Coelacanth Is Watching You…
The coelacanth is one ugly prehistoric fish. The cool thing about it is that it's post-historic, too! (Or at least, um, regular historic…)
From what I can tell, all of the collectors pictured below have three things in common: they like fish, they feel some connection to the concept of "survival", and they are nerdy enough to get a big tattoo of a living fossil.
This beauty adorns Mary McCarthy (no artist info available). Photo from The Love Lab, which seems to be a fish science website. How awesome is it that they have a "tattoos" section?
Arne Kuilman's piece (by Jan-Paul of Admiraal Tattoo in Amsterdam) is a nice balance of realistic and stylized. He's got some great shots in various stages of tattooage, as well as some cool source images in his flickr photostream. Lots of info about coelacanths in his captions, too. I didn't know, for instance, that the coelacanth's typical "headstand" is about 30 degrees.
Flickr member kittenhiccups says the real story behind her coelacanth (no artist info available) has to do with "evolution, beauty, horror, life, death, defying expectations, surviving
against all odds, my own phobias, and a bunch of symbolic stuff that
means more to me than I can say," but if you ask, the answer you're more likely to get
is, "I just think they're cool, I guess."
Hans Rueffert (contestant on the first season of The Next Food Network Star!) chronicles his tattoo experience on his blog. His coelacanth tells the story of his victorious battle with stomach cancer (extra nerd points because the numbers within the scales spell out "cancer" numerically). Tattoo by Deano, no shop or location info listed; based on original artwork by Richard Kirk.
I never pass up an opportunity to plug the geek-licious tattoos on Carl Zimmer's Sciece Tattoo Emporium, and this coelacanth tattoo (by Craig Cooley, currently tattooing at Stingray Body Art in Boston, MA) on Vicki Rosenswieg's abdomen is certainly plug-worthy. Here's an in-progress shot, as well.
Rusty Piton's "mysterious coelacanth", by Alex Higgens at the Tattoo Factory in Chicago, IL.
Flickr member pczoide gave me the idea for this post by adding his Japanese koi-inspired coelacanth to my Dinosaur Tattoos pool. More shots of this tattoo in progress and after later sessions in his "Finding Nemo" set. I can't wait to see this one completed; I think it will be my favorite one! Tattoo by Davi Duarte at Estúdio Muito Além de Tatuagem in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil.
Matching Tardis Tattoos!
via www.flickr.com
Tardis tattoos by Boris the Russian at South
Tacoma Tattoo in Lakewood, WA.
Sci-Fi Surrealism
Dali-inspired AT-AT by Paul at Old School Tattoo in Bellingham, Washington.
Really, this excellent piece by Paul at Old School Tattoo in Bellingham, Washington had me at “AT-AT,” but this collector’s idea to make it unique by incorporating elements of Salvador Dali’s recurring spindly-legged elephants is pretty awesome.
The Elephants, by Salvador Dali, c. 1948
Quoth Dali, “I am painting pictures which make me die for joy, I am creating with an absolute naturalness, without the slightest aesthetic concern, I am making things that inspire me with a profound emotion and I am trying to paint them honestly.”
If you say so…
via ModBlog
So much for sanity…
Speaking of H.P. Lovecraft (weren’t we?), this torso piece by the incredible Jesse Smith (originally spotted on Rate My Ink) is astoundingly awesome:
.jpg "Necronomicon tattoo by Jesse Smith")
Necronomicon tattoo by Jesse Smith
So creepy how she smiles as her eyes bleed/melt, with Cthulhu looming in the background.
Although The Necronomicon is a fictional book created by Lovecraft, many authors since have referenced it in their work.
Lovecraft approved, believing such common allusions built up “a background of evil verisimilitude.” Many readers have believed it to be a real work, with booksellers and librarians receiving many requests for it; pranksters have listed it in rare book catalogues, and a student smuggled a card for it into the Yale University Library’s card catalog. (Wikipedia)
All I know is that this is one of the most impressive tattoos I’ve ever seen. More views here, here, and here.
This one’s for Dark Slope.
Stegosaurus (Tattoo) Stampede!
