I’m not impulsive enough for a walk-in Friday the 13th tattoo, so I scheduled a session with Sebastian Echeverria who owns Symmetry Ink in Astoria, NY for this past Friday the 13th, and finally got to peel off my second skin today. I’m really happy with how it turned out.

I live in the neighborhood and walked by one day, and a Basquiat trex + crown caught my eye ln the flash board. When I got home, I looked up Seba and his work. I picked him because he has amazing geometric designs, so I figured a small pixelated digimon and a Basquiat crown would be easy peasy. I switched out the Basquiat trex so I could mix styles, and I used to be obsessed with digimon growing up. I’m talking about watching the show and raising the digivice pet. 

For the tattoo consultation, Seba made sure to explain how it would stretch on my bicep with movement, made sure it was positioned perfectly flat when my arms resting (he patiently did several takes of the stencil), and gave recommendations that I didn’t think of to have it age well long-term in keeping the pixelation. Super thoughtful approach.

Fast forward to the session itself, I put on headphones with some binaural beats so I can zone out. (Hopefully this isn’t seen as rude? Curious what others think). While he was outlining the pixels and filling them in, it gave me a chance to sit with myself as a child during a really traumatic moment growing up and let little me know that everything is going to turn out alright. When Seba later did the crown, I kept thinking mantras to myself like “I am in control of my own destiny” over and over again.

Anyway, thanks for letting me share this semi-therapeutic/borderline spiritual moment of getting tattooed. First photo is fresh and second photo is after removing the second skin.

Seba Echeverria at Symmetry Ink helped me heal my inner child with Agumon + Basquiat