I’ve never gotten inked, but I’ve considered it before. Only briefly, though, because I’m a) a big wimp, and b)a cheapskate. That combination is very much not conducive to getting a truly well-done tattoo, and if I were getting one, I’d want it to be well-done. I’m fascinated with skin art, though, and the thought processes behind choosing designs.
I think that if I were to ever actually go through with it (and the thought’s become more appealing as I get older), I’d go for the front of the upper thigh. I never wear truly short shorts or skirts, so it would pretty much always be covered unless I was naked or wearing a bathing suit. At the same time, it would be an area I wouldn’t feel uncomfortable baring for an artist. (They’re professionals and not interested in any of my parts, but it would bring to mind the gyno and I’d hate that.) I like the look of back, neck, and shoulder tattoos, but what’s the point of having ink if you can’t see it? If I’m going to that kind of time, expense, and trouble, by God I’m gonna get to enjoy it.
As for the design, I’d say maybe a betta, or a jellyfish. I also saw a design one time that was a stylized dolphin made of Celtic knotwork that I really liked. A seahorse done like that would be really cool. Something pretty small, like the size of a half-dollar maybe, and fairly delicate. Bright, soft colors and flowing lines, definitely.
So what about the rest of you? If you were going to get a tattoo, what would you get and where?
Well, I do have a tattoo, so I’m not sure you want my answer, but I waited 30 years to get one so maybe that counts? Anyway, I got it for my 30th birthday as a present to myself for actually surviving my pretty sucky teens and 20s. It took me about 2 years to decide what to get and where. I finally decided on a small Chinese character that means pig. You see, I was born in the year of the pig and all the characteristics I read about those born in that year really suited me. I thought it was also a good choice because no matter what would change about me, I would still have been born in 1971. And since it was a commemoration of the day I was born, that seemed fitting.
It is about 2 inches square and it is on my upper right thigh (well, right in the middle of the leg, on the side of my body. Is that still the thigh?) My underwear and bathing suit do not cover it, but all shorts and skirts do.
To answer your fears–it really didn’t hurt. It felt like someone was scratching me. It only took about 10 minutes to do, so that was right about the point that it started to feel annoying. And the cost was maybe $60–not anything too horrible.
I would never get one, because I hate them, but I seem to remember George Carlin coming up with some good ideas. Like a dotted line across the back of your knee, or a word on your butt which incorporates your anus as the letter O. “WOW” or “MOM”, depending on which way it was read. Or one on your forehead that says, "Yes, a**hole, it’s a tattoo! Right in the middle of my f*cking forehead!
I like to think I’d have a sense of humor about it.
I thnk a snake running the length of my spine, with its head curled over my left shoulder resting on my clavacal. I think maybe to have the snake apparently wrapped arround my spinal column (so tattoo spine bones would need to be shown as well).
I’m not sure what, but I’m sure where. The top of my left foot. I’ve had lots of surgeries and it’s covered with scars. Maybe a phoenix or a dragonfly.
I had a dream once, when I was on a big kick about getting a tattoo, and in it, I went to a tattoo place and asked them to put a silver snowflake on the back of my neck. (which is where I’d want a tattoo). And the artist said “That’s not the tattoo you’re supposed to have…this is”
and it was two four pointed stars, layerd on top of each other, very sharp, one was red with a black outline and one was yellow with a black outline. The overlapped to look eight pointed.
I drew it was soon as I woke up.
Mr. Jar says he doesn’t like tattoos, and my mother said I’d be out of the will if I got one, but I’ve declared that when I publish my first book, I’m getting that tattoo.
I have the art for one of Giger’s aliens, 3" or so. It will be on my lower abdomen. As I no longer wear bikinis, you will see it only if I so choose. No cringing allowed. If we’ve reached the stage that I bare myself for someone, they already know how, um, off-kilter I am.
I don’t think that I would actually do it since I’m not entirely sure I would find it appealling and I can’t be certain that I wouldn’t get sick of it after a few years, but if I had to get one, I would get an infinity symbol somewhere very discrete.
I already said this in the “Tattoos on Females” thread, but I do intend to get, sometime soon, a tattoo either between my shoulder blades or a little bit higher, of a star with a halo and angel wings, with my mother’s initials and date of death underneath it. Because I’m named after a star (yes, Antares is my real name) and she always called me her little angel.
I’m considering a second one possibly, on the back of my neck, a small music eighth note, black, with a little red star to the upper left and little blue-green star on the lower right – music is my life and those colors are the colors of my first two guitars. That one would probably be about the size of a quarter or a little bigger, the other I’m thinking maybe the diameter of a slightly larger-than-average coffee mug.
I’d get the Grateful dead lightning bolt on my upper left bicep I guess. Except that my sister’s husband (my BIL I suppose, but that always sounds strange to me) already has that. It looks quite cool, and is fairly simple. Otherwise, I really have no idea what I’d get. I just don’t feel strongly enough about anything to go through with getting a permanent tattoo.
I don’t have any tattoos yet but me and Mr. Mongoose are aiming to get one in about a fortnight when we’re both off work on the same day.
It’s gonna be the shadow of a cute little fairy and it’s going just below my elbow…
Assuming that one goes fine I’m also going to get a second one in a few months which will be the 3 legs of Man (the flag of my home country, the Isle of Man)
