It’s a matter of carefully choosing tribal tattoos that will add art to the body and provide self-expression as well.

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From the very beginning of time, no doubt, it’s been true that any part of the human body that could be tattooed, would be.   Until recently, though, eyeballs were only tattooed to cover up imperfections, and the work was done by doctors.

It is now possible, with the help of the right artist, to re-color the whites of your eyes.  The process has to be done with a syringe, not a regular tattoo needle.  Color is injected just under the surface and spreads out.  All reports indicate that this is an incredibly painful procedure.

Here is a recent story from the Huffington Post about a couple of guys who got the eyeball tattoos done in prison.  Apparently it is one way to prove how tough you are.  No kidding.  Given the decidedly nonsterile environment in prison cells, and the decidedly nontraditional equipment available to do the job, it’s a wonder these guys lived to tell the tale.  Whether they’ll still have their eyesight a year or two down the road, who knows?

Ordinarily my attitude toward body art and body mods is “whatever floats your boat.”  Tongue splitting, lizard spots, plastic beads under the skin, whatever.  But to deliberately put your eyes in jeopardy?  This is the only time I have found myself saying out loud, “What were they THINKING!!!”

There are quite a few web sites out there devoted to eye tattoos / scleral tattooing / etc.  I’m not going to link to them, because the few I looked at while researching this post made me queasy.  It’s my blog and I ain’t a-gonna make myself sick. 

What do you think about this?  Do you have any tattoos in less-common places yourself?
photo credit: dullhunk

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I tend to favor colored tattoos.  I think it’s because I’ve seen so many old tattoos where the black ink has changed color, spread around, or faded out.  The black ink on my ankle tattoo spread, and what was once a fairly attractive Eye of Horus looks pretty amateurish today despite a second artist’s best attempts to make it look better.

From what I’ve seen over the years, the monochrome tattoos can be more elaborate and have finer lines, and certainly there is some amazing fine-line work being done today.  Portraits, especially, can be incredibly lifelike, and some of the tribal designs are amazingly intricate.  For those, adding color would be a mistake.

But on the other hand, there’s nothing like a full-color masterpiece.  The nuances of shading and color, in the hands of a skillful artist, rival artwork on any other kind of surface–and tattoo artists don’t have the luxury of being to erase and start over.  Plus the field of view is somewhat obscured by the ink that’s being wiped away while the process is going on.  And yet when you watch the process the artist makes it all look so easy. 

I’m still mulling over getting another tattoo, and it will be in color.  I’ve already mentioned that it will be somewhere that’s usually visible, probably a bracelet, but I might also get a half sleeve or a design on my calf.  That will depend a lot on the amount of money I’ll have available when the time comes.  Good work is well worth paying for.  I will have to work carefully on the design, though, given the issues I’ve had with red ink on my last tattoo (a shame, because I like a wide spectrum of colors) and go to an artist who doesn’t dig too deep like the creator of that now-smudged ankle design.

Which kind of design do you prefer?  One color?  Fine line? Full color?  I’d be interested to hear what you all have to say.

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Ever notice how at this time of year, advertisers are all about “the big game”?  Seems the phrase “Super Bowl” is copyrighted and nobody can use it without paying for it.  Good thing the Super Ball was invented before the Super Bowl, hmm?

In honor of this weekend’s major wingding, here’s another bad-tattoo site:  Sports Worst Tattoos.  Don’t be eating those corn chips or drinking that beer while you look. 

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Once you go looking for whoopsiedoodles by non-native speakers of various languages, the fun never ends.

I have a link to Hanzi Smatter (for Asian character stupidity) in my Blogroll, and it’s well worth a look if you think you really really want something in an Asian alphabet.

Today’s discovery is Bad Hebrew Tattoos.  It never ceases to amaze me the amount of trouble one can get into, not actually being able to write a language. 

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I”ve already talked about people who get Asian characters they don’t understand inked on themselves.  It appears that Asian languages are not alone.

Thanks to Tales of a Wayward Classicist for this lovely discussion of bad Latin tattoos.

It seems there’s no end to the stuff people don’t know they’re putting on their skin. 

