Sleeve tattoos for women: planning a whole arm

How much fits on a smaller arm

An arm is a cylinder, and you only ever see about a third of it at once. On a 27 cm upper arm that is roughly 9 cm of visible width from any one angle. Anything beyond that is around the curve. Artists plan sleeves so that each section has a clear front facing view, with the linking elements doing the work around the sides.

Negative space is a planning decision, not a gap. Leaving skin showing between sections stops a sleeve from reading as one dark mass, and on a slimmer arm a fully packed black sleeve can look heavier than the same work on a larger arm. Decide the balance early, because adding space later means removing work you have already paid for.

Decisions to make before the first session

• Where the sleeve stops: shoulder, elbow, mid forearm or wrist
• Whether the inner arm is included or left clear
• How much skin stays open between sections
• Whether the design has one subject or several linked ones

Pain, section by section

The outer upper arm and outer forearm are 3 to 4 out of 10 and easy to sit for four hours. The inner upper arm is 6 to 7. The elbow ditch, the crease on the inside of the joint, is 8 or higher and is where most people call an early finish. The bony point of the elbow itself is a different, duller misery around 7.

Good scheduling helps more than any numbing cream. Ask your artist to put the inner arm and the elbow ditch at the start of a session, and to keep the sittings to four or five hours. Sleeves fail on consistency more than on any single hard day, and a client who cannot face booking the next appointment leaves an arm half finished.

Time, money and living with it in between

A full sleeve is 20 to 40 hours of tattooing for most designs, spread over five to ten sessions and usually a year or more with healing time between. At typical rates that is $2,000 to $8,000, and a sought after artist can be well past that. Most take a deposit and book the whole run at the start.

You will spend months with an arm that is partly finished, partly healing and occasionally scabbing. Bag straps have to come off the shoulder after each upper arm session, the gym waits two weeks each time, and summer sun is off limits on anything fresh. Booking sessions for autumn and winter makes the whole project easier.

Where to stop, and what it means at work

A sleeve that stops above the elbow disappears under a short sleeved shirt. One that stops mid forearm shows below any three quarter sleeve, which many women's work shirts have. One that reaches the wrist is visible in anything but a full length cuff, and a hand is another decision entirely.

Think about summer rather than winter, since that is when the question gets answered. Plenty of people plan a sleeve in two stages for this reason: upper arm first, then a decision about the forearm once they know how their workplace and their own feelings settle. That order also lets you find out how you handle long sessions before committing to the whole arm.