What’s your tattoo story?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I never wanted a tattoo in my younger days, but when I turned 60 I decided to get one. I’d been thinking of it for years. It wasn’t an impulsive act. It’s high on my upper arm, so it usually is covered. I sat for 3½ hours nonstop, and it wasn’t bad in terms of pain or discomfort. There are more sensitive body area than the upper arm. As it healed it felt like road rash that was healing. All in all not a bad experience.

So, when I die this tattoo should still be fairly fresh. Not faded or blurry. I hope to last into my 80s, God willing. I figure that’s a decent run.

People tell me that once you get one you’ll get more, but no. Not me. This is it.

What’s your tattoo story? Here’s mine —

2

This one is to commemorate departed friends/family who were in the military, and a new name is going to be added as I discovered my Ukrainian friend was killed in the first week of the war. Fuck Putin.

This one was when I shaved my head in support of a friend who was to undergo chemo. This one was in April, when I had a power port installed so I could get chemo. Fuck cancer.

3

Do you have any idea why imgur thinks that last one can only be shown to people over 18? I was slightly nervous about what you were going to show.

4

I have no idea, medical or a tattoo? Probably because it was showing a recent medical procedure?

Honestly, it really isn’t what I would consider particularly graphic - not a huge gash with Frankenstein level stitching [though that would be interesting. I had my throat cut for removing a parathyroid and it really wasn’t bloody either, though it looked worse because of the steristrips used to reinforce the glue.]

5

Maybe because it showed a woman’s upper chest?

6

I started a couple of threads about it way back when 13 years ago. Unfortunately the picture links are broke. The thing about tattoos, though, is still there:

[Album] Shark Tattoo

Story? I wanted to A) face my fear of needles, B) commemorate our trips to and love of Maui, and C) mark how I’m enamored with sharks. I’ve had a number of encounters with sharks there while scuba diving. At a gallery in Lahaina I saw a sumi-e style drawing of a great white, which i tried to adapt into a tattoo. I brought a sketch to a tattoo shop down the street on our last day, but the artist showed me how it needed work.

So I took out home and worked on it, following his advice - dynamic line thickness variation instead of even lines. I simplified the gills and changed the nose and face to the sleeker blue shark.

I brought it back to the same shop on our next trip. Wish I coulda gotten the same artist, but the guy I got did a fine job.

7

I was training at Ft Gordon, Ga, and one evening went into town. In a tattoo shop window was Picasso’s Dove of Peace. I’ve kicked my self so many times over the years for not getting that tat. Besides being a cool tattoo, it would really have pissed off the PTB.

8

Thirty five years ago a friend suggested four of us all get matching tattoos. I thought it was a great idea, but when I voiced my opinion my friends laughed, because they thought I’d be the one to back out.

I was embarrassed/angry. So I began asking around and met with a very popular local tattoo artist. We became friends. He did my first piece. My friends (who remain unadorned to this day) were shocked.

A few months later I discussed an idea I had to add something to my tattoo. My friend told me he had a better idea and that became our way of doing things. I’d stop by and say I had an idea and he’d say, yeah, that’s great, but first let’s do this. We kept doing this for years, until his death.

9

I don’t have a tattoo yet, but if the OP can get their first at 60, maybe I’ll do the same— I still have a couple years to decide :slightly_smiling_face:

At the beginning of the 90s, when I was still in my 20s, I knew several friends and acquaintances who got tattoos, so I seriously considered getting one. But I had a hard time deciding what I’d get that was significant enough to me that it wouldn’t be an embarrassment 20 years down the road, like a cartoon Tasmanian Devil or Calvin (yes I know two separate people who got tattoos of those).

I decided if I went through with it I’d get a Yin-Yang symbol, because I had read several translations of the Tao Te Ching and believed in a lot of its philosophic principles (even if I didn’t always follow them in my life). I was eventually glad I didn’t go through with it, because later it turned out that a Yin-Yang tattoo became one of the most common, cliche, poser tattoos out there (but if any of you have one, it’s really cool on you :wink:).

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Common cliches are things that are meaningful to lots of people. I don’t have any tattoos. But a yin yang is one i would consider. It resonates with me. It doesn’t surprise me that it resonates with lots of other people.

