Nero Turtle

Okay so, I have done a bit of research regarding white tattoo over blackout work. Although it can be done, it has to have several passes to hold up. And from what “healed” work I have seen, the life of the work isn’t that great.  

Most people that have gotten intense detailed white work done don’t have healed photos posted. And the photo is usually edited with a high contrast to make the white work stand out. What healed work I have found looks terrible with the acception of those people that get tattooed on weekly, which means the tattoos are still fresh. What I am looking for is white work that has been healed for a few years. Not days. And what I’ve found looks bad.  

Although the above photo looks amazing, that tattoo’s white is going to get swallowed up by the black in a few years. Just think of the jaguar or black panther tattoo your grandpa has/had… that over time, became all black with no detail due to time and weather. That’s what is going to happen to the detail in those white work tattoos. The black surrounding them will swallow them up.

Originally I planned out having a lot of white work detail done for my white work. I wanted a dinosaur sleeve. And a bear fishing sleeve. After study, I have decided to just do something super simplistic. Something that still has a lot of meaning to me.     

The Right hand has the square and the two bars. The left, the circle and the two other bars. The bars on both arms symbolizes my past not lost. I recently went through a really hard time. And it was that hard time that prompted the blackout work. I want to keep some of who I used to be before the rough patch. On my write arm I used to have a tattoo band of red and black just at the lower part of the bend of the elbow. On my left wrist I had a tattoo of a banded purple flame that covered that much space. So, the two sets of bands would mean I am keeping part of my old tattoos in a way.       

The square and circle are for the idiom to square the circle. It means to try to do the impossible, as in getting a bill through the legislature is the same as trying to square the circle. This idiom alludes to the impossibility of turning a circle into a square. To do the impossible or to attempt it. For me, I want to be like Christ. I want to live a sinless life. In that way I want to square the circle.  

Since my chest is also blacked out I want to eventually have the word “redeemed” tattooed on my chest in white.  

Keeping my whiteout tattoos simple means that I can quickly have them touched up if need be. And, they mean a lot.

Hopefully I get them done soon. I want to feel like the old healthy me.