My Dear Friends of Inked I have a slice of pizza on my leg that says like want a pizza me and i have a cactus on my leg that says don’t touch me and like i have some mushrooms on my leg and a weed nug on my leg and like i have a lot i’ve spyro and um akuaku like they don’t have to be.
Serious but like crash bandicoot is serious to me if you think about it like so like no like those are those are meaningful tattoos to me like spyro like people some people don’t even know who spyro is like you know so like those are meaningful to me but they’re not that serious they’re not like you know the time clock with the rose and the wolves.
And the trees like my name is kyla i’m at 29 years old i’m a tattoo model from chicago well outside of chicago if you’re from chicago don’t fight me but i was raised in a mormon a mexican family my dad is also a marine so i was raised in a super super strict family mormon.
Strict is really strict but mexican strict is also really strict just in a different way you know when you have that little like the mexican side like the little seasoning to it um you know like you can get away with some here and there like here and there like you you can slide some things in there so like mom got a tattoo it was.
Okay and like granted let me also just say that like they didn’t go to church all the time okay we went to church all the time we were raised in the strict family and stuff so like i mean they did whatever they want they just wanted us to grow up and be normal.
Right normal i don’t blame that for why i look like this so like don’t be like oh i know that’s why you look like that i never planned any of this i wasn’t like i can’t wait to be 18 and get a bunch of tattoos actually what made me like be so fascinated about it was my friend danielle my best friend she had like.
Snuck around and got like a couple tattoos here and there and so like little old me i was so fascinated by it and we did everything in high school right like we did the drugs the drinking the hiding everything behind our parents back like we did all of that that’s whatever the tattoos were mind-boggling to me i.
Couldn’t believe it i could not believe that this girl got a [__] tattoo and her parents didn’t see it and so that is what i think triggered me to be like i gotta get a [__] tattoo like i don’t know how when where why i knew it wasn’t going to happen before i was 18. i knew that like there was no way but when i was 18.
I couldn’t i can wait i literally was like nope i’m here i went to i turned uh 18 on july 31st and then like literally two days later on august 2nd and when i got my first tattoo it was a tiny star on the top of my foot and i didn’t hide it from my parents i told them they knew i was gonna go get.
It um my mom kind of knew she couldn’t say anything she was like all right whatever but my dad was the one that was like well what does it mean what do you what are you gonna do with that in 10 years like you know like nothing i just didn’t like stars i got it covered up.
Probably like three years later now it’s got like a giant eyeball on it but getting the foot hurts so bad like in your footsteps would hurt so bad i don’t even care like it’s not even worth it to me to like keep going over it and try to like whatever but it hurt then two weeks later i went and got this.
One this little never failure always a lesson because i saw rihanna have it so okay that’s another thing too is that i was very naive when i first started getting tattooed i would just grab them off of pinterest so like if you see a tattoo on me that like you did or you have i’m sorry because like i had.
No idea that you know what i mean i didn’t know i just was like this is cute slap it on me just like everybody else and i got that and then i was like this is really expensive like i can i realized how like unachievable it was actually going to be to like be covered in tattoos but i knew i wanted more i was pregnant so i had my.
Son and i didn’t really get any more tattoos until like a couple months after i had him i got another one on my ankle that like was his birthday and um i ended up dating the guy that did that tattoo and.
I had a baby with him and he did a lot of my tattoos towards the last year or so of that relationship i had picked up um taking over inked magazine’s snapchat accounts and i was getting tattooed by him for that account like once or twice a week so then it was.
Peace peace peace peace like everywhere like little there i started more on my legs um covering up my legs more and more and more when that relationship ended um i was kind of like holy like how am i gonna get tattooed now you know but i did have.
People reaching out to me consistently like hey i’d like to do a tattoo on you for inkt magazine snapchat like you know i i guess i had never thought about it i was like oh like they were like yeah like i’ll tattoo you for free like you don’t have to pay me i just want to be on their snapchat and i’d be like.
Okay like sure and so um that’s how i met biju and she and i started doing a lot of inked magazines snapchat then i started getting more heavily heavily heavily tattooed um and it was like happening so fast you know and then other everybody started reaching out to me like i want to tattoo you for snapchat i want to.
Tattoo you for snapchat like i know it’s super ideal for everybody right everyone’s like wow she’s so lucky she got all these free tattoos look at her and she probably had sex with all of them and this and this and that and whatever and it’s not that at all some of these people are really truly genuinely my friends and um really.
