Here it is, my first tattoo. A purple Space Invader.

I have a Space Invader on my hand!!

Pain and I spent yesterday at the Vancouver Tattoo Convention. We wandered around, oggling the various punks, goths, bikers and preppies getting tattoos, plus we spent mucho time flipping through sample photos at the various booths. Some were incredibly impressive, others were not. There was a huge amount of variety and some artists from pretty far away (the scrawny gothish/punkish UK tattoo artists were rather cute).

After perusing the floor, we took a break outside to get some fresh air and discuss which artists we'd get to do our tattoos. Both of our designs were simple and small and we agreed that it would be almost silly to take up the time of some of the uber talented artists, so we'd just look for a booth that wasn't too busy and where the artists seemed friendly enough. Most friendly seemed to be a booth from Saskatoon and another from Colorado. Pain liked the idea of getting tats from non-local artists, because this wasn't exactly big followup work. When we went back the Saskatoon booth was busy, so the Colorado folks (Guilty By Association, no website unfortunately) were it.

It was a good choice, the artist (Tia Hughbanks) did a great job on Pain's heart over her heart and gave us a cheap combo deal. When I said I wanted a Space Invader on my hand, Tia got very excited and suggested in the future I get a Sinistar tattoo as well, which made me laugh because of course Sinistar was an option in my head already. She also was very enthusiastic at my plans of getting some Joust artwork done later on down the road, maybe I'll actually visit Colorado to get it done.

The tattoo, like most, isn't absolutely perfect. I'd planned on solid black, but after she outlined the transfer I said that the blue/purple was rather striking. She said I could switch to purple then, although she hadn't been super careful with the outline because she figured with solid black she could touch up. Of course, if I didn't like the purple or the slight variety in the lines I could always get it filled with black later, so I went for it. I'm very pleased with it and Pain says that with one eye slightly wider than the other my Space Invader has character and I'm inclined to agree.

I'm very pleased overall, I'll definitely get more tattoos. This almost feels like not much of one because it's so small and it really doesn't seem permanent at all, even though it is, because it looks like I took a felt marker to myself, heheh.

As for the experience, the pain was almost nothing, nowhere near the amount that my branding was, even though I got the tattoo on a more sensitive skin area. I think I could easily manage a large tattoo, which is good because I have several pieces planned.