Tattoos

I read the article on Vinnie in the New York Times awhile ago, I forget when it was published. I had been shopping around for a tattoo artist to have realistic looking tats, imperfections variations in color, etc. I had multiple images of real nipples on my phone. What people would think if they ever looked in my pic album.. I live in Northern California and going to Vinnie was never an option and I figured he can't be the only one who does these great nipples! So I searched and searched. I saw tattoo artists who told me it would cost anywhere from 700 to 1000 dollars for nipple tattoos. And I don't have visible scar tissue or other things that make tattoos for us difficult. I just have my incision cuts that are right across the middle of my chest (thanks breast surgeon...). Anyway, that just seemed crazy to me. There is one nip pic that I had that was my favorite. The best looking imperfect areola! I went into a local tattoo artist shop and showed him. He said the only person who can do that in California has a shop just north of me in Grass Valley. I thanked him for his honesty and called this other guy up. I went to his shop and was I shocked. It was not your typical tattoo shop. It was immaculate, very very nice shop. The tattoo artist was very soft spoken and such a gentlemen. I went up with my boyfriend because he's got lots of tattoos and he wanted to hear for himself what the guy had to say. It seemed like the other places I went to were just out to take advantage of breast cancer patients and charged up the ying yang! He loved the guy and was really impressed. This guy is a true artist. I mean TRUE artist. What I didn't know is that my boyfriend also read the NY Times article on Vinnie and the video that was with it. He told this guy about Vinnie and the tattoo artist said...yeah, I worked with him. He learned his technique from him. I was like...what the what??? I showed him what I wanted and he showed me what he'd done. Wow! This must have been divine intervention making me wait as long as I did and not just go with whoever. I made an appointment to have mine done that next week. I go back in a couple weeks for some color tweaking and more imperfections added in. It's been a month since I had them done. Time for them to heal.

His name is Cory Norris. I highly suggest anyone looking for REALISTIC areolas to go see this guy!!! He has a website corynorrisart.com. It's got your typical tattoo type artwork. No nipples are on there but you can see the detail he puts into his work. Just amazing. And cost...he charged me $80 a boob!

If anyone would like to see pics, I'll be happy to show you! I cried after looking at them. My boyfriend was so happy for me and completely amazed with what he did. He was with me the whole time holding my hand and rubbing my head (I have a lot more feeling than I thought I did!) I didn't look at them right away. I was afraid, when you've had as many surgeries as I've had and all the problems with reconstruction you don't get your hopes up too much. I was at a point that I didn't think I was ever going to get tats. I was just too afraid. My god...who knew how whole I would feel again after. I feel like I real woman again. I actually get a little shy undressing in front of my boyfriend. My bashfulness is back! I feel like I have something to 'hide' again versus eh...there just surgeon made bumps and nipples. They just served a purpose of not having a concaved chest so my shirts and dresses would fit like they should. I feel like I actually have real boobs again. Instead of Vinnie's...I got Cory's!

I can't say enough about this guy. Go check him out.