I had gotten the tribal part of this tattoo several years ago with a shooting star through it and it just didn't turn out well. I knew I wanted a phoenix. So I spent some time shopping around and looking at thousands of photos of other tattoos. And I asked people whenever I saw work I liked who did theirs. After about three years I found an artist whose work I had seen on someone else. I met with him and told him basically what I wanted included but then gave him free license with design. I actually had something a little different in mind but when I saw what he had designed I loved it. He's very good. Everything he does turns out beautifully and he's great at making designs feminine or masculine and designing tattoos to fit the body that they're on. There are all kinds of stories on what the phoenix represents and I've yet to find one I don't like. The lotus/water part came from a dream I had.
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If you're not dead, you've still got time.