Posted by W. Shane Duquette
I was only in New York for two days, so I decided to make the most of them. The day after my whale tattoo I went in for round two: the great white shark. The day before Thomas Hooper had said he was game to do a big ol’ shark if I was. I naively said yes, not knowing what I was getting myself into. I’m really glad I had no idea what I was getting myself into… because then I may not have it! Turns out a body doesn’t recover all too quickly from the trauma of a tattoo. It probably didn’t help that I’d had a few drinks and stayed out late and gotten up early. I arrived in good spirits and feeling pumped, but boy was that ever short lived!
He showed me a pretty fearsome shark sketch and we toyed with the idea of putting it on my thigh. I didn’t really like the idea of it being so hidden away — I really liked the sketch — so we decided to pop it up a couple feet onto my torso. Thomas Hooper found a great spot for it and off we went! Turns out there’s some sort of nerve bundle on the torso. I’d always heard that getting your ribs tattooed hurt. It hurts a bit. But it’s nothing close to the pain of getting your obliques tattooed! I felt like I was dying. But two and a half hours later the tattoo was finished and I managed to get my rattled ass off the tattoo bench and over to the mirror. This time around Hooper exclusively used “dot shading” instead of typical shading. Created a pretty badass result 
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