This depends on many things. Under most circumstances, the answer is either never, or once, since modern inks are very strong and hold much more steadily over the years than older style inks.
However, there are many cases when you might need one touch up after the initial tattoo. An area might scab slightly during healing. When doing all black tattoos (like tribal), it's difficult to pack the color completely solid in one pass. Black takes longer because it is the highest contrast from the skin tone, so the more you have to work the skin, the more damaged the skin becomes. That leaves little room for error, so there are typically a few spots in a tribal piece that need to be filled in after the intial healing.
For the same reason, if you have one large solid field of one color in your tattoo design, there will likely be a few spots that need a touch up after the inital healing.
Sometimes, if the tattoo is large one and takes a long time, the skin's pores will "open up" and won't allow the ink to be deposited in the skin and the resulting colors tend to be very light. Some people's pores will open up after only a few minutes, but fortunately, this is rare. For most people, this doesn't happen until after a two hours or more of one sitting, for larger pieces.
After the initial touch up, there won't likely be any need for touch ups ever again. In some cases, it might be beneficial to get a tattoo touched up after 10 years or so, since your skin may have changed greatly over time.
|
03-20-2006, 02:17 PM
