My new old tattoo

A few years ago I went to Belize with my Tropical Biology class. To this day, it remains the best trip of my life. Granted, I haven't been on many trips. :o) While there, I got it into my head that I wanted to get a tattoo to commemorate the trip. Not the brightest idea Nicole has ever had. I didn't really know what I wanted and ended up just picking a "flower" from their books. It looked okay, but there were some obvious "blowouts" in the outline, and it just looked like someone smacked a picture down on my back. I don't, however, regret the tattoo.

I knew I wanted someone to add some leaves and make it look better later, but never got around to doing it. Three weeks ago I went to see Brian Reaid at Ace of Spades in Asheville (he was recommended to me by a friend) about fixing this monstrosity of a tattoo. ;o) He sketched something out and started working on it that day. For several reasons, he decided to do the tattoo in two sessions and only tattoo the black stuff that day. Last week I went in for the second session where he added the color and finished it up.

I'm much happier with this new old tattoo. He even faded out the edges so more can be easily added if I so desired. ;o) I wanted to post a before and after, but I don't have a picture of my old tattoo on this computer...just visualize a crappy flower tattoo.

P.S. This cost more than I'd like to admit.