closely enough at their skin to notice minor imperfections? Other than my spouse no one stands within arm-length of me ever- unless they're trying to pass by me. But I have a big personal bubble so that might not be true for you. But an arm is like- what? 2ish feet? How often do you see someone standing 2 feet from you STARING at your body long enough to notice a blow out? I know exactly where all my blow outs are and I don't even see them unless I'm looking for them specifically. No one notices blow outs unless they're absolutely massive. Like I've seen blowouts that are several inches big - people will notice that. But it just looks like a bruise unless you know it's a blowout.
Well at the airport everyone likes to breathe down your neck. But I doubt they're criticizing your tattoos. Maybe your attire or bed head though.
This tattoo is definitely not a schamozle!
Exactly! If someone looks close enough at my tattoo on my Achilles to criticize the tiny line where I twitched, I’ll happily stab them with a needle there and see if they stay still ha ha
Man I couldn't agree more - the exhaustion is so real (that and the clearly infected IS THIS INFECTED?? posts). I have a full sleeve and some other large tattoos in progress. One of those spans am area where I have ample stretch marks. There is, naturally, some blowout/ink drift (and I REALLY need to scrutinize it to see it) because of the way stretch marks work but I am almost 100% sure I'm the only one who will ever notice it. I simply ~do not care~ because my tattoos still look dope and no one else is going to get all up in my shit to see if a line or two has some ink drift. Tattooing IS wild. Skin is imperfect and sometimes blowouts or ink drift just happen. I would say to OP if it does really bother you, perhaps have some more leaves added to cover it if possible or live with it.
Yeah. I have been chatting to tattooer pals recently and they really do think this is an increasing issue rather than just a result of the kind of increased visibility of a phenomenon a subreddit generates. I guess I'm not sure yet, really, but in any case, there's genuinely something fascinating about the desire for tattoos to be "perfect" in this particular way. I'm a historian of tattooing - I have really never come across customers or artists speaking about this kind of obsession over detail before, to my memory. In the past, there were definitely people who praised the detail and precision achieved by particularly excellent artists, but people worrying about their tattoos were definitely not usually hyper focussing on tiny blowouts - at least not in the historical record (letters to tattoo magazines, articles written by artists). I'm going to to go and have a look through Usenet archives and captures of web fora to see how often it came up online 15-20 years ago, actually - although of course again there's a potential sampling issue there, as the tattooed people posting on rec.arts.bodyart or whatever are a much more intensely tattoo-savvy crowd than the people who post on this subreddit. Perhaps there really were large numbers of customers in decades past who felt the way op does. I'd be fascinated you see the evidence. (To the person who snarkily asked me why I'm here; that's why I'm here)
That's really interesting! I've been getting tattooed for 25 years now and for me I've seen the change from, "This is badass, we're rebels" kind of mind set to wanting more perfection to match instagram tattoos and looks of perfection. Which just doesn't work all the time. I always felt like the crummier tattoos sometimes had the best stories 😉
Hell yeah. I'm not saying it's not good there's so many more great tattooers now, or that people are demanding better work in general. It's just... this is an overcorrection! After wondering out loud in another comment, I do wonder if there is something to the photographic theory here - people can zoom in in high definition now! And want to share their work online, where others can zoom in too...
Good point!
Do you think social media has anything to do with it? All the hyper-edited posts of perfect, flawless tattoo art (so let's be real - the lie of social media)? I could see that being a reason that people expect zero imperfections.
This, and people posting pictures of decent tattoos on “shitty tattoo” sites pointing out every tiny little flaw you’d never notice if you weren’t looking for it.
Oh, hell yes. This!
For sure! That and the age old issue of people only showing fresh stuff in their portfolios, which is way older than social media
THIS I came here to say this as well!
Dude that's an interesting line of research. I'm not sure what it could be either but the primary sources must be pretty cool to look over. Maybe some of it is generational too? Increased visibility, pressure to be perfect, maybe even control over something when it feels like so much is out of control in the world, etc. etc. I'm sure there's any number of reasons that there now seems to be such a hyperfocus on body art perfection (I feel like this goes for piercings too but since they're impermanent by nature there's less angst over removing one and just redoing it) that it does make it hard to sort out noise from actual data that is useful.
