I am pretty sire I have not written about this before, but the other night this idea popped into my head around 2 am and I basically could not go to sleep. I think because earlier that day someone came in and wanted a tattoo done somewhere on their arm, that just didn't work. I find myself saying the same thing over and over to people that come in.
The typical places that are difficult to tattoo and heal are : The feet, the hands (fingers and palms) the neck side and back, The elbow etc.
I tattoo on the feet all the time. I am a confident foot tattooer and as long as the client takes care of it, there is usually not a problem with this area.
But when it comes to the other trouble zones, like the hands I usually won't tattoo someone there unless they are already heavily tattooed and know the deal. That is the same rule I have for the neck too. But the reason I don't tattoo the neck is because that could ruin someone's life if they are not in the tattoo business. Having a neck tattoo puts you in a different area of society, well it used to anyway but now it looks like young people put tattoos on their necks anyway, which I think is bad form from the artist.
Now I want to talk about the arm. I see this all the time on people and it is so fucked up. When doing a big piece on the arm like a sleeve, the elbow can be the hardest spot to address on the arm. I often refer to this area as no mans land. Basically I think it is best just to do fill work around the elbow with like back ground or some subtle shading. Never put and important part of the piece like a head of a figure on the elbow. This most certainly will look like shit in a very short amount of time. The skin texture is so wrinkly there. So If you are going to do a troll I suppose that could work there. If you are not at the caliber of tattooing as say like Shige, Phillip Leu or Paul Booth just stay out of there.
