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?
Lots of bands seem to have tattoed members from the Red Hot Chili Peppers to Green Day and even Avril Lavigne has tattoos.  They range from the ordinary star tattoo, tribal arm bands, random pictures of smoking babies, scorpians, and lettering of different styles, just to name a few.  Sometimes people like to watch the band members during videos or concerts to see if they can pick out a new tattoo that someone has gotten.  They make a game out of it, seeing who can pick out the newest tattoo first.  Who knows what the winner gets.  Probably just kudos from their friends, which is more than it’s worth anyhow!

It might make you think that if you were to get enough tattoos, maybe you too could become a rock star.  Obviously it wouldn’t be an overnight thing since your tattoos can’t be placed overnight.  Or at least not enough tattoos to become rockstar-worthy, which is a good thing because while you’re taking the time to get enough tattoos to be a rocker, you can also spend some time with singing lessons or learning to play an instrument while your tats heal.  That way, when all your tats are ready to show the public and the cover of Rolling Stone, you might have some kind of musical talent to back you up incase nobody likes your skin art.

Or, go out and get yourself a load of tattoos just because you like tattoos.  Who says you have to be a rockstar to have tattoos?  Then, once you’re all tattooed up and looking like a rockstar, go out and have a good time.  And if you have some musical talent to go along with your look, go for it!  Or just have a good time playing by yourself and jamming with friends and enjoying your tats.

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.
City scapes with the hero standing on top of a building looking down like a protector could be an interesting tattoo, especially if the artist can capture the depth of field in the background of the city, like the picture above, with the moon in sky and the buildings in the distance.  A large piece like a sleeve or an enormous backdrop on the back would make for quite the conversation starter wherever the wearer was to show it off.

Of course, the choice of super hero or comic book can add or take away from the tattoo’s impressiveness, no matter how good the artist is.  An old Daffy Duck comic book or Duck Dodgers tattoo might prove less impressive than a monsterous Conan the Barbarian tattoo with swords and scenes of battle.  There’s no sense looking like a comic book nerd unless you’re going to do it in a way that strikes fear into the hearts of small children, right?  Batman isnt very scarey, unless you’re one of his arch enemies, but a nice battle scene from one of the Conan comics could put you up there into the cool crew because, lets face it, they probably have never read a Conan comic in their life so how are they going to know you’re a comic book nerd??

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.
Animal portraits of a favorite pet or breed might be an easier choice, since many animals share similar traits and can be easily duplicated on paper and in ink on a canvas of human skin.  Of course the artists work should still be looked at closely before deciding if you want them to do your pet’s portrait.  There’s no sense getting a tattoo that looks like a cat when you were trying to get a portait of your bulldog placed on your shoulder.

Another way to accomplish an acceptable tattoo of a person would be to have it cartoonized.  This way the picture does not have to look realistic or human, somewhat like a caricature.  Cartoonized images are easier to do tattoos of, even to do images on paper first, and can be pleasing to the eye as well, without requiring the intense detail that a realistic portrait or picture requires.

Having an accurate image to work from is also important when getting a portrait done as a tattoo.  If the picture is too small or not enough detail is present, it will be difficult for the artist to make a quality tattoo from that picture.  Even more difficult would be to bring along the person of interest, especially if that person happened to be a baby.  A lot of people like to have an image of their newborn baby placed somewhere on their body.  A significant other might sit around for an hour or three while you have their face tattooed on your body but that might ruin the surprise, don’t you think?  Just take a picture.  They say pictures last longer anyway so you might as well have a long lasting tattoo made from a long lasting picture.

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.
Homemade tattoo guns are also available or at least the instructions on how to build them are available.  For just a few dollars, you can throw together a tattoo gun pretty quickly with a motor, some ink, and a few items that might already be laying around your house.  Of course the quality of the tattoo is limited to not only the skill and experience of the tattoo artist but also it is limited by the quality of the tattoo gun.  So if you’re planning on doing this in the privacy of your own home, or your non-professional tattoo artist friend’s home, make sure you at least attempt to put together a decent homemade tattoo gun.