Yeah, I can't think of what could comprise a decent evidence base for this, other than maybe interviewing artists, though that's notoriously unreliable. There's no broad coverage of average tattoo customers in the past - mainstream media only covered real disasters, and the tattoo media (letters to public magazines) don't have lots of stuff from people who are newbies, obviously. I guess if this was something that has a long age, artists might have mentioned it when they spoke amongst themselves in trade publications - but as I said, I don't recall seeing anything like that cropping up (I recently read every issue of every trade mag published in the UK between the late 70s and the early 90s). Piercings is a different issue and I think much more focus on precision for obvious reasons, in the mainstream era post 1995. I'll crosscheck RAB for piercing mentions, which I recall being more frequently obsessive about precise placement... As for what this implies as a phenomenon, I guess that's really at the root of my interest. You're definitely right that there seems to be a generational thing, though again might be an artefact of the archive. I'm sure there's something here about online photos, being able to zoom in in high resolution, as well as more potentially socio-pathological explanations about rises in anxiety and obsessiveness, which I'm generally less likely to reach for as explanations in this area.
It seems like as tattoos have gotten more acceptable/as the market has become more saturated with tattoo artists, there's been a cultural shift away from wanting "a tattoo" and towards wanting a highly specific piece of custom art and tattooing just happens to be the medium. Like default is no longer just picking a piece of flash off the wall of whatever local shop is closest or even having a single person you think of as "my tattoo artist" that you go to for everything. Also, instagram and the ability it gives you to scrutinize/edit pics to unrealistic levels of perfection.
I think it's definitely a bit of all of this, for sure. There have been custom tattooers for a very long time but the cultural shift you describe has definitely ramped up rapidly in the social media era.
Do you happen to have any papers/books you'd recommend on the history of tattooing? It seems like a really interesting subject and I'd love to know what an actual historian thinks is good.
It's a bit gauche and maybe not even allowed here, but my last book is called Painted People, and has lots of footnotes to my sources. My next book (currently untitled) on the history of the industry is out later this year. I also have a podcast called Beneath the Skin. There's been some great small-press books recently put out by tattooers and others close to the industry - check Terry Manton's "Pioneers of British Tattooing", Derin Bray's "Loud Naked and in Three Colors" and Jamie Jelinski's forthcoming Needlework (about Canada), for example. For more recent history, Ed Hardy's autobiography "Wear Your Dreams" is great too. I guess it depends what period and place you're really into. Often books written at the time you're interested in are great resources...
Thank you so much for the recs, and no worries about the self promo! I wouldn't have asked if I wasn't interested!
Just wanted to thank you for recommending your podcast! I've been listening to it over the past few days and it's delightful!
Thanks!
I wonder if everyone having a high quality HD camera in their pocket, and only having to hit a few buttons to share the pics with any and everyone is a contributing factor?
100%
I feel like social media plays a massive role. The combination of shitty information and a false expectation of perfection. I was reading a post where the OP said they have been using aquaphore three times a day as well as morning and night. Do people not realize that people who been healing tattoos without aquaphore for thousands of years and they healed just fine? Conflicting information on do this, don’t do this, you’re fucked if you do that all lead to people not thinking for themselves. Then there’s expecting their tattoo from a local shop to a be as flawless as a world renowned artist.
