i want to get my 1st tattoo this summer i have the designs but what to look for when searching for the artist?

Tuesday, April 27th, 2010 at 9:27 am

im getting my very 1st tattoo in may or at the beginning of june
im going with my friend he is 19 and im going ot be 18 to keep each other company hes getting a polynesian sun ( the size of a Cd) and im getting a koi fish that will be 7 by 5 inches
now what should i look for when choosing the artist ?? what should i ask ???
my mother is a bit iffy about tattoos so she wants to come with me just to make sure that the place is clean , the people working there are licensed etc....
so what should i look for ?? what should i ask ???
and i dont wanna make a fool of myself going there and asking some silly questions i live in NYC so im thinking about getting the tattoo done somewhere in manhattan maybe on st.marks place i live in Queens and there are 5 tattoo parlors here but ive heard that 2 of them dont chekc for IDs so im not gonna waste time going there
there is a True Blue tattoo and R&D tattooing those are the 2 that i read about and from the reviews it seems like both of them are good choices
also how much would you say ( approx.) those tattoos will cost ??
im kinda on the budged my friend is too as of today i have 500$ and he has 450$
so this is what he wants ( a little smaller maybe the size of a CD)

http://www.bmeink.com/flash/A81224/high/np4l-polynesian-tat.jpg

and this is the koi that im looking into getting

http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=2vhx88y&s=5

that koi was cropped from another picture it had a chest pannel and there as a hanya mask and a lotus i really want it the same size as it is