With enough practice, even a homemade tattoo can end up looking pretty decent.  It might even lead the homemade tattoo practitioner to become a legitimate artist, using real inks and real tattoo guns.  After all, every tattoo artist had to start somewhere, right?

The inks that are used can be real tattoo inks or they can be inks straight from a pen in your desk, although the tattoo inks will probably last longer and look better overall.  Who knows what prison inks are made with, probably ashes from cigarettes and anything else they can come up with that will dye the skin.

If you are afraid to practice on yourself and leave possible permanent damage or infection as the only evidence, you can always build the tattoo gun and then practice on fruit.  They say practicing on oranges and pears is a great way to get some experience holding the gun and drawing with it.  If you’re not afraid to make a mess of yourself, by all means go right ahead and start sticking yourself with that homemade needle.  Just make sure you’re clean about it and you take pics and send them in so the whole world can look at it.  Designs are readily available everywhere you look on the internet, or you might be able to create something decent on your own.

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.
He’s been on talk shows, mostly in Germany, speaking about his tattoos and his other nicknames, which he has yet to have tattooed on himself.  Maybe because there’s not enough room to put “Mr. Lover Lover” on his body six times until he gets rid of the Mr. Cool Ice.

As has been said before, people might have ugly tattoos, or at least they seem ugly to other people, but if the person wearing the tattoo is happy with it, maybe that’s ok.  Maybe.  He seems to be living off the fame, somewhat, with his tv appearances and people recognizing him on the street, if only they are recognizing him to laugh at him.  Still, it remains to be seen if other people would actually want that kind of fame or publicity.  It seems like a hefty price to pay, having such um.. interesting tattoos on the body, for just a little publicity and whatever money the talk shows are paying him.  To each his own and everything but it seems like the guy is going to have to keep doing talkshows and guest appearances to make money just to pay for his wacky tattoos.  If he had left the tattoos off in the first place, he wouldn’t have to do the talk shows to pay for the tat because he wouldn’t have them!  You see the irony?  Mr Cool Ice would then become the Mr. Blank Canvas, unnoticed by the public and the internet and the German talkshow hosts.

Oddly enough, the armband tattoos seem to be more popular with men than they do with women.  Perhaps due to the fact that men are seen to more frequently bare their upper arm, biceps, triceps region then women do.  Men have always thought to impress women by building big arm muscles and showing them off by wearing sleeveless shirts or tank tops.  Now they have another reason to bare their arms and that is to show off their armband tattoos.

Of course women can get armband tattoos if they want to as much as a man can but it just seems to be that women are not as interested in that kind of tattoo as the male species are.  Again possibly due to the showoff appeal that an armband tattoo has.  While men like the armband tattoos, a woman might prefer to get a tattoo in the small of her back, maybe of a butterfly or a fairie or a dolphin.  Dolphins seem to be more popular with women than men.  Wherever possible, try and put a dolphin tattoo that looks like a butterfly.  That would sell tons of tattoos.  There is an image on the internet somewhere of a guy with a few dolphins on his back but he has a few other images on there along with the dolphins that lead some people to believe that he’s not quite as manly as the first glance at a large piece of tattoo art would lead you to believe.  We will let you look for it and judge for yourself.  Yes.  It’s that bad of a tattoo.

That’d be kind of cool as well.  I suppose if I ever get the chance to do some firefighting or become a paramedic or EMT, I will get myself another tattoo.  The ones I have now have nothing to do with work because that would be silly since I’m a programmer.  What would I get, some line of code or a Microsoft symbol?  Sorry Bill Gates but I’m not that big a fan of yours that I’m going to give you free advertising.  I’m also not silly enough to put some kind of VB code on me.  That’s way too nerdy for me, even though I’m nerdy.