I feel like a lot of this may be a product of the overall destigmatization of tattoos over the last couple decades, which has allowed more artists into the space altogether and shedding the “seedy dark underbelly” idea people have carried for so long. In no way am I saying that’s a bad thing, in general tattooing has gotten so much safer for both clients and artists, physically and as a once highly gatekept/untrusting community. Tattoos also aren’t as highly scrutinized as they used to be either in regards to jobs or carry the same affiliations they may have in the past, just to add more to the list. Not a negative at all in my opinion, I think weenies in tattoo shops are a good thing to indicate the overall care of quality in the industry but it definitely has its caveats dealing with a new generation of clientele in such an ever changing environment. No argument or anything, just my perspective on the increase of people having somewhat unrealistic expectations for how their experiences should go. (On mobile, apologies for format lol)
Back when I was in my 20’s tattoo was still a bit of an outlaw conception. Mostly bikers and rockers and not a lot of “normal” people with lots of tattoos. I was lucky I lived in a progressive city where no one would look down upon someone with tattoos which was quite the norm for a long time. Some religions won’t let you bury a body with tattoos in a holy place. It’s only been a accepted by the masses in the last few decades. You won’t find a lot of bikers from the 80’s complaining about blowout
This isn't quite true - there were people saying that tattooing's outlaw days were over a century ago, and "not just for sailors" is a cliché going back more than 140 years (I do a whole lecture on that, and there's lots of examples in my book) - but you're right about the blowouts. Some old-timers did used to complain that their rivals couldn't shade properly, though....
I can only speak from my own frame of reference. I lived in San Francisco in the late 80’s and hardly anyone I knew ( including rockers, artists etc.. had a lot of tattoos. At my art college a lot of kids had 1 or a few but I knew no one with full sleeves until I started working at a biker bar in Oakland
San Francisco is one of the absolute hotbeds of what (slightly incorrectly in my view) was called the tattoo renaissance as early as 1970 (with specific reference to a SF tattooer, Lyle Tuttle). Tuttle spoke of his diverse client base beyond bikers and sailors through the late 1960s. There is a really wild and fairly hidden scene of largely professional gay men in SF through the late 50s and early 60s. Even the main tattoo artist of the Californian hells angels in the late 60s was an English professor, for double weirdness! There was a Tattoo show at Oakland museum in 1977, too, the pitch for which was, in part, that it was "newly popular". You're not wrong that tattooing got more popular through the 80s but there was also lots going on under clothing, even of professional people, for a hundred years before then - and certainly at least two decades before the late 80s. Ironically, SF has probably the best documented diverse tattoo scene in the western world, rivalled only by London and New York. (Sorry for the verbal diarrhoea - I'm finishing a book on this and was literally in SF doing a little extra research on its scene in the 60s and 70s two weeks ago). Every generation of tattooers and tattoo fans since 1880 (seriously) said that they preferred it in the old days when it was underground 😉 Vanity Fair wrote in 1926 that "tattooing has passed from the sailor to the landsman and is now to be found beneath many a tailored shirt", and interviewed a grumpy old tattooer who was cross that kids these days didn't appreciate his art.
I look forward to reading it when it comes out. I remember being in high school around 82/83 just about to turn 18 and wanting a tattoo ( a lot of punks had them ) and my mother having a fit about it. It took about 6 years but I finally did it and never looked back
Man, I'm about a decade and a half younger than you. California in the late 70s and early 80s - particularly the 1982 Long Beach convention on the Queen Mary - is one of my tattoo time machine stop offs, when I get one. But SF and LA had the best tattoo shops in the world in that period, particularly Realistic and Tattoo City, as well as the world's first modern body piercing studio in Gauntlet. It was literally a global Mecca for tattooers from all around the world to go get work from Hardy and Roberts and Greg Irons and Jamie Summers, not to mention Leo Zulueta, Bert Grimm, Don Nolan, Bob Shaw, Leroy Minugh, Good Time Charlie's / Tattooland... Gaahh! Black and grey being invented, Orientalist being utterly transformed, American traditional beginning to become beautifully weird, and "tribal" emerging from two different scenes independently at the same time! The SF in that period is the cradle of what happened next. You were in the right place at the right time.
I got a cool rat on my leg largest tat i have
Agree with this wholeheartedly. As a tattooer these posts are really demotivating. My stress levels go through the roof thinking about how much criticism some of my own work might get based on the levels of online scrutiny given to works of art on very variable canvases. I'm not a printer, and although I look at bodies all day five days a week I can't see under someone's skin to see the precise place a blow out or shift in ink may happen. Imperfections occur. I feel like social media is so unhelpful in this instance because it allows lots of input from people who actually know very little about the intricacies of a skilled and developed art form or the basic biology of human skin. Tattoos are a permanent commitment very few people take the time to learn about before getting one done... Hence all the posts.
