Inspired somewhat by this thread in GQ, I’m curious to see how many other tattooed dopers we have in our midst.
I myself proudly display four tattoos (well, three of them proudly, at least).
I shamefully admit to turning 18 right around the time that the kanji tattoo phenomenon was reaching its height. My first tat is a kanji symbol on my right shoulder. Not that I’m regretful about getting it, I just wish I had worked it in as part of a larger piece. Will probably do so in the future.
However, my most prized piece of art is a large celtic cross on my left arm. It’s about 5 or 6 inches long, and covers just about the entirety of my upper arm. It’s black & grey, a reproduction of a cross I was given when I was baptized. I have celtic heritage, and my name is celtic, so it has symbolic meaning to me.
Along those same lines, I’ve got a matching set of celtic-inspired flowers, one on each ankle. I wanted to have them done on the top of my feet, but my tattooist talked me out of it.
I’ve got an expansion of my cross planned out as soon as I get some extra money set aside, sort of a stained-glass window motif on the four sides surrounding the cross. Also, I’d like to incorporate my kanji into part of a backpiece featuring a geisha.
So, what’ve you got and what’s the story behind it?
On my upper left back: Comedy and Tragedy Masks…
but altered.
They are more Insanity and Agony. They have fangs, forked tongues, and pointed ears.
A friend (I’ve never met in person) designed it for me, upon request. It combines my love for theatre as well as my appreciation for the darker aesthetics.
I want to get a second on my lower back, trailing into my buttcrack. Some kind of distorted Batman symbol. Possibly a celtic knot Batman symbol, or something with some kind of Harley Quinn distortion…y’know black and red with the white diamonds. We’ll see.
I have a tattoo of a phoenix on my right shoulderblade. I got it as a symbol of a defeat of some personal demons. Phoenix’s are immortal and rise from ashes renewed. I thought it was appropriate because I had made a vow to quit living, without going into too many details, like a loser. Basically I got it to symbolize a turning point in my life.
My fiance has a beautiful butterfly on her shoulder, it’s resting on a rock and a wave is crashing into it.
smallish sun goddess face on the front of my right thigh (doesn’t show when I wear sort of short skirts) and a very cool design (not a flower, hard to describe) on the small of my back. That’s all the ink this body will get.
A guy walks into a tattoo parlor with his girlfriend. He says he want’s Elvis Presley’s likeness tattooed onto her thigh. Tat dude says “Sure! That’ll be a hundred bucks.”
So he does the tattoo. The guy and his girlfriend look at it, and say, “Man, this doesn’t look anything like Elvis Presley!” Tat dude says, “It most certainly does, but to show you I’m working with you in good faith, I’ll do a new one on her other thigh for free.”
“Deal!” says the guy. So Tat dude proceeds to burn another Elvis likeness. When he’s done, the couple looks at it and says, “Dude, this one doesn’t look anything like Elvis either!”
Tat dude is getting annoyed. He says, “Look. I think both of them look like Elvis. Let’s go out on the street, and the first person to walk by can be the judge. If he thinks it looks like Elvis, you owe me for both tattoos.”
“Deal!” says the couple. So they stand out on the sidewalk in front of the parlor for a few minutes. By and by, a drunk guy comes stumbling toward them. The woman lifts up her dress and says, “Who does this look like?” The drunk stares for a second, and says, “I don’t know who the twins are, but the guy in the middle is Willie Nelson.”
HA!
Can I tell you my husband’s tattoos? I don’t have any of my own. He has somewhere around 30 of them, but these are some of the more memorable (to me) ones.
On the back of his calf there is the face of an angel in black outlines. It is kind of angular, like an elf, and it says “Aryanna” (our daughter.)
On his back he has the outline of a celtic cross in a circle. It’s very simple and nice. Inside the cross it says, in a sort of celtic-y looking script, “Aoghdan” (our older son).
On his stomach, he has an old school pair of birds (sparrows, I think) holding a banner that reads “Seamus” (our youngest son). This one is colored. The birds are red and yellow, and the banner has sort of a red fade to it.
Above the banner, on his chest, he has a bleeding heart… I forget what they are called. It is a big red heart that drips from the bottom, and there is a thorny crown around it, and above the heart is is a cross with radiance. A sacred heart, is that what it is called? Right through the heart there is a scar, also. It’s not part of the tattoo, it came later. Some guy in a bar hit his girlfriend, and dh hit him, etc…
On one forearm he has a large coi. It extends from his wrist to his elbow, and the tail curves around toward the underside of his arm. It is surrounded by blue waves and magenta colored flowers. The fish itself isn’t colored, yet, but it will be orange and yellow.
My best friend in college was a graphic arts major who started tattooing after graduation. I let him cut his teeth by doing his first large piece on me, a half sleeve from the top of my left shoulder to my elbow. It’s a cartoonish scene of a tornado demolishing a trailer park.
My other large piece is a half sleeve on my right forearm, elbow to wrist, done by the same friend while we were living in Prague after graduation. It’s a large skull-pommel dagger piercing through the skin with comic book “ouch” stars all around it, and a banner across it that says “WORD”. When people ask “why ‘WORD’ ?”, as they do once a day I tell them one of the following:
It was supposed to say “sword”, but the guy left the “s” off.
I was a linguistics major in college.
After he put the empty banner on i couldn’t think of a word to go in it, so I eventually settled on “word” as a joke.
The last one’s true.
My other two pieces are a skull with spider legs on my chest and a large-ish skull with bat wings on my shoulder. Despite the sound of things, tattoos aside I’m rather mild in appearance.
All this was from when I was singing in a hardcore band and tattoos were de rigueur: “Grrr! I’m tough! See my tattoos? I must be tough! Grrr, I say!”
I have two armbands. One is a knotwork pattern and the other is a greenman centered on my arm with a leafy vine that wraps the rest of the way around. The greenman and vines are significantly better quality even though the guy that tattooed me charged significantly less than the previous. Both of them were professional takes on my own designs.
I have a cool tribal design on my left calf and a small red maple leaf on my right arm.
I wanted to get something done on my back (between the shoulder blades) that incorporates my kids names, but I think I’m getting too old for tattoos…I can’t find anything inspiring.
I’ve a large tiger done in purple and black with bright blue eyes on the left side of my chest. Measures probably about 6" by 5". In front of the tiger is a tiger lily, also in purple.
The blue eyes are for clarity and insight. Purple for personal growth and healing. The scene means there is hidden strength within.
The story behind it? After my divorce I was a mess. It took a lot of work to get my head straight again. Once I did and realised I am a good person with lots to offer (and all that mumbojumbo) that is when my life had its turn around. Thus the tattoo. Basically a symbol of the new me and the growth experienced and the growth to come.
More tattoos are on the way. I’ve designed my Native American symbol into a tat. Also want a wolf with the ookami kanji. Wouldn’t mind a raven, bear, moose or buffalo tat. Hubby says as long as I’m not a walking canvas, he’s fine with my tats.
Had a lotus paisley, a celtic horn-circle, and a little star done several years ago, but last Saturday my twin sister and I went in and got matching Thing 2 and Thing 1 (you know, from the Cat in the Hat) for our birthday (I’m Thing 2).
