My first self-tattoo. I'll remember it for the rest of my life. It was exhilarating.
And terrifying.
Originally I found guinea pigs on Tinder. 99.99% of people on there are looking to hook up or maybe find love. I was the 0.01% who had LOOKING FOR TATTOO GUINEA PIG in all caps on my bio.
Up until then I'd only worked on synthetic skin. I hadn't even dared bother a butcher for pig skin.
Anyway. To get in the zone I figured I should start with a self-tattoo. Honestly, it's a terrible idea — being bad at tattooing doesn't get better just because you're the canvas. But it does make you realise how bad you actually are.
The upside? I could show my first self-tattoo to my Tinder guinea pig and say: "See this ugly thing? Yours will be about as ugly. You good with that?" Spoiler: he was.
(I've since refined my sales pitch a little.)
I had two days to pull off my first self-tattoo — because I'd already booked one of those Tinder guinea pigs.
No idea what to tattoo on myself. Picked a random drawing from back then: a crying little girl.
There's a lot of emotions when you do something for the first time. Fear. Excitement.
It reminded me of the first time I got online and realised I had the whole world in my hands. And also that I never had to leave my house again. Except for food and bathroom breaks. Although, you'd be surprised what you can do with water bottles.
Anyway. I finished my mess. I was curled up in a ball because I was tattooing my ankle.
I almost passed out when I stood up too fast. Room was spinning. It was horrible.
But that was it. I'd done my first tattoo.
And it was the first of a very long series.
If there's one thing to take away from all this: Tinder is more effective for finding clients than finding your soulmate.
Want more of my chronicles and the full episode about self-tattooing? Check out the YouTube video or listen to the podcast!
— Arthak