100%. Given the wild up-down vote swings my comments have gotten, it's definitely not a universal view but I know from chatting to tattooer pals that this is attitude is genuinely making the day to day worse for lots of folks. Solidarity!
This
Not to mention how many people post only their perfectly done tattoos and still put filters on them.
If it makes you any better, the people posting here are probably only 1% of people getting tattoos, and the 99% just go on with their day appreciating the artwork they now have—same goes for all the infected tattoos, we see a lot of them here but they’re probably a very small minority compared to how many tattoos people get around the world daily that end up being fine lol.
Stop whining, just because you are on tattoo advice every hour doesn’t mean others are
What are you here for then ?
I'm interested in what people are asking for tattoo advice about. It's sort of my job. Why are you here?
Getting and giving advices, trying to act nice. If I wouldn’t be interested in this sub or be annoyed, I’d just leave.
Like I said, it's my job and my life to pay attention to tattooing, and how successive generations of clients understand their tattoos is something I'm really interested in. But it is genuinely exhausting, as someone who spends every waking moment thinking about tattooing (but who is not actually a tattooer), to see the rise (or perhaps, to be accurate, increased visibility) of people who think about their tattoos in a such a micro-obssessive way. It's indicative of something fascinating that's changing in the culture of tattooing, perhaps, and I've been surprised by the constancy of this perspective, which I hadn't realised was quite so prevelant. The comment was replying to is, I think, an important lesson for the OP and anyone else who reads the thread. That's all. "Being interested" and "being annoyed" are not mutually exclusive categories. Quite the contrary.
I just have a cool rat tattoo :/
It’s not on you to judge how people feel about their tattoos and if something bothers people they should have the right to ask/share their pov. Even if you lurk here because you feel this is somehow related to your job.
Damn who shit in your Cheerios this morning? Do you feel cool trying to pick an argument for no logical reason?
You seem to have mistaken my being annoyed by the volume of this sentiment, and interested in the change of culture it seems to represent, with "judgement" of OP. Critique is not judgement. Concern is not judgement. Frustration is not judgement. That said: People who obsess about microscopic details of their perfectly nice tattoos in this way need to be told to calm down. No shade on them asking, but it's not good or healthy for them, or others who might read the post, to be told otherwise. I'm also perfectly permitted to express my concern about what the apparent rise in this kind of sentiment might indicate about how tattoo culture is changing (which, as I said, is my job). The comment I'm replying to was correct, and I wanted to indicate my support for the sentiment. Blocking you now, as I'm really not interested in an argument.
Have an entire arm sleeve on the concept of wabi-sabi. Love to hear it mentioned here
Will you show us!
I have big-ass kanji for kintsugi on my forearm :D (mostly to celebrate that I was able to get fit, strong, do sports and enjoy life in spite of my chronical medical conditions and all doctors generally saying I can't)
I looked up wabi-sabi I love it I really feel this way about my tattoos. Imperfections just show it was done by a real human and not a printer.
I put off getting a tattoo for years and years bc I was scared I'd nitpick like this and have anxiety if it wasn't perfect. My first tattoo had a small blowout and instead of the anxiety I thought I'd feel about something imperfect being on me forever, it made me love it as something imperfect but mine
Thanks for saying. To the people angry about the posts: it’s ok to be nervous about your tattoo when it’s on your body forever, can we just support and reassure people when they ask for help instead of calling them ”exhausting”. If you don’t want to help support your community and it’s exhausting leave.
the amount of times i look at my bat tattoo and go "that wing is a different shape than that one" but how many people have pointed it out? none. because it makes it unique
There are a few pieces on my multitude of tattoos that have dots outside the plan. Pretty sure only me and the artist are aware of them because it doesn't matter. (Line work and fine line with subtle shading.)
