Congratulations Skippy!
Well my wife and I both had our first tattoos last year at 40! My wife had her first on her foot after being told by my brother who practically has a full sleeve of tattoos that it would hurt like hell. Well according to form it didn't hurt at all. She later had that one extended and then had a scroll design on her wrist and that apparently, in her words 'banged'. She also more recently had some stars on her other foot. I've had my wife, son and daughters names on my upper right arm as an amnigram (it reads the same upside down) very, very clever. (wish we could post pictures sometimes)
I went to a friend who used to work as a forklift driver at the place I work. His artwork he used to show us was outstanding and was obviously a wasted talent. At that time, 10 years ago, he'd spent over £8,000 in tattoos. He left our place to become a tattooist and 10 years on has now opened his own studio. I'd like some tribal work around my existing tattoo and I've been bought some vouchers to go and have it done. He's on holiday in America at the minute but as soon as he comes back I'm going to go and let him draw me something up. I trust him 100% I always said when he left that if I ever had one done I'd let him do it and looked through 1000's of designs and never really liked any design 100% so I went to see him, told him what I wanted and he drew me up a few ideas, when I saw the amnigram I was instantly 100% certain that was what I wanted.
When he worked at our place I asked him to describe the pain and he said it's like having a carpet burn and someone constantly rubbing it. My brother said 'prepare yourself for the worst pain ever and you'll be pleasantly surprised' Well I can honestly say they were both so wrong, It doesn't really hurt at all in fact my mate had the design outline printed on my arm and said 'we'll just try a line and see what you think zzzzzz I looked at him and said Is that it? Get on with it then, nearly 2 hours later job done. I went back a few weeks later for some white bits in the design to be filled in and can confirm it DOES hurt more when they go over an existing tattoo because they are in effect tattooing scar tissue but it's still more than bearable. My advice if you've got the design sorted and your 100% happy with it go and have it done.