11

To me, tattoos are the bumper stickers of the human body; human graffiti if you will.

12

It’s my name in Chinese.

I am Chinese and I know for certain that it is my name. I did not erroneously tattoo the character for “soup” on myself.

13

If you can read this,
You’re too close.

14

My gf has one tattoo, the aiming dot used for radiation therapy. I’m friends with several local tattoo artists. Every time we run into one she gets all fired up about getting a for-reals tattoo.

15

I didn’t mean to demean people with Yin Yang symbol tattoos, especially those to whom it may have real meaning. I just meant it seemed to become the go-to for a certain type of person who just got it because it “looked cool”, and probably had no idea of the meaning behind it.

16

I have a friend with a lovely new tattoo on her chest. It incorporates the aiming dot she had for radiation therapy.

17

Before I got my tattoo I discussed it with my wife. I’d forgotten that, 20+ years ago when we started to date, when she learned that I’d been in the service she immediately asked if I had any tattoos. Of course I did not, and I probably (or may have) said that I’d never get one.

She doesn’t care for them, needless to say. So in recent years when I’d broach the topic, she started suggesting that we get matching tattoos. I thought that was a real cool idea!

Until I realized she was trying reverse psychology on me. It didn’t work.

18

I got my tattoo as a “fuck you” to my controlling abusive husband after he died. He always told me I couldn’t get a tattoo when I talked about wanting one.

I am a Scorpio, and my tattoo artist and I designed a scorpion with a rose in it’s claw. A stinger versus a rose, the classic description of a Scorpio’s personality. It’s on my shoulder, and it’s pretty small - about the size of a silver dollar.

I love it! (I don’t have a picture handy, since I’m at work.)

19

All my tats have some life landmark or pop culture fandom significance to them, or a combo of the two. Got my first when I was about 24, the logo for the band X on my back shoulder. I saw their first big reuinion show in Hollywood in 1998, not long before my time in L.A. was coming to an end, and it seemed an appropriate icon to symbolize both. I think I got to show it to D.J. Bonebrake when I ran into him on the street before a Knitters show a few years later, but my memory is fuzzy so I may have that wrong.

Numebr two was the only one I…don’t regret exactly, but I’m kinda meh about it, partly for the placement. I have an ourobouros near the base of my spine, the one from the TV show Millennium. Though Lance Henriksen did think it was cool, it’s the only one that seems like it’s out of place. Maybe I’ll get a coverup someday.

Then I didn’t get anything for about 19 years. Broke the drought with a big black star on one shoulder, replicating the cover of Bowie’s last album. Then a year later, had a big Torchwood logo put on the other shoulder. A major Whovian fandom crossed with my love of Wales spurred me into that one. By that point, I understood the addiction mentality. No matter how much it hurts in the moment (and Buddha knows, filling in the black on the star was insanely painful) as soon as it’s over you’re already thinking about what’s next.

During lockdown, I went back to the Welsh well and got a proper draig goch between my shoulder blades. The artist who’d done my Torchwood tat had gone back to her hometown when the first lockdown hit, and during the brief period when things were opening up a bit, was taking appointments out of her home. So I made the long drive, just a few days before Ontario went into second lockdown. She sadly seemed to vanish after that, so I had to get it touched up by a different artist, who added a lot of depth and shading to it.

(tried to embed a pic but the system wouldn’t let me…not sure what I’m doing wrong there)

My most recent was a Hitch-Hiker’s Guide tat that I’ve been wanting for years. I had a basic design but coudln’t figure out what should be shaded and where there should be negative space, if any. Found an artist who got the balance right, and she really punched in the colours, so I think it looks pretty amazing.

I have an appointment for one in a couple of weeks, my first to involve text. If it turns out as well as I hope, I’ll share it here.

My family, needless to say, don’t know I have any at all. My folks are of the opinion that only the deranged would get something permanent like that. Even though I’m in my late forties, I still occasionally have nightmares of changing my shirt while visiting them and getting caught out (pathetic, I know). They’re not doing all that well, so I see no need to push one of them into a heart attack by doing a big reveal.

20

That’s a setting. The SDMB doesn’t allow photos to be hosted here. If you want to show off a photo, you need to find some other place to host it, and link it. If it’s set up right, it will display inline.