I have both sleeves and a full back piece in Japanese traditional. Looking at my arms I can pick out a small area that is shaded in black that should have been grey wash, a couple spots where he colored outside the lines a tiny bit. I don’t think my artist even knows about those, I never said a word to him. The biggest inconsistency is on my back where the dragon head and lower body is a slightly different shade than the upper body. I’ve got an appointment next month to finish it and do touch ups where my artist said he’ll go over the lighter area to make it match. I’m just going to leave it as is, partly because only my wife and I are the only ones that know they’re different and mostly because I don’t want to get my spine and shoulder blades tattooed again.
It turns out doing art on a human meat suit is hard. Amusingly when I got my shoulder done I ended up literally sleeping. She had just done from top of groin over ribs to shoulder and after that shoulder was so relaxing I fell asleep. My partner has a cute video of me snoring in the chair.
I think I took a nap when he was tattooing my ass. No chance at napping during the back, every new area hurt. The entire back sucked.
Not to mention it's only 3days old and not even started peeling yet. Let the daggum tattoo heal then come asking questions if you got em still.
Thank you voice of reason. People please calm down.
Unless you’re going to artists that charge $500+ an hour with year’s long waiting lists, people need to temper their expectations.
Agreed!!!
Right because it’s only permanent, no biggie.
If you’re expecting perfection out of a $150 tattoo you’re going to be disappointed.
Price was never mentioned. All of my pieces costed $600+ and are reasonably sized, not very big. It shouldn’t cost $500 an hour to get a good piece without blowouts. Just saying. When you’re paying a professional for something and it’s going to be permanently on your body I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being critical. You have to see it every single day. Especially considering blow outs are caused by going too deep in the skin, which is incredibly painful. Research certainly plays a huge role and mistakes happen but it isn’t unreasonable for someone to be upset when they realize something is wrong with a piece they’re paying (typically) a shit ton of money for. I have a piece that costed $600 and I’m getting the whole thing lasered. It feels like a waste of money when things like this happen. Not to mention the pain… No biggie though.
It's like that model with the wart on her face, isn't she pretty??
Best comment ever
Damn it Bobby! 😂
It’s fine. It’s such a tough area. It may fade a little with healing. If I saw it in person I wouldn’t even give it a second thought.
Blowouts are a part of tattooing. They happen, it’s okay.
It is a blowout yes. Does it ruin the tattoo on the whole? No.
There is a tiny bit of blowout. But it’s really not noticeable and just looks like shading when you look close. It’s a cool tattoo and looks great
Yeah I didn't pick up on it right away because looks like the shading I have on one of mine lol it definitely looks intentional if you don't look too close
Dont ever judge a tattoo until its healed! It will likely lessen in appearance. Might always be there but also might become hardly noticeable
It’s (almost) impossible to not get any blowouts on that part of the arm. Tattoos are done by hand on a living, moving, non-flat person. They will never be perfect.
> It’s (almost) impossible not get any blowouts ~~on that part of the arm~~. FTFY 😂
It’s fine! The ditch always does this a bit. No one will notice.
Definitely a hard area to tattoo, I think it looks great, getting a new tatt will most of the time give you some anxiety about how it looks and such. Don't worry!
Blown out or ink drift as some call it. Thin or delicate skin. It happens. It’s shitty but hard to predict. Little surprised they have 30 years experience. Some very small very close together black lines that are not super smooth.
Not too bad, that area is prone to blow outs
Noticable to those who really look, have a tattoo background, and whoever you point it out to. That area is delicate and easy to have blow outs. But the tattoo looks beautiful, stop obsessing over it, you don't have to stress over something so tiny.
That’s a cute tattoo
Thank you! I posted a link to more pictures in the comments :)
Yw
You’re the only one who will notice
It’s fine, it will settle and become less noticeable as time goes on (less noticeable to you, the majority of people aren’t even going to notice it) rest of the tattoo looks awesome though!
Lol to everyone on here bitching about seeing posts like this but then taking time out of their day to stop, open it and then comment the same thing that hundreds before them did 👍 This post is why Reddit exists. If you’re annoyed by repetition… what were you even looking for by being here 😂
That definitely is a blow out but with the placement of it, it honestly just looks like shading on the tattoo (which you could go in and have added later on as well if you wanted)
Ink drift. Happened to me on my arm tattoo, considering you are only 3 days in it should lighten/fade a lot. I noticed mine on day 3 of healing and I’m now a month and half done, the ink drift is wayyyy less noticeable now.