Wanted that opportunity that they may not have ever gotten without me how many people ask me who does your tattoos everybody asks me so like everybody that tattoos me has like made some money off of it it pressured me into getting tattoos that i didn’t need to get like you know like it’s not that i didn’t want the.
Tattoos but now i’m 29 years old and i have no room like i don’t have any room and the tattoos that like my daughter’s dad did um some of them aren’t the best and i would like i would have liked to had something cooler there or like some now i’ve made all these friends with these like amazing tattooers and like i’m like i.
Wish i had room for you to tattoo me but i don’t have any room like you got to cover stuff up or laser stuff off which i’m definitely not going to do so like yeah that it did pressure me i think to get super super covered um really fast so i started with this center neck piece.
And i just thought it was like so cool that i was like okay like let’s do the other sides of the neck so i got the rows and another neck rows and then um i had this already this like little piece but i was like i want to fill this in so yeah we i just he printed out this like.
Big ass pattern and like slapped it on it took seven and a half hours of dot work it was definitely a decision between the hands throw and face of like you have to decide like either you’re in or you’re out like you’re either gonna do this or you’re not gonna do this it wasn’t even.
A question i didn’t even to there wasn’t like a thought in my head that was like maybe i’ll never be able to get a job or maybe i’ll never no i was like blasted i got my first face tattoo in 2017. bijou did it that was important to me.
Because she is so beautiful she’s um got a face tattoo too so like with her i was like okay you can still be pretty and have face tattoos like you know you’re not it doesn’t have to be the stereotypical like she’s got her face tattooed she’s garbage she’s trash or whatever you know.
Like you can still be so pretty and have your face completely blasted and so bijou was like the one that inspired me to get my face tattooed and just say like okay like who cares because she’s it was her personality like she’s so sweet she’s so nice she’s so kind like there’s that stigma on tattooed people.
That were mean and [__] and bitter or whatever some of them are like sorry some of you guys are mean she’s not and neither am i and so when i saw that i was like okay i could do it too like so yeah so that’s what it was just that decision of like you’re in this or you’re not in this and i was in it.
Like she’s doing the damn thing girl if you’re watching like she’s doing it like she has her business she has her man she has her things together like she’s got a good head on her shoulders but she’s also been through a lot of like you don’t look like this and you haven’t been through anything like i’m just.
Gonna say that because that is a stereotype i don’t want to like fill into it but it’s true you don’t look this covered and you’ve never been through the next one i got was the ruthless up here that was the one that like changed everything people were like starting to.
Definitely look at me like trash to me i was like no i’m [__] ruthless okay like you know can you read that one was like what made people start looking at me i guess like a badass like they were like okay she’s like tougher than i thought she was like she’s not just this like girly girly whatever blah blah blah even.
If i didn’t have the chest tattoo but i still had the face tattoos i wouldn’t look as heavily covered i don’t have regrets i would never say i wish i didn’t get that i have tattoos that i wish i would have waited until i knew more about them or had known better tattooers and things.
Like that had more education to get them so i don’t necessarily regret them i think there’s one tattoo that i can say i regret letting him go over it because it already looked bad and then he was like i can fix it don’t worry and i should have just left a little the first time because now i’m gonna have to.
Get it covered up and it’s just gonna hurt so bad but um i don’t have any that i can say that like i wish i didn’t get that i don’t have any the only thing i would change about the way i did things and everything like that is i wish i just would have educated myself more.
Um like on tattoos like i said i have a lot of um plagiarized tattoos uh i grabbed him off of pinterest like i think this is like a jimmy liplock tattoo but like he didn’t do that so but like um i just wish i would have like educated myself more so that i could have had.
Nicer tattoos that i don’t have to cover up now i’m not worried about the ones that aren’t so nice now because i’m i know i can get them covered up like i know someone will fix them somewhere like you know whatever i’m not worried about that.
But like could i have avoided it yeah so that’s the only thing i would do different you
Inspiration struck Kyla when she saw her best friend get tattooed when she was still in high school, so days after she turned 18 she began her own tattoo journey. We spoke with Kyla about getting her face tattooed, the artist who inspired her to go that extra mile and so much more in this episode of Heavily Inked.
Welcome to Heavily Inked. In our newest series, we’re going to speak one-on-one with tattoo collectors and artists about what it means to be a heavily inked person. We’ll get deep as we go through the motivations behind their tattoo choices, the way they’ve been treated in society and much more.
Kyla: https://www.instagram.com/kyylitaaa/
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