Aquarius - 2005 - back of neck

Neck 2005 - before retouching

Neck 2006 - after retouching

I had been thinking about the idea of an Aquarius tattoo for several years. Obviously, I am an Aquarius (Jan. 29), and have read a lot about the sign and personality types that go with it and I have determined that I am very much an Aquarian! I knew pretty much from the start that I wanted it on the back of my neck, and that I probably wanted to incorporate blue into it. I had been researching various different representations of the sign on the net, but had not found one that struck me as being 'the one' I wanted to have tattooed. After about 2 years of looking I finally stumbled across one done as a temporary tattoo, just in black. It was promoted as a 'tribal representation' which I really liked, so I copied the outline, rotated it a bit, and decided I wanted it done in shades of blue to look like a cresting wave. A friend of mine at the time had several tattoos and raved about her artist who owned Hide & Seek. She had to have some touchups done to one of hers, so she went with me to the shop and I made an appointment with one of the other artists. When I went in to have it done, I explained exactly what I wanted, and got the impression that she understood. This one took about 45 mins, and after the tatoo was done, it looked great - very vibrant colours. She told me they would lighten up a bit. After several months of healing, the colours definitely lightened up - they looked completely blotchy and washed out!! There was also a section near the bottom where the blue had bled outside the outline. I was not happy.

By this point the shop had shut down, so there was no going back. I went to Immaculate Concept (who had now moved to their new location), and spoke with Darren. He said he could definitely fix it, but it would pretty much be a complete redo - no problem, I just wanted it fixed! So he redid this one exactly the way I had wanted it from the beginning, and also touched up my tulpen tattoo at the same time (details here). I am much happier now and this has become my second favorite tattoo!