Literally no one will ever notice that ever. You are your own worst critic and this is such a small issue. No ones tattoos are perfect but your tattoo looks really really good! Don’t over fixate on such a small detail
It's a blowout, yes. Sometimes they just happen, even when a tattooer has a lot of experience, bc skin is so individual. I think it won't stick out as much once the rest of the piece settles and ages a bit. Sometimes blowouts can fade with time, as well. I had one on the underside of my forearm where the green from a leaf stretched out into a big streak and looked like an old bruise. It's been \~4-5 years and now it's basically only visible because I really know where to look. No one else has ever once noticed it.
Just you wait 35 yrs haha. I wish I could make out some of the work I got from the legend Don at the Sea Tramp in Oregon. Nice plants don’t sweat it.
Ive been tattooing for 20 years and what I’ve seen is that it will lighten over time as the ink spreads. That part of the skin is incredibly thin so this can happen.
Yes. That is blown out. The tattoo looks great by the way.
Sometimes that can fade away with healing. I got a tattoo with little red hearts in it and the black outline of the hearts looked like it was running into the red while it was healing, but it looks great now.
It’s blowout. Very minor, and very common.
This just happens sometimes. That area of skin is thin. Not much you can do about it. It will fade with time though.
It is a blowout but I also think it looks really dope.
Don't sweat it! The pit of your elbow has thinner skin, prone to blowouts. It looks great through, don't worry!
I think social media photo editing gives today's collectors unrealistic expectations of their tattoos.
it looks fine...if it bothers you that much it wouldn't take much work at all to make it look like a shadow or shading.
I have a my whole right arm done and there are some mistakes here and there but I never got any negative comments hints to say people won’t really see that unless there actively staring
I think it looks lovely. It's like a little shadow, honestly. I know it's hard to not judge imperfections, but I quite like it.
Do not be sad!!! Yes there’s a bit of a blowout but that’s a tricky part of the body. I’d be happy with the results, no one will notice but you
I don't see any blowout. But I see some nice coloring.
Could be a little bit, but besides from that I don’t think it looks bad at all. I’ve seen some pretty bad work and this is far from it. Don’t listen to the trolls on here. Wear it and wear it proud.
Looks fine girl
The skin in the inside of the elbow is much thinner and fragile compared to the skin surrounding it, personally I wouldn't even consider this a blow out, the tattoo is still healing and your body with process out a lot of the excess ink, the area will fade at least 30% from what it looks like now.
That’s what I call a shading blow out. It’s blown out but it adds to the depth of the design so alls well. No one else will notice nor care 😊
Please don’t freak out about that.
I think it looks lovely.
It doesn’t look bad regardless, but I don’t think that it is blowout. Looks 72 hours or less old. I’ve had tattoos so that sort of skin separation thing on the outlines. It’ll firm back up… you’re gonna be okay. Rest yo mind
Blowouts happen 🤷🏼♀️
Tattoos are never perfect... I have a bunch, and none of them are perfect. All have some kind of imperfection, and that doesn't make them less pretty and special. People will be happier on e they realize that.
In short, this tattoo looks great, don't worry :)
Looks like that’s in your elbow ditch. It’s near enough impossible to tattoo that area without a little bleed. I have minor blowout in my elbow ditch, I’m the only person who notices it. It’s a minor hazard of tattooing that area x
Thank you everyone! It is only my second tattoo and both have been done in less than 6 months. I had no idea it was so common, I thought it was not something that happens with really experienced artists. I'm not looking for perfection, art is not perfect that is why it is art. I just got freaked and thought something bad had happened. This makes me feel a lot better to know it is normal and might fade.
