Awesome thread guys.
I have been looking around for someone good to help me too, would appreciate some advice from those in the know...
Have a 12 year old tattoo on the fore-arm, Arsenal badge, in colour (red, blue, brown in it). It seems I did not get myself a very good artist the first time round. For starters my skin apparently "didn't take colour very well" (not sure if this is a thing, or if the artist was talking cr*p), so he had to re-do the red colour several times, and I wasn't all that happy with the overall result. It was decent for a few years, but now with a bit of fading it's not looking the best.
I spoke to a guy called Damien in a tattoo place a few years back and he had some great ideas on how to rejuvenate it. But do you think I can find him now??? Nope. He was from Upper Hutt originally, probably now in his late 30s or so. If anyone knows who he is let me know! He seemed really good and appeared to have done some really good work on some others that I saw.
Failing that, I am keen to hear recommendations for tattoo artists that are good with colour, and are good at taking existing tired tattoos and fixing them up...
Any replies appreciated!
Also holeinone, wow, just wow. That's some dedication mate.
Was the artist a big bloke (muscles galore?) - if so, sounds like Damian Dhyrberg from Sinatra's.
With colour, it's not just the artist, it's also the quality of the inks - I like Dr. Morse as all of the tattoo's I've seen seem to hold their colour really well, even a few years after being done BUT all colours fade, not much you can do about it. Someone may be able to do a cover up but often, with something larger and in colour you may end up needing is lasered first which is much more painful than the tattoo (or so I'm told).
Simon Morse at Dr. Morse uses a lot of bright colours and they all seem to use good ink there - I can only really advocate for them though as I've been there recently and exclusively for the last 3 years and my guy does good work while observing others doing good work.
Examples of cover-ups or fix-ups can be hard to find but most artists will have a few photos of examples if you talk to them.