How about a barcode on the bottom of your foot?
Nonwithstanding the holocaust implications a friend of mine had this done (with aparently a great deal of pain) so that he might be presumed a morgue dodger when found asleep someplace new.
You should make a variant of the roman legionares (sp)tatoos as seen in the film Gladiator but instead of SQRL (or something like it) have SDMB on your arm. In fact I think everyone with a post count of over 1000 should have one 
Sara, I keep trying to picture your soon to be tat, and since you’ve already drawn it up, I presume it works, but how do the “some” and “god” pair up. Unless you write/read it counter-clock, wouldn’t it come up “…god some…” when circled?
<scrathing non-artistic head>
Anyhow, ankles don’t hurt too much, but that’s the extent of my knowledge. I got a tat almost seven years ago, still love it, have thought of getting others, but nothing else seemed to hold a true value so I’ve not.
My sister, OTOH, has a few, including one on her belly that has not only survived two preganacies, but has been sliced twice for the caesarian section. Still looks good (it’s a parrot) and it has only a hair thin line through it.
My $.two
How about a big “Property of Ukulele Ike” on your butt?
Seriously, the poem is an interesting idea. I myself have Milton’s Paradise Lost tattooed from the base of my neck down to the tailbone in 2-point Helvetica. Nobody can see it unless I wear a white t-shirt and get rained on.
It hurts like hell to get it done on your lower back.
On the back of your neck it tickles, but your design wouldn’t work on the back of your neck.
Another strike against back tattoos is that you can’t see them. The one on my back I can’t see even in a mirror. With two mirrors i can see it a little bit, but the image is reversed.
I would suggest getting it somewhere where you can see it if you want to look at it, especially a first tattoo, which you will want to look at all the time. Maybe on the side, hip area. It’s still discreet.
Then again, discreetness isn’t a selling point for me, but a lot of people seem to go for it.
Damn Ike, as if it wouldn’t be hard enough to read as is, you had to go and use a sans serif font. What the hell were you thinking?
Mine is on the fleshy part between my neck and shoulder blade, but more towards the back. Hardly hurt at all. A friend of mine has one that covers about a fifth of her back, including over the shoulder blade, and she said that was the part that hurt the most, but it wasn’t unbearable.
My concern was getting the tattoo in a place that wouldn’t stretch out and render itself unrecognizable if I perchance became pregnant again. Hence the stomach area was out, as well as the boobal area. So the back was a natural choice for me.
The only pic I have available to see is the tat around my wrist here:
http://eurodopers.homestead.com/Crunchy.html
I think you can see the tats on my legs in some of the pix on my sister’s site taken during her wedding rehearsal, but I don’t think they’re very clear.
I could look up a link if you’d like to try to see them.
I think the skin on your back is generally pretty thick. I had one on my back (carp) and it hurt less than either of my two chest/shoulder tatoos (shamrock and bird) or the one above my ankle (rose). It’s bigger than either of them, and was done by a better artist. The back rules, and in a t-shirt with the sleeves ripped out it just sort of peeks out at the world.
I’ll agree with Chrome Spot about the back. I’m not sure how it would feel over your spine, but I have a dragon on my left shoulder blade and that didn’t hurt that badly (relatively speaking of course). The most painful one for me is the one you can see in the pic, when he was tattooing the underside of my wrist.
My brother’s 5 tats are in some painful places. The worst he said was his armband (upper arm). The underside near his armpit hurt more than the one on his pec or his ankle.
He also has a bicep & forearm. Didn’t hurt much at all.
Don’t have mine yet. Mid-30’s & still thinking about it. But kudos for choosing something that means something. My brother’s tattoo artist won’t even let people choose random shit off a wall, nor will she tattoo drunken or otherwise impaired clients. She really is an artist, and she doesn’t want her work to be something someone regrets when “whatever it was” wears off.
Side note- hubby had a friend with a barcode tattooed on the back of his neck. The barcode? Trix cereal.
I wonder if he would scan?
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Nacho4Sara *
**
Well, let’s see…
Either Yogi Bear, or leave it empty…
Tigger? Kaa? Yoda? (“Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter…”)
A sextant, or compass rose?
Perhaps one of those Escher circular things, with all the animals going into a vanishing point in the center?