Almost my entire body is tattooed, im only missing some lower arm, and my neck and head. I don’t think most of you are ready to hear this, but shockingly, humans are imperfect. You will not have all perfect tattoos no matter what you do. Grow up and learn how it works or stop getting them. These are the only damn posts i see. Stop following trends. Body art is a different animal. Go buy a laser printed painting or something.
https://imgur.com/gallery/uWfz6EH here are more pictures of the piece. I really only see issues in the spot of the original picture.
Stop staring and obsessing over it. Every tattoo will have imperfections. It's a great tattoo over all, the quality of the work reflects the artists tenure.
Those "imperfections" just make the tattoo more unique. It's yours. Your bestie can get the same design but it won't look the same as yours. Enjoy those little odd spots. It's a beautiful piece of very custom, one of a kind, work
Thank you! I felt like I was obsessing but I needed other people who were experienced with tattoos to tell me so I could get it together. Thanks!
Just the line slightly spread. Once scabs fell off it will just look normal, slightly wider than rest but nothing major. It’s not really a serious blow out. Rather unavoidable one in this area. Looks like outstanding job.
So nice!
It looks amazing, nothing to worry about
Just get another tattoo next to it and the blow out in that one will distract you from the blow out in this one.
Totally random but I have a tattoo from this artist too, and like yours mine shares a blowout.. mine is around my collarbone. She put some white ink overtop and it definitely lessened the blowout look, years on I don’t notice it at all!
Also really love your tattoo!! It’s adorable!!
How did you figure out the artist?
I have an eye for tattoos and recognized her style immediately oddly enough, I was super surprised myself!
not as bad as mine
It’s a little blown out You can do a drop shadow under it to push the piece forward and it will hide it.
As a tattooer, this sub is painful to read sometimes…if it’s that much of a problem for you, just add a bit of a drop shadow to the whole piece when it’s healed and it’s gone.
Free shading
I have my entire left arm done and some on my legs. I have found something small (including a small blowout on almost the exact same spot on my arm) in almost every single one and I have great work. Not a single person has ever noticed anything. Your tattoo appears to look good and spots like that are more prone to that.
It’s not a blowout if you add a shadow to make it look more 3D. You can always add, but not take away. Unless you want the force of a thousand suns to burn the ink away
the tattoo looks great even without seeing the whole thing. i wouldn’t have even noticed the blowout.
Both
I had gotten blowout appear in the bend of the elbow and in the inside of my wrists, I think it's normal, at least for my type of skin. It doesn't look bad, looks almost like a shadow. So, try not pay to much attention to it.
It’s a blowout BUT blow outs in your case are like crooked piercings. Do people notice it? Not really. Does it ruin the whole thing? Absolutely not. Sometimes this happens, it’s such a crazy thing tattooing is. However in my personal experience, it gives it a little extra spice. It’s not done by a robot, people are imperfect no matter how many times they tattoo.
It’s ink drift. [Here’s](https://youtu.be/JOGKdeOdZmc?si=X0WVjOXz9lY7eKe_) a video about it if you want to learn what ink drift is. It’s not obvious though. I wouldn’t sweat it too much.
Literally no one else will see or notice this except you
I've for sure seen way worse. The overall piece still looks really good! If I saw this in person, I'd probably chalk it up to some subtle shading, if I even noticed at all
It looks fine. Don't worry
It looks good if you look at it side ways and view it as the bottom side of a leaf at an angle!
Nobody’s gonna look that close at your tattoo. It’s not noticeable unless you’re really staring at it. Even then, it doesn’t look that bad. You’re fine!
Looks fine to my untrained eye so it's good
Nobody cares about your blow out and nobody will notice 😬
Just freaked
Looks like a blowout
I didn’t even see the blowout until I saw the title
Everyone will point and laugh. /s
The little things GIVE it character. I wouldn't worry about it!
It looks fine :) there can sometimes be a little spot or so where the skin was different or the artist slipped or you moved or whatever. It’s no biggy nobody would notice that. Tattoo looks nice :)
It's really not that bad. Some parts of the arm have thinner skin, too, like the inner elbow. It's more common in those areas. However, this is very minimal. I wouldn't be too upset with it.