My brother and father have both been in the health service industry with my brother being a registered nurse and my father having been a captain in the fire department and a paramedic as well.  I suppose in a way it’s in our blood.  Once I become an EMT, I will put that in my blood as well.  A big EMT logo somewhere on my body, probably my bare left shoulder, because it will be an accomplishment I have been waiting to do for a number of years.  It would be great to mark it as complete in a ceremony located in a tattoo parlor, in big bold vibrant colors for all the world to see.  Well, to see when my shirt has hit the floor.

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.
It’s kind of similar to the woman who took 10,000 and let an artist tattoo Golden Palace.com across her forehead.  She says she did it to pay for her son’s school fees.  I’m sorry but if his school cost that much, he should be going somewhere else.  He’ll be out of that school in a few years and she will still have goldenpalace.com in huge dark letters across her forehead.  I’m not sure what kind of compensation Matthew has received, if any, but it doesn’t seem like it would be enough when you consider the possible consequences.  Unless he’s wearing sunglasses all the time, it will be difficult for him to get any kind of job that allows him to present his face to a customer.  On a positive note, there are tons of jobs available online if he’s internet savvy.  He could start up his own e-business or maybe sell some e-books about his experiences while running around town with glasses on his face.  The tattooed glasses on his face.  Maybe he could shave his head and a hat company could offer to pay him if he tattoos a beanie on his noggin?

In any case, he’s getting his few minutes of fame and now Ray Ban is getting its name in the news.  Sure, people might be bashing them for having that poor kid place a hideous life altering tattoo on his face just for the companies benefit but sometimes even bad publicity is good publicity, at least that’s probably how Ray Ban see’s it.

Often the tattoos of the yakuza are hand poked meaning no machines are used to create the tattoos. The ink is inserted into the skin by use of very sharp hand made needles or bamboo. This process can take years and is very painful and very expensive.

Like American mobster movies, there have been movies made about the yakuza as well. Within the movie actors are given fake tattoos covering their bodies, made to look like real Japanese yakuza. Even the women have been known to receive tattoos, some more prominent and detailed than others. Mostly it is the wives or mistresses of yakuza members that have the tattoos. The daughter of a yakuza had herself tattooed very intricately and also wrote a book on the subject of her bring the daughter of a gangster.

Originally, centuries ago the Shogun would have criminals tattooed so that society would be able to tell them apart from law abiding citizens. Eventually the tattooed criminals began to band together to create a team, sticking together and working together and eventually becoming an organized type of gang which has now evolved into the Yakuza. Of course the tattoos from the Shogun era were nothing near as detailed and complex as the tattoos seen on Yakuza members today. Unfortunately there are very few pictures or documentation of what the tattoos looked like that were given to criminals back in that time. Supposedly it was only a black ring around the arm and more black rings were added each time a new conviction was earned. Some yakuza have been known to use black rings around their arm to symbolize how many people they have killed.

However, should they find some stable forms of UV ink, it could be interesting to do all of your tattoos with that ink.  Standing on a beach in the sun, nothing would show other than some light scarring from the tattoo machine.  Standing on the dance floor within a club where there are black lights, your tattoos would light up the stage, so to speak.

Other methods for using the UV ink would be to have your tattoos outlined.  The best way to make this process work is to have the tattoo you would like to be outlined created on your body with normal inks first.  Once that tattoo has healed, have the artist use the UV inks to outline whatever portions of your current tattoo that you wish to have glowing under a black light.  Since the colors in UV inks do not normally last and stay vibrant, this is the best way to maintain your coloring when your tattoo is being seen in the light as opposed to a black light.

As with the tattoo in the picture, the UV inks could also be used to portray depth similar to realistic looking tattoos that show bones or skin being torn apart.  The UV tattoos could be used to portray the image of someone’s skeleton showing thru their skin as if they are standing in front of an airport x-ray machine.  This could really confuse investigators especially with the new full body x-ray machines they are placing in airports.  Although the effect would really only work if the airport was also using a black light at the same time you were being x-rayed.  A person could come out of the x-ray machine; shine a black light on their arm showing their tattooed bones and say “what have you done to me??”