I got my tattoo in July. It’s a silver-dollar-sized Jerusalem cross, on my back/shoulder. It hurt a lot less than I anticipated. I do have some regrets about it, but the meaning isn’t one of them. I’m getting married in October, and when I got the tatto I already had my wedding dress. My tattoo shows in the dress (I couldn’t try the dress on with the tattoo in mind; it was at my parents’ house). I had wanted to have the tattoo placed closer to my arm, but the artist said it wouldn’t sit right. Now, if my grandparents find out I have a tattoo, bad things will happen. So the first couple of nights after I got the tattoo, I slept horribly. I had nightmares about my grandparents finding out at the wedding and making a scene – it was terrible.
So my advice, after all this, is to consider the types of things you may want to wear, and whether you’ll want your tattoo visible. I mean, yes, it’s my body and all, but I love and respect my grandparents and don’t want them to be upset at me over this. I would suggest getting a fake tattoo with a decent design, and trying it out before you get the real one. See how you like it in a few places. See if it shows in the clothes you wear. See how much you care if it shows. At this point, as much as I love my tattoo, I wish I’d waited till after the wedding or that I’d gotten it on my ankle or something, where a band-aid would cover it.
Clarification available, if necessary.
I guess you’ve ruled out getting a tat on your belly, which is what I was going to suggest after reading the OP. That’s where I have mine, and it’s discreet but also easy to show off. I got it a bit higher than what I believe is usual - it’s in line with my belly button.
My sister has a gorgeous snake on her lower back, just below the waist. It shows when she wears low-cut pants and a short shirt. (she’s about 5’10" and a size 2 - grrr). I wish I had a picture of it - it’s the best tattoo I’ve ever seen. Anyway, that’s a great place, too, but as others have noted, you can’t see it yourself.
Well, seeing as everyone else is being uniformly positive… how big is this freaking tattoo going to be? I don’t know how big text has to be tattooed to be legible, but I’m pretty sure 12 point type is out. So you’re talking a design that’s going to end up being either four or five inches across or impossible to read except by the person right behind you in the checkout line. That’s pretty large for your first tattoo, especially when you’re “terrified of pain”. There’s a reason that computers use icons instead of text. Designs are easy to recognize and are generally attractive.
Will it stay legible over time? Text is pretty intricate. I’m not implying that you won’t always have your girlish figure, but any stretching, and you might have what looks like a verse in Cyrillic on your back.
My thought, save yourself some pain and buy the “Some coiled and luminous god” tee-shirt.
stargazer- a possible solution to the dilemma! A friend of mine with multiple easily-seen tattoos just got married, and none of them showed.
She wore a dress with a wrap around her shoulders made of the same material, which successfully covered all visible tattoos for the ceremony. It was lovely, and while the grandparents know she has tattoos, it was a very nice & thoughtful touch, and helped the pictures turn out looking very elegant.
The cut of the dress also helped to hide the flames that are coming up out of her cleavage.
Another friend has a beautiful tattoo of a butterfly, down near the small of her back. Her fiance had one too, but his parents never knew about either of them. As her mom is dead, guess who was on hand to help zip up her dress on the wedding day? That’s right, new mom-in-law. Took it very well, didn’t even blink!
Good luck!
Thanks, I’ve been meaning to look into wraps! Even if that doesn’t work out, though, it should (I hope I hope I hope!) be okay with makeup and the veil. There’s an article on TheKnot about covering tattoos, and I don’t think I was planning to remove my veil anyway. So I’m keeping my fingers crossed.
Anyway: back to your regularly scheduled tattoo programming!
that you make DAMN CERTAIN THAT THE TATTOO SHOP HAS A AUTOCLAVE STERLIZER! Tattooing can transmit hepatitis or even AIDS.
DO NOT LET ANYBODY BULLSH*T YOU INTO THINKING THIS IS NOT NECESSARY! Your first mistake could be your worst mistake.
Two things: First, right on, Bosda. No excuse for a shop not practicing sterile technique. Ink should all go in little disposible paper cups also.
Second, I think a tatoo should be open to several lines of interpretation. If it only means one thing and you change your mind about the thing (or it changes its mind about you), you’re stuck with a reminder that you were wrong. The most pathetic thing I ever saw was a guy getting a tatoo finished up. It was a girl’s name and she had broken up with him before the tatoo was finished. My two cents with FICA and SS withheld.
That sounds a little “busy” to me, if you know what I mean. Keep it simple for the first one . . . you can always add later, and leaving a little more room in the middle for something else for later on.