Getting A Tattoo In Spain

I recently got a couple of tattoos done locally at the Scorpion Tattoo Studio in El Ejido. I have now got inked in Clearwater, Florida (USA), Dublin (Ireland), Epsom, Surrey (England), Wimbledon, South London (England), and now El Ejido (Spain).

Reassuringly the process has been the same in all the studios, which I think is a strong, positive recognition of the quality controls across the industry. I have written before about my existing tattoos but in brief ….. they are all very personal and specific to periods, events and people in my life, and I was certainly old enough to know better when I got my first one!

When I posted last month about remembering Orla I said I was going to get a tattoo to remember her by. I already had tattoos with Moreno and Saidi’s names and unfortunately Orla had to be put to sleep before I got one done for her. The fact this tattoo was going to be more of a memorial meant that I wanted to come up with something very unique and specific for her.

First off, as she had such a short life I wanted to recognise that fact by incorporating the dates. I don’t know about you but whenever I see a gravestone with the dates of such a short life it always seems more poignant somehow.

As her favourite game involved red wool I wanted to use the colour red in the tattoo (which would be the first time I had used colour), and having worn her red wool on my wrist since the day she was put to sleep I felt that the tattoo should be on my right wrist as well.

Finally she was only small and not around for long but she left a BIG impression so I felt that the tattoo should represent that and be very bold.

Bearing all that in mind I needed to come up with something. I have a few Chinese symbols already which got me thinking, but the real eureka moment was when I came up with the word love. You see whenever we talked or thought about Orla the word love kept cropping up:

• her love for Moreno
• how much Moreno loved her
• her love for waking up on the bed every morning and playing with us
• her love of the washing on the washing line on the roof
• the love we felt (and feel) for her

Looking for symbols for love I came across a Hebrew symbol which was just perfect, and so that is what I went with:

Now at the same time I wanted to get the tattoo done for Oscar as well. Again I had put this off until I was having Orla’s done, but I had been thinking that I wanted to do something different for him, rather than just his name, besides I didn’t really have anywhere that I fancied putting his name.

My nickname for Oscar is Little Face, and one day I was looking at him and a photo we had taken of him playing, and I came up with the idea of sketching a outline of his face, and then using part of that as the tattoo. Rather than use his name I thought I would use his nickname, or as it turned out LF as that is what he tends to be called by me.

Scorpion Tattoo

Their details are in the directory under El Ejido and I was more than happy with them.

As my tattoos weren’t off the shelf they were more than happy to work with me on the size, position and content, and we went through several versions before settling on the ones that I have.

They paid great attention to cleanliness and sterlisation of everything that they used, and all in all I was very happy with them

Of course having had the work done on my wrists it did mean that I ended up walking out looking a little like a failed suicide victim!!!

Anyway for anyone thinking of getting a tattoo here are a few answers to commonly asked questions that I have been asked over the years:

Does It Hurt?

Err Yes!!! Of course it hurts, they are using a needle to scratch ink into your skin! It doesn’t hurt much though (although that depends somewhat on where you opt to be inked – see below), and in my experience the worst bit is the smaller needle they use to draw the outline and detail of the tattoo. The filling in tends to hurt less, but on a scale of 1 – 10 with 10 beeing torture I would say it was a 4! And they don’t ever do that much at anyone time so the pain never really builds up

Choosing Where To Have Your Tattoo

Well that is very much up to you. I started with a small one that was never really going to be seen by that many people, but over time have got a bit bolder (or madder)

In my experience though as far as the pain goes it hurts less on fleshier parts of the body. The most painful for me were the ones on my lower back and the one on my ankle. The ones on my arms on the other hand hardly hurt at all.

Another thing to consider is that your tattoos may grow! As I said my first tattoos were small and pretty well hidden from the public eye. I then had the celtic knot on my left arm, but after a while decided it needed company, so added some dates around it. I then added some script above it …… so my original tattoo grew!

And don’t forget the old adage …… try and avoid having a tattoo on a part of you that may grow over time!! What looks OK on a slim part of the body now may not look so good when that part of the body expands with age!

What Type Of Tattoo

Basically you have two choices: an off the shelf one that they have in stock i.e. they already have the art work, or something that you design yourself.

All of mine I have designed myself, which tends to involve coming up with the idea, creating the art work, and then getting them to create the transfer. The one exception is the lion on my right arm which was just perfect for what I wanted.

When you get the tattoo done they create the art work and then rather like a transfer stick a stencil on your arm with a removable ink so they can then follow the design.

All of my tattoos have been done in one sitting, but larger ones will take much longer …. and will cost a lot of money!