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| - I had been looking for a place to get my first (gulp!) tattoo for quite a while. After a referral from a friend who just had a piece done and seeing nothing negative on Yelp, I decided to give Black Lotus a try. Their website is well designed (which was also a huge selling point for me) and gave me all the information I need, as well as samples of work from all of their artists. I chose Byron as my artist of choice, I really liked the aesthetic of his work and his sharp, amazing colors. To book the appointment you need to come in person with a $60 cash deposit. This was not the most convenient thing to do (I don't live close-by and don't come to this area of town), but it did give me some reassurance that this was a quality shop. It was super clean, spacious and inviting. On the day of my appointment, my first impression of Byron was that he would rather be anywhere other than giving me this tattoo (maybe not all tattoo artists are psyched about giving a first tattoo to a forty-year-old, overweight, conservative, soccer mom?). In any event I gave him some guidelines about what I was looking for and he took about 10-15 minutes to sketch it up and the result was spot on. By the end of my tattoo, either I had warmed up to him, he had warmed up to me, or I had just misjudged him all along. The tattoo came out amazing and far exceeded all of my expectations and Byron turned out to be a pretty funny, cool guy. The colors of my piece are amazing and he added extra touches to give it dimension. It is apparent that he is a true artist and he takes pride in his work. He proved this when he decided after applying my stencil that it would look better reversed, so he took the time to scrub it off, reverse the image and apply it again (I am fairly confident some 'artists' would have just slapped it on, finished the tattoo and got me out of the chair). Although I am usually a 'service oriented' person, at the end of the day I would rather having a rockin' tattoo (it's for life you know!) by an amazing artist, than an average tattoo by a super bubbly artist. If I have more work done, it will be at BLT with Byron (if he'll have me!).
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