I’m partial to Cretaceous beasties, myself, but the Jurassic classic Stegosaurus seems to be popular these days in my Dinosaur Tattoos group on Flickr! Additions in reverse chronological order:
MC Mikey Megatron's "Stegosaurus"
This is such a great start to MC Mikey Megatron‘s dinosaur “pantleg”. (“Stocking”? Either of those terms working for you?) I can’t wait to see the next installment! Tattoo by Evan Lovett at Bayside Ink Tattoo in Beachwood, NJ.
littlest foot's "little stego, pile of dinos"
Littlest foot shows off her cute stego tattoo by Ethan at Brass City Tattoo in Waterbury, CT. She also has a colorful (and also cute) half sleeve featuring a pair of “apatosauruseseseseses” done at Hartford County Tattoo in Bristol, CT!
Stego tattoo from Cossix's photostream
I like this little guy! Interesting how it is in the same position as MC Mikey Megatron’s; bonus ink nerd points to anyone who can find a link to the source artwork! I asked Cossix for info about tattooer or tattooee (this collector seems to be female… Tatooine, perhaps? Sorry, I couldn’t resist.), but got no response.
UPDATE: Briana has informed us that she is the Tatooine, and this stego was done by one of the artists at Marks of Art in San Jose, CA!
maurosourousrex's baby stego tattoo
We’ve been following the progress of maurosourousrex’s baby stego tattoo for a while now, and are looking forward to the “waterfall and possible tree still to come”. I love the the blue and green (and purple!) color scheme and the interesting markings; it reminds me of a tropical fish! No word yet on artist or locale.
Roulettedares00's stegosaurus skeleton tattoo
We first saw Roulettedares00‘s meticulously detailed stego skeleton on Carl Zimmer’s Science Tattoo Emporium, and we were very pleased when he saw fit to add it to the Dinosaur Tattoos group. In case you’re interested, it seems to be based on this illustration by pre-eminent paleontologist Othniel Charles Marsh done in 1896.
This man, by the way, is a walking museum of nerd ink, representing a trifecta close to my own heart: Star Wars (Hoth, no less! The best part of all 6 movies!), dinosaurs, and comics. If he gets a Lego tattoo, I will found the Official Church of Roulettedares00 of Latter Day Ink Nerds, or, at the very least, swear eternal fealty to my true liege. A “Mutants in Asgard” tattoo would also qualify for this honor.
UPDATE: All of Roulettedares00’s tattoos were done by Myles Karr, currently working at Saved Tattoo in Brooklyn!
The Gnome's dinosaur tattoos
One of the very first members of the group was The Gnome, who gets bonus ink points for symmetry with these two excellent specimens. No artist info available.
Thanks to everybody who has submitted photos to the Dinosaur Tattoos group; keep ’em coming!
One More D20 Tattoo
Tattoo by Tim Victim
I can’t believe I forgot this one when I did my post about D&D dice tattoos. I discovered Tim Victim while looking for dinosaur tattoos, and I’m really impressed with his work. Also, his shop, Deep Six Laboratory, is in Philadelphia, which I have an irrational affinity for (and not just because of the show; maybe it’s the nice fossil lady at the museum?).
The following tattoo by Tim and Jeff Paetzold (of Topnotch Tattoos in Elgin, IL) is really awesome. Once I finish my dinosaurs-and-flowers sleeve (ha!), I’m thinking I would like to have my other arm tattooed with a dragon of some sort (maybe a twisty Midgard Serpent?), and I think the style of this collaboration would be perfect for such a piece (especially the alligator part).
Alligator and Shark Tattoo from BMENews
Now I just need to win the lottery and get those guys in the same room again…
Holy Tattoo Blogs, Batman!
I saw this delicious blog devoted to pin-up girl tattoos over on Needled this morning. Yowza! What Marisa failed to mention is that Raised by Puffins also maintains a blog about owl tattoos and one about, you guessed it, Batman tattoos!
I’ve been contemplating a Batman tattoo post for a while now, but there are so many out there that I didn’t know where to start (especially due to all the hype re: The Dark Knight)! Thanks RbP, for doing the hard work for me!
Here are a couple of highlights:
Tattoo by Matt Kolling (from Batman tattoos).
Tattoo by Bez on Batman Tattoos
Raised by Puffins, you should really check out the work of Electric Pick! Not only does he have a killer signature style of pin-up girl, he’s recently posted an update of his awesome Batman “pantleg” (is the term catching on yet?).
