I'm a big fan of body modification. I have various piercings in various places, have dyed my hair crazy colors, and tend to draw on myself whenever possible. I have never gotten a tattoo, however. This is for a few reasons - for a long time, there was never anything I wanted on my body so badly that I had to tattoo it. Then, when there was something that I wanted on my back, I was told that it would run around $500 and, quite frankly, I don't have that kind of cash lying around.

When it became apparent that I was going to Move Across the Country and do it Very Soon, I made a decision: as a combination "Oh my God everything is changing" present and graduation present to myself, I'm going to get a tattoo. It's going to be a compass (to symbolize direction, and travel, and moving). I'm very, very excited. I want it to be about the size of my fist, coverable by a normal shirt (simply because I'm job hunting), and just black ink.

We're probably going to go to a place called "No Ka Oi Tiki Tattoo," in Philly, next weekend when I'm home. Seeing as this is my first tattoo, I'm uncertain about a few things, so I thought I'd throw them out to the group at large, especially to those with ink experience.

1.) Pricing. I'm not sure about how pricing for tattoos work. I'm only going to have "x" amount of dollars available (most likely between $150 - $250) - how do I make that work? I mean, can I go in and say "Okay, this is what I'm looking for, but I only have this much to spend." Or is that obnoxious? I don't know how it works!

2.) Tipping. How much does one tip a tattoo artist?

3.) Where to put it? I was thinking about one side of my lower back, but now I'm thinking upper back/shoulder. My reasoning is this: my lower back is fleshy and when I gain/lose weight, that area fluctuates, while my upper back remains largely consistent in terms of appearance (okay, rereading that, it sounds kind of gross, but whatever. I'm a curvy girl). Also, if I do my shoulder, that means that my back is still "open" for the Man Ray tattoo that I also really want. Hmmmm.

Thoughts?