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When I got my tattoos, I was employed.  Where I worked when I got my first tattoo, the dress code said that tattoos were not to be visible (although I never knew of anyone getting disciplined for breaking that rule).  The second place I worked had no specific rule about tattoos, but the general feeling among our managers was that “professional attire” did not include visible ink.  So I chose to have all my ink placed where I could easily cover it up with clothing.

Now, however, being retired, and being the age that I am, I am thinking seriously about getting another tattoo that will be visible.  I’m leaning toward an elaborate bracelet, or maybe a half sleeve that ties in with my first tattoo, my seven stars.  I’m not sure exactly how I’d go about that, but I have been mulling over asking my favorite artist, Kythera of Anevern, to draw me a mythical being of some kind that would work well with stars.  I’d get the colors touched up on the stars at the same time, since over the last 12 years they have faded quite a bit.

The stars are visible already if I wear the right neckline, and when they are visible I get asked about them a lot.  I like that.  I’d like to have something else that’s easy to display, which is one reason I’m thinking bracelet.  The first time I really notice how great a tattoo could look was when I saw a picture of the bracelet Janis Joplin had done. Up to that time I was still just drawing a little green flower doodle on my ankle. 

If you have visible ink, where do you have it, and why did you choose to have it visible rather than hidden?  I’d like to hear what other people think about this particular issue.  And I’m still mulling over my designs.

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OK, a post that’s not directly tattoo related–but it’s relevant. 

People get asked if their tats are going to sag or stretch, or get told they shouldn’t get inked precisely because the skin is inevitably going to sag or stretch.  I would venture to guess that most of us don’t give a hoot about that, at least when it comes to deciding to get tattooed.  But in general…  well, we should be concerned.

Like most people my size, I’ve gained and lost weight many times over the years.  I was thinking of it as more or less inevitable.  But during the last six months I became aware of something.  Both my husband and son lost a noticeable amount of weight.  They didn’t change what they ate.  What they did change was how much they walked around.  (Or, rather, their jobs changed that for them.)

Could it really be just as simple as that?  A lot of the supermarket magazines have certainly said so for a long time.  There’s never a cover that doesn’t say “walk off the weight” on it somewhere.  I know when I was working at the big box store and on my feet all day, I lost 50 pounds without doing anything different at all.  So it wasn’t as though I didn’t know what was good for me.

This year, I have done two things.  I got a copy of The Step Diet, and I got a FitBit.  The Step Diet comes with its own basic pedometer, and I used that while I was waiting for my FitBit to arrive (more about the FitBit in a moment).  The book lays out a simple plan for getting more exercise in a day, and gives you goals to consider.  It also has a very simple plan for cutting down the amount that you eat, painlessly.  It’s not, in the usual sense of the word, a “diet” at all.  Head on over to your local public library and see if they’ve got a copy (it likely won’t have the pedometer attached) and see what you think.

The FitBit is a brand new gadget, that uses some of the same technology as a Wii controller.  It can tell you how many steps and how far you’ve gone in a day.  It can also tell you how long you’ve sat on your ass doing nothing.  I needed that.    It can tell you how long and how restfully you’ve slept, if you want.  It can tell you how active you’ve been.  It’s also noticeably pricier than a plain old pedometer.  However, for me, that’s more motivation.  I sure wouldn’t want to let $100 go to waste, and I bet that’s true for a lot of people.

So, while my tats are not on skin that’s likely to stretch or sag much before I kick off, I’m doing my best to turn the body they’re on into something smaller and fitter.  And honestly, it’s been painless so far.

Have you done anything to lose weight or get in shape that you’d like to share with the rest of us?  I for one can always use more suggestions on how to get a move on and display my ink on a better body.

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The upgrade to the blog is done.  You may see some odd characters in the posts.  I am not sure what caused that, some artifact of the database restoration process, most likely.  But everything’s present and accounted for, and with any luck I won’t have to go through that process again for a while.

New posts as soon as I have time to breathe!

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The Catster web site just posted an article entitled “Tatts on Cats?” Some nut case had a Sphynx cat anaesthetized so the cat could be tattooed with a picture of King Tut.

As a tattooed person and a cat lover, words simply cannot express my disgust.

What do you think? You can read the article here.
photo credit: Vironevaeh

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