Batman pantleg by Electric Pick
I think RbP should combine two of his tattoo passions and do a blog about Harley Quinn tattoos! I’d subscribe!
Ink Nerds I Have Known: Ezra
High Roller by Heather O'Shaughnessey
My good pal Ezra’s awesomely nerdy flaming 8- and 12-sided dice (showing “7” and “11,” no less) were inked by Heather O’Shaughnessey at Trader Bob’s Tattoo Shop in St. Louis, MO (she’s also responsible for my Red Squares).
This tattoo inspired me to do a post with as many images of D&D dice as I could find, but it turns out I’m not the first in the blogosphere to have that idea. Here are a couple of really great collections, with surprisingly little overlap:
- “Aaawwwww YEAH! D20 Tattoos!” by Reis O’Brien on Geek Orthodox.
- “Roll a d20 for awesome tattoos” by Alice on Fun Vampires (nice favicon!).
So flaming D&D dice are not as uncommon as I would have thought. The tattoos with slogans (a la “High Roller”) are the best, however, including “Roll 4 Damage, Bitch,” “That’s How I Roll,” and “Leave No Die Behind.” (Evidently there’s a lot of love for 12-siders out in the tattooed gamer community… Who knew?)
Here are a couple more that Reis and Alice (both of whom sport D20 tattoos) somehow missed:
The first, found in BMEzine’s “Dice” keyword gallery, gets bonus tattoo points for working on two levels: nerdy gamer tattoo and cosmic art piece, but loses nerd points for disguising a nerdy gamer tattoo as a cosmic art piece. Cere‘s tattoo was done by John Clue at Super 88 Tattoo in Massapequa, NY.
The second (below), found in Devil Dinosaur’s Geek Tattoos flickr group, gets bonus nerd points for including the non-standard 30-sided die; double-TRIPLE bonus nerd points for including three 6-sided dice (for rolling ability scores the old-fashioned way) and two 10-siders (percentile dice, for generating numbers from 1 to 100)! No information about artist or collector, except that the latter attended Ohayocon ’08.
Extra-mondo nerd points to anyone who spots what’s wrong with this picture….
Long time, no post…
Sorry I haven’t posted in a while; I’ve been using my allotted blogging time to work on an Ink Nerd redesign. It’s actually in such an early stage that I shouldn’t even mention it yet, but what the the hell! Maybe I’ll post a couple of mockups and see what you guys think before I actually build out the CSS…
In the meantime, here’s flickr member djmark1972, a true ink nerd:
I first saw Mark’s tattooed digits on knuckletattoos.com, and decided to stalk him on flickr. Not only is he an ink nerd, he’s a punk rock coffee nerd! Truly a man after my own heart… Sorry, no information (yet) about the tattoo artist. Tattoo by JJ at Iron Cross Tattoo in Santa Barbara, CA.
Speaking of knuckletattoos.com, have you guys ever played around with their knuckle tattoo gun? It’s fun:
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!
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.
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.
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!).
Ain’t nothin’ like the real thing, baby…
While in Philadelphia, I stopped by the Academy of Natural Sciences, to check out their Hall of Dinosaurs, and I lucked out!
Not only did they have this excellent triceratops skull (it’s as big as me!), but in the fossil prep lab off to the side of the Hall, museum staff were working on cleaning and assembling triceratops fossils!
More photos (click to enlarge):
I spoke with the nice paleontologist lady in the fossil lab for a while (you can see her arms working on a cast of a big fossil in the first thumbnail photo, above), and she encouraged me to volunteer to help out with the fossil prep. When I told her I lived in a different city, she said some of their volunteers only come in once a month… don’t tempt me!
I wonder if the Museum of Natural History has a similar gig…
Fearless fossil hunters
After sitting next to me at work for 3+ years, I’m surprised that Sasha didn’t know I was into fossils. This trilobite is my prized possession, fossil-wise, paired with a really nice tattoo I found in modify_evolution’s flickr photostream (gotta keep it on-theme, right?):
I found it in an abandoned quarry in the bluffs in Alton, Illinois, just a few miles outside of my hometown of St. Louis