Creature from the Black Lagoon Tattoos!
Just in case you missed the link that Mia sent earlier, this totally sweet backpiece (as seen on checkoutmyink.com) was done by Alfie Lamberger at Mark of the Sparks Tattoos in Frederick, Maryland. Thanks, Mia!
This inspired me to seek out some other CFTBL tattoos on the web; I found quite a few, but here are some of my favorites:
This great shot (bonus points for complementary-colored t-shirt) from BMEzine’s Sci-Fi Gallery was inked by David Antonio at Good Clean Fun Tattoo Studio in Georgia. I love the circular composition, creepy lighting, and menacing claw.
The colors, placement, and technique of this lower half-sleeve are really excellent . Bonus points for the brushstroke-lookin’ daubs of color around the edges. Tattoo by Bez at Triple Six Studios in Sunderland, UK. Photo from TattooNOW.com.
The following Monster Mash sleeve (in progress in this photo) is from welovethedark‘s flickr photostream (self-described “corporate goths”). The process from source artwork (by awesome illustrator David Hartman) to finished piece (by Charles Cain at Mark of Cain Tattoo near Boone, North Carolina) is well-documented. Excellent artwork, Excellent tattoo, excellent photos and play-by-play description. Kudos to all!
BONUS VIDEO! This song by Dave Edmunds gets stuck in my head all the time!
Random Encounters
Me: Excuse me; is that a tattoo of a dinosaur?
Girl in bar: [lifts her sleeve] Yeah.
Me [rolling up my sleeve]: That’s really great; I just got a triceratops tattoo.
Girl: That’s cool; where did you get yours done?
Me: Red Rocket Tattoo, on 36th street in Midtown.
Girl: 36th street!?! [gives me a disapproving look, as if to say, “Silly rabbit, you don’t get tattooed in Midtown!”]
Me: [hemming and hawing somewhat]: Well, it’s close to my work…
Best of Both Worlds
Mario Jedi Tattoo, originally uploaded by Official Star Wars Blog.
You may have noticed this little gem in the Geek Tattoos group on flickr; it was also posted about on the official Star Wars blog.
Evidently the wife of former Star Wars fan club president Dustin Roberts got official Star Wars artist Randy Martinez to design it, and it was inked by Chu at Mothers Tattoo in Covington, KY.
Life imitating art?
I saw these pretty purple flowers outside of Slope Music in Brooklyn and they reminded me of something…
Sorry about the quality of the photos; the flowers were taken with my crappy camera phone, and the blurry tattoo is a self portrait.
Fun with flickr
Here’s what I’ve been playing with:
- I tried the “blog this” function in flickr with underwhelming results. I can’t figure out a way to add WordPress tags using this tool to post to this blog directly from flickr.
- I started a “Dinosaur Tattoos” group and invited some people to join (8 new members — whoo-hoo!). You may have to be logged into flickr to see all the photos.
- I submitted a photo of my Triceratops tattoo to many other dinosaur- and tattoo-related photo groups, and started a discussion topic in each, plugging my new group, of course.
- I added a thumbnail feed from Devil Dinosaur‘s “Geek Tattoos” group (at right; maybe I should be bringing in a feed from the group that I own, but DD’s covers more bases).
What do you think, am I doing it wrong? Any suggestions?
Hulk Tattoo Smash!
David Spencer’s awesome Hulk tattoo (from The Incredible Hulk #224) was done by Alfie Lamberger at Marks of the Spark Tattoos, in Frederick, Maryland. More views and in-progress shots can be seen in David’s “tattoos” flickr set.
This beautiful Hulk transformation tattoo was done by Monte Agee at Artistic Skin Designs in Indianapolis. More info about Monte is available on his MySpace profile; more of his amazing portfolio on his website.
This bitchin’ Hulk vs. Wolverine tattoo (from The Incredible Hulk #181) is by Shawn Thompson at Strange City in Edmonton, Alberta. This photo from Shawn’s gallery on the Strange city site; you may have seen an earlier version of this on Horrible Tattoos or Modblog.
It’s contagious!
Triceratops and Columbines, originally uploaded by ragz1138.
This pretty great tattoo with an increasingly familiar theme was posted recently on flickr. I did a double-take when I first saw it!
I wonder if this has anything to do with all the hits I’ve been getting from people searching for “triceratops tattoo”…
(FYI, I’m trying out the “Blog this” feature on flickr; we’ll see how it turns out–I may have to go back and edit this post in WordPress anyway.)
Update: My WordPress theme overrides all the CSS styles in the flickr blog template, and the default flickr size is about 25 pixels too wide for my theme’s content column. I’ll keep futzing with the flickr template; if I can get it to work, it’ll be a real time-saver. I guess I could also look into a different WordPress theme…
Ink Buddies
Ashton is working on a book called Tattoos for Two about tattoos with a shared meaning for two or more people. In her (his?) flickr group, there are lots of great photos of photos commemorating love, friendship, family, and departed loved ones. Thanks to Carl Zimmer for the heads-up.
These cute Brontosaurus buddies from eggandtoast‘s flickr photostream aren’t part of Ashton’s project (yet), but they should be!
I was well into reading some of the stories Ashton has collected before I remembered that my first tattoo is shared by 3 of my closest friends (one of these days I’ll post pictures and the whole story). In addition to the “shared experience” thing, it seems like “buddy tattoos” are a common way people get up the nerve to get a tattoo in the first place.
Shannon has posted lots of buddy tattoos on BMEzine’s ModBlog, as well (WARNING: some of these images may not be suitable for work!).
Ink Nerd 
Chatter