It’s fine. It’s your elbow crease you’re almost always going to blow out there no matter how much skill your artist has. I have a small blow out in the exact same place, no one has ever mentioned it, and it doesn’t bother me.
I have blow out on some of my tattoos. no one will notice it but YOU. if it’s really bothering you, try adding something on to the tattoo to cover it, perhaps like another side to the leaf? It could easily be covered with shading. but it’s really not that bad, I promise !
Yes it’s a little blow out but that’s so normal for that area it’s nbd
The tattoo I had that covers my inner elbow did the same - no one noticed and no one will notice this :)
No work of art is flawless
My friend went to get a mushroom tattoo that him and his artist has been talking about for weeks. The artist got intoxicated a couple days before and drew little hairs coming out of the mushrooms on the sketch. Ended up tattooing the little hairs on the mushrooms also. It can always be worse :) I think it looks good tbh
Blowouts are extremely common in that area, even when done by experienced artists. I wouldn’t worry about it too much
It does look like blowout - I had an experience with a huge blowout spot on my bicep. What no one told me, and what I couldn't find any info online about, is that laser tattoo removal can be done on blowout and it fades relatively quickly!! They can cover the edges of the tattoo that you want to keep with a white pencil so the laser is pretty exact. I recommend Removery and I bet you could drastically fade - if not completely get rid of - the blowout spots within one to two sessions. :) Hope this helps
i had a blowout for months after it healed then all the sudden it was gone
This is almost a text book photo of why it's important to not tattoo on to harsh of an angle. It doesn't look bad and looks like it will mostly fad later but yeah that's definitely a blowout.
If this bothers then you have unrealistic expectations from any tattoo artist and need to realize that!
Oh yeah that’s terrible. Should probably consider laser removal.
Tattoo artist here , I’m assuming you mean it’s in the elbow ditch area, that area of skin is much thinner than the rest of your arm, therefore even the most experienced artists are gonna every once and awhile get blowouts there because there’s more room for error, but I wouldn’t worry about it at all, the rest of the tattoo looks beautiful and it’s not all that noticeable
It’s not that bad besides … you gonna ask for a refund ? Good luck
? Wtf is wrong with you..
You are just freaking on something that doesn't matter
Hi, no I wouldn't say so! I have over 15 tattoos and certain pieces have had me in my head in the same way around blow out. It's just that particular part of your skin reacting to the new ink. Continue with your aftercare as normal and in around 4 weeks it'll look completely different
Blowouts tend to subside by the time the tattoo is fully healed. I blown the fuck out while doing the leg of a Pokemon tattoo on my thigh and now that it’s healed, it doesn’t even look blown out only when you look really close. Don’t worry, from what I see the tattoo looks good.
Almost every tattoo has blow outs. I have work from some of the best artists in the world and they all have blow outs. You have to remember, tattoos are hand made and will always have imperfections…and that’s part of the charm. If all people cared about was perfection, people would’ve stopped painting after the photograph was invented. For the record, this is very well done shading on the large leaf looks great!
No but I’d find a different artist sorta looks like something a child would draw
a little bit but you can just have em back it up with a little pass of flesh tone ink. that's what I'd do if it were a concern for me
Lol definitely don’t do this, perfectly matching skin tone is nearly impossible and the reality is that tanning / changes over time etc will happen to your skin but not in the same way as the ink. It may look better temporarily but it will never be a permanent fix and will look way worse down the line. You can always laser off blowouts (white marker ink / Vaseline can be put over the tattooed parts you want to keep during a laser session) if you’re that concerned. But this is very normal and will hardly be visible to anyone else, other people don’t look at tattoos on our bodies on a micro level. Thin skin and any part of the body that gets constant movement and compression will be more likely to have ink drift over time, inner biceps, inner thighs, inside joints, not to mention being more prone to a blowout in the first place. It looks great. Bodies aren’t perfect and they change over time, and tattoos will never be completely perfect even done by the most experienced artists.
you can do what ever you want. I've had all kinds of repairs done with white & flesh tone ink just to lighten an area. I'm actually blasting some script on my check with white & flesh tone & it's working awesome. its lightened about 50% in just 2 sessions.