The Red Hot Chili Peppers are just one of many bands on the market today that have multiple tattoos between the members.  Supposedly bass player Flea has the most tattoos within the band but that remains up for debate.

Some have to wonder why band members always seem to be so fascinated with getting tattoos.  Find me a band that doesn’t have a single member with a tattoo and you’ll have found an all girl band or maybe a tweener band, with pretty boys singing in falsetto voices and going to bed before 9pm.

Did the band get together to play music or did they get together to get tattoos?  It makes a person wonder, doesn’t it?  Is getting tattoos a right of passage for band members, or is playing in a band a right of passage for people who like to get tattoos?

continue reading "Red Hot Tattoos"

Having a love for comic books can sometimes label you as a nerd.  Having a love for tattoos can sometimes label you as a rebel or a toughguy.  So what happens if you get tattoos with comic book characters on them?  Do they cancel each other out and you just become a normal average human being with no label?  Or maybe superhero comic book tattoos turn you into a SUPERHERO!  Or not.

No matter if they turn you into a superhero or a supergeek, comic books are filled with lively colors and striking images that would be excellent pieces of art to be used as a tattoo.  That is, provided you can get yourself a tattoo artist that can recreate the talent that was used in the comic book.  Some recreations are not quite what the buyer was expecting.

Although most tattoos are simply tracing over a few lines that have been transferred onto the persons body, there are times when extra colors and shading are needed to make the picture pop or come to life.  This experience and artistic talent are what is needed for most comic book type recreations, as seen in the picture attached.  A character by themselves, without a detailed background, would be easier to make into a tattoo but sometimes a colorful background can be used to help make the image pop out to the viewer.

continue reading "Just Your Friendly Neighborhood Arm Crawler"

Even Sylvester Stallone, star of the many Rocky series of movies, enjoys the occasional tattoo.  In this particular picture, he is showing off a portrait style tattoo with the image of his wife.  Getting a portrait tattoo done is risky business.  If you have seen some of the other portrait tattoos placed onto people, you would know why.  Sly’s tattoo looks pretty good, however.

The problem with portrait tattoos is that portraits are hard to draw realistically on paper alone, let alone trying to draw one on someones skin while holding a heavy vibrating needle in the process.  Lifelike portraits take a great deal of skill to draw and even if that artist is able to recreate one perfectly on paper, there’s no telling if they can recreate it again on the skin.  That’s why choosing the perfect tattoo artist to do your portrait is very important.  Make sure to check many samples of their portrait type tattoos and, if available, match them up against the pictures they used as a reference.

continue reading "Its not Adrienne but it will do"

With so many people getting tattoos these days, walking into a tattoo parlor and picking a tat design off the wall for your newest ink work can lead to you having the same tattoo as someone else on the planet.  Tattoos are somewhat mainstream now which means, if you go to a parlor to have them place one of their designs on your body, chances are you will not end up being unique.  This is where homemade tattoos come into play.

With a homemade tattoo, even if you happen to use a design that you have seen on the internet and copied, there’s a good chance your image or tattoo will come out unique and different.  Especially if the person doing that tattoo for you is not a professional.

continue reading "Homie"

Yea, bad tattoos are all over the planet.  There are tattoos that should not even be mentioned in public, let alone placed in a blog for all the world to see and be disgusted by.  This guy, Mr Cool Ice, has some pretty interesting tattoos.  Some people would say they’re “bad”, some would say they’re hideous.  He happens to like them and I think that’s what is important.  Right?  No?  Yes?

Ok, who are we kidding?  What in the world posessed this guy to do that to himself?  And not only are the capitalizations inconsistent (he has Mr. CooL ICE on the front, Mr. Cool ICE on the back, who knows what he has on his shoulders) but he apparently paid over six thousand dollars for all his body mods.  The skull on his stomach is interesting.  So are the sunglasses on said skull.  I suppose those go along with the sunglasses he has tattooed on the back of his head.  But how many times does he have to get “cool ice” tattooed on him for people to get the picture?  Maybe he should have had a nametag tattoed on his chest instead, so people would get the message he seems to be trying to get across.

continue reading "Ice Cold"

Don’t get me wrong, I’m just as patriotic as the next guy.  I’m all about fighting for our country and standing up for what we believe in and grieving for the loss of so many people on 9-11.  But, that tattoo is over the top.  A painting like that would be really cool and could get a lot of publicity and maybe even draw in some donations at a fundraiser or something.  Unless this guy wants to stand up against a wall at an art show, I don’t think any money will be raised from that tattoo.

continue reading "Twin towers tattoo"

Too bad Tom Cruise didn’t think about this back in the 80’s when he was running around in the movie Risky Business, sporting a pair of Ray Ban’s and smoking cigarettes.  This guy, Matthew, had glasses, or should I say glasses frames, tattooed on his face.  Yea.

His facebook has quite a few comments and not good ones, apparently, as does his YouTube video.  He had someone take video of the whole ordeal from the artist tracing his Ray Ban’s outline onto his face, the entire process of putting the ink in his skin, and the aftermath which you see in the photo above.  Many people have said “what are you thinking?”  and “good luck getting a job”.  I think he looks a little like a superhero.  Maybe he can find a job at an amusement park.
What was not originally told as part of his story was that Ray Ban sunglasses put him up to it as some form of advertising.  Sure, Matthew got his 15 minutes of fame on the internet and people will probably forever recognize him as the silly guy that got a really old style of Ray Ban’s tattooed onto his face.  However, I think Ray Ban is going to be the ones who really profit from this stunt.  Or, they’ll get in big trouble.

continue reading "Nice glasses!"

Some of the most fascinating and intricate tattoos in the world belong to what the Japanese call the Yakuza, a very large Japanese crime syndicate. The process of getting the tattoos, that sometimes cover their entire body, has become somewhat of a ritual, displaying the person’s feelings towards fitting in with society and its rules. Because of the tattoos and their known history in Japan, some establishments will not allow person’s with tattoos to come inside.

continue reading "Yakuza"

There are quite a few people out there these days with nice looking tattoo sleeves up and down their arms.  Some more intricate than others, some badly done, but most have the same drawbacks – in order to get a job in corporate America, the sleeves of their shirts would have to go all the way down to the ends of their wrists.  For some that would not be in issue but for others, who might choose to work in a place that allows the wearing of t-shirts or short sleeved shirts, they  might not want to wear a long sleeve shirt every day.  One solution that might work for this is getting a sleeve of tattoos using UV ink.

continue reading "The wrist bones connected to the arm bone"