advice for sitting through a long tattoo?

[SquamishSerpents]

looks like you've got more sessions to go! so i'm sure you've got it figured out by now, but just in case.

my tips are to make sure you get a very good sleep the night beforehand. take some melatonin if you have to (it's natural and won't give you that gross groggy/chemical-y feeling in the morning)

DON'T DRINK ANY ALCOHOL, because as others have said, you'll bleed. alcohol things your blood, and bleeding means the ink is also leaving your skin, so you'll end up with a patchy looking tattoo. and if you drank for your tattoo, you can bet your boots the artist won't be offering you free touch-ups.

don't sleep during the tattoo!!! i really hope that the artist does not let you sleep. imagine jolting awake while the needles are in your skin, then you'd have a really awful "oopsy doopsie." every artist i've ever been tatted by/spoke with says they do not let their clients sleep.

keeping your bloodsugar up definitely helps so bring some Werthers or something, and make sure you eat a nice big meal beforehand.

when i had my ribs tattooed, i found that being cold made it much worse. it seemed to hurt a lot more the first 2 sessions, because the studio was cold. also i did 2 consecutive sessions of tattoos, and didn't get much sleep before the second. so yeah, torture. the next 2 sessions were done out of my artists house, where it was nice and warm and it was a breeze. i think trying to hold back shivers really wears you out, so if you're cold mention it and hopefully they can crank up the heat.

here's my masterpiece, i'm sure some of you have already seen it, i think there's a tattoo thread on bp.net already.