THINK BEFORE YOU INK
WILL REARDON GETS SOME TOP TATTOO TIPS FROM ONE OF THE BEST ARTISTS IN THE BUSINESS
GETTING your first tattoo can be exciting, especially if you’ve been thinking about it for a long time. But even if you think you’re 100% ready to go under the needle, having planned and contemplated the design for months – or even years – there might still be some factors you haven’t considered.
“I’ve been getting tattoos for over 27 years now and I regret a lot of what I have from when I was younger,” admits celebrity tattooist Kevin Paul, speaking at the launch of the new Nivea Men Body Shaving range. “In this day and age, we should be educated enough to not make mistakes, but we’re not.”
Kevin, the man responsible for more than 40 of Ed Sheeran’s opinion-dividing tattoos (more on them later) and who has also inked the likes of Harry Styles and Rihanna, first picked up a tattoo gun aged 13, so he has a lot of experience to draw on.
Here, he shares eight things to consider when getting your first tattoo...
1 GO TO A REPUTABLE TATTOO ARTIST
“THE problem with a lot of tattooists is that they just want your money, so when you come in and ask for a pocket watch they’ll put it on you and kick you out the door quick,” Kevin warns. “I don’t like to do that. I don’t want you to be happy with your tattoo for a year or two or three years – I want you to be happy with it forever.”
2 DON’T RELY ON WORD OF MOUTH TO FIND A TATTOOIST
“THERE’S nothing worse than word of mouth,” says Kevin. “You go on Facebook and you’ll see a status, ‘does anyone know a good tattooist?’ and half the people that are put on there I think are awful and I’ve had to cover up their work!
“You need to properly research it. Look at tattoo conventions and see the level of art that is being done and look at the websites of tattoo conventions.
“You need to educate yourself on what’s good and bad first of all, then look at good artists in your area.”
3 FIRST TATTOOS SHOULD BE PERSONAL
“I ALWAYS say to everyone full stop: have something personal. Don’t respond to fashion trends. Don’t have what your favourite celebrity’s got. Have something that’s personal to you,” Kevin advises.
“Obviously, everyone wants something different, whether it’s for their parents or for their kids, or they’ve lost somebody. You (as a tattooist) have to find out why people want it and then once you know what they want, then you can give them some ideas.
“Every style can be adapted to something that’s personal to you.”
4 DON’T COPY DAVID BECKHAM (OR ANY OTHER CELEBRITIES)
“EVERYONE’S having pocket watches and clouds and angels (at the moment), and it’s all because of David Beckham,” Kevin says.
“Everyone’s just copying Beckham, but realistically I don’t think these people want the same tattoos as David Beckham, they just like the style of black and white.”
Kevin says he’s done seven or eight lion tattoos a week for the last three years, dating back to when he inked a huge lion design on Ed Sheeran’s chest, but that was something that had a personal meaning for the singer.
“He sold out Wembley Stadium three nights on the trot and no one’s ever done that single-handedly,” he explains. “I was round his house for my wife’s birthday and we were just chatting about him getting something to represent selling out (the shows), and then he said about the lion – because Wembley Stadium is (associated with) the three lions (of England). We did it the next day and weren’t expecting the amount of attention it got.”
5 DON’T USE GOOGLE FOR INSPIRATION
WHEN choosing a design, turning to Google is the “worst thing” you can do, Kevin Reckons.
“You’ll be getting the same thing that every other doughnut has got!” he laughs.
“The problem is everyone wants tattoos but they’re not artistic. They get on Google, look at pictures and go, ‘That’s what I want’. But they don’t really want that.”
Photos can be useful for showing a tattoo artist the style you’d like your tattoo in, but you should always have something unique and personal, Kevin advises.
6 COLOURED TATTOOS WILL FADE MORE QUICKLY
“IN TERMS of longevity, tattoos are definitely going to be best in black and grey, because every time they fade you can retouch them,” Kevin says.
“It’s a lot harder with colours, because colours get dull, so it’s hard to bring it back to life and
freshen it up again.”
7 COVERED TATTOOS LAST LONGER
IF YOU don’t want to have to go back for lots of touch-ups, choose a place on your body that isn’t exposed, Kevin recommends. “Places that are going to be in the sun are going to fade more over time,” he says. “I’ve got tattoos on my head that are two years old and they’ve faded quite a bit, and then I’ve got tattoos on my arms and on my ribs that are still as bright as the day I got them.”
7 DON’T WORRY ABOUT THE PAIN
KEVIN has noticed a recent trend for people using numbing creams before they go under the gun to make it more bearable.
“That seems to be the next thing in tattoos,” he says. “Generally, though, I don’t think tattoos are that bad if you go to a good professional artist and you have it done properly, then realistically the pain isn’t that bad.
“Ed Sheeran used to have seven or eight hours at a time, he can sit pretty well.”