I can't really offer anything that my fellow tatwhores have not said. What I will say is your timeframe matches mine. I had my first tat roughly 18 months after starting to smoke seriously and that one cigar made me dive head first into tatuaje and spend WAY too much money. Just be warned, because it's not even a slippery slope. That shit is covered in astroglide.

I started with a Miami Noellas.