Hi there. Wondering if anyone can tell if my tattoo is ready for a touch up. This is my first. The artist expected I would want a touch up, due to the difficultly of the gold color. Am I ready to get a touch up?

The artwork is a badge from Star Trek: The Next Generation. I used a real magnetic badge made by Fansets as my reference.

ADDITIONAL PHOTO: For better clarity here is an additional photo in sunlight. I have just applied lotion within the last half hour this was taken.

  • hydroptic
    1·
    2 months ago

    I’m not a tattoo artist, but I do have a lot of tattoos. I’ve understood they take about 2 – 6 months to heal, depending on the person, where the tattoo is, inks used, etc. etc. Can’t tell too well from that photo but it looks like you have some “raised” skin areas there on eg the bottom left and maybe on the delta itself, so might be that either your skin reacted a bit more than usual or the tattoo was maybe done a bit too deep.

    I’d recommend sending a few pictures to your tattooist and asking for their opinion. My guess would be that you’d want to wait a month or two, but again, ask you tattooist.

    • hopesdead@startrek.websiteOP
      1·
      2 months ago

      That raised skin you are seeing, seems to have been going away slowly. So I would agree that maybe just needs more time to heal.

      EDIT: That bottom left are had more of the raised skin but has since gone away.

      • hydroptic
        1·
        2 months ago

        You might want to get some zinc-based scar cream from a pharmacy (or similar) and apply it to the raised areas. Hard to tell yet if it’s swelling or scarring, but the scar cream won’t hurt and if there is scarring it’ll help a bit

        • hopesdead@startrek.websiteOP
          1·
          2 months ago

          That area seemed raised but there was more of it before that has since gone away/smoothed out. Would I be using this in addition to my regular moisturizer or in replacement?

          • hydroptic
            1·
            2 months ago

            I’d maybe moisturize it first, wait a bit for the moisturizer to do its thing, and then slap on the scar cream. They’re usually pretty thick and at least the one I’ve used at some point didn’t really have any moisturizing ingredients

              • hydroptic
                1·
                2 months ago

                It’s a local brand so unless you’re Finnish it wouldn’t help you much, but you can just get any scar cream from a pharmacy. Some of them are silicone-based, some are a mix of zinc and silicones, and some are mainly just zinc, but any of them will probably do fine as long as it’s medical grade.