On Saturday, 13 October I finally got an appointment with Jimmy the Saint.

This guy had been recommended to me long ago by Kempton B but it seems every time I tried to hook up he was busy or I was not free when he had an opening. So nothing happened for quite a long time.

Shelley and I were walking home from downtown that day and I decided to drop in just to Seattle Tattoo Emporium just to check and see. “How about tonight at 6:30?” Yes!

Finally. I had been wanting this for ages and have been monkeying with the picture trying to simplify it enough so that it would not bleed or blur too soon as the original was crazy detailed.

After walking Shelley home I had to leave rather quickly and hit the cash machine. It seems all tattoo parlors only accept cash. For good reason I suppose, eh? Imagine all the contested charges on credit cards on account of customer dissatisfaction.

The whole ordeal took about 3.5 hours. Almost one was Jimmy tracing the design and prepping me (he used a straight edge razor on my arm!) and about 2.5 were actual tattooing. So without further ado, here are the pictures I took with my phone.

This guy is really good. Instead of relying on the lines to give me exactly what I wanted he basically used them as rough guides. He’d kinda glance at the original art and then just draw it on my arm. I loved watching him get all the detail perfectly right when my arm was awash in ink – totally amazing.

Recommendations are worth it!