Jim_Soloway

i'd advise you to give what you've drawn to the artist and let him/her work with it. there're subtleties in the art of a tattoo that are sort of specific to it. you'll wind up with a piece you're much happier with, i promise. Absolutely. I picked an artist whose work fit what I was after, so I had some trust in him from the beginning. He looked at the art work that I brought him and recommended a series of small changes that he thought would tattoo better but would still maintain the essence of the piece. He was absolutely right. I doubt that most people would even notice the changes if they had the original art work next to the tattoo, but the changes allow the tattoo to work properly with the 3-dimensional surface of my arm and the way the skin moves and reshapes as muscles move.

I have two. The first one took about 90 minutes. The second too about an hour. Both done by the same artist (who I like a lot). They were $100 each. I may go back for a third at some point.

That would be the way to go, however build in the initial cost, plus a suitable vehicle and travel costs and could it ever be profitable? At $200 per job (which is less than the going rate), it could gross $1000 per day fairly easily. Include travel time and you're probably at $4000 gross per week for say 40 weeks a year. That's $160,000 per year. Deduct expenses and you're not going to be fabulously wealthy, but you'd do all right. EDIT I suppose the real question would be is there enough demand to do 800 Plek jobs per year? I think the answer would be yes, but I tend to be an opptimist.

By it's very nature, the "shock prevention" mechanism could render it unstable enough to be accurate. Indeed it could be transported and set up on a solid base, but I think even the shock absorption in a motor vehicle would mean that movement of the vehicle with people in it would make a nonsense of any precision. But you could write to PLEK and ask them:D I think the idea of local Plek clinics is compelling enough that even if it the transport simply took the system to a temporary rented space for a few days at a time, it could still be profitable.

I love the idea of having one set up to travel. A vehicle like a Dodge/Freightliner Sprinter would easily be big enough to set one up and still have sufficient work space. I think if you did a bit of research, you'd be able to hook up a network with builders, stores and repair shops around the country quite easily. It does take some expertise, but my understanding is that the manufacturer does provide training. And as for the notion that they aren't rugged enough for travel, it can't be all that fragile. The manufacturer brings one to the NAMM show every year and runs it on the show floor doing real work with it. With the appropriate shock prevention setup, I would think it could be made to work.