The deed is done. I now have entered a new club, a club that I thought I would never join, but always thought about joining. I’m now one of the tattooed.

This past Saturday I headed down to The Sacred Heart Tattoo eager to get this done. As I’ve never had a tattoo before, I wasn’t 100% sure what to expect. I’ve seen shows before that went through the process, but being there yourself felt different. I don’t know if it was nerves or the fact that I had to semi strip down to a stranger I’ve only just met.

My tattoo artist Jessy Albert Jr. was a true professional. He explained every step that he was doing. I’ll admit having a stranger shave your chest was an odd feeling – not one I want to repeat anytime soon

Once shaved, he placed the stencil of the outlined tattoo. This is the first chance I got to see where the tattoo will be and how it will look on me. If I wanted it moved, it was the time to do so, but I liked where he placed it and we were good to go.

Jessy made me lay down on the table and explained to me that he was going to first start with drawing the outline and we would then follow by colouring the tattoo itself. Though I knew it was a needle going through the skin, he explained the feeling would be like “a mosquito on crack”. He wasn’t kidding. Not only a constant prickling, but it was also a scrapping of the skin. Jessy also suggested that if I needed a break at anytime, to just let him know and we could continue afterwards.There were times I thought to myself what was I getting myself into. Could I handle an hour of this process? Within 10 minutes he was finished with general outline of the tattoo.

Initially we had discussed the colouring of the tattoo and I wanted it to be a golden colour. He suggested adding some shading to make the rays stand out more and since he was the expert I trusted him to begin to colour the tattoo. This time around the process was a little more painful as he had to cover more area with the ink. I did think of taking a break at one point, but thought that I should just get it over with or else I would think too much about the pain that would be coming.

All in all from start to finish Jessy took only 1 hour to complete. After he was finished, he took photos of the tattoo for his own records and other tattoo artist came by to look at the finished result. They seemed very impressed as did I.

After bandaging the tattoo up, he let me know that I should wash the tattoo the next morning and place some standard lotion on it. I did ask about using an aloe vera lotion and said not to use it as it would irritate the skin. The skin felt like a sunburn after it was completed and felt that way for the day. Now I wait for the next phase where the skin will begin to scab over and I’m only to continue to keep adding lotion to it and keep the skin moist.

Will I get another one now that I’ve gotten my first one? I’m thinking about it, but it won’t be any time soon. After all this first one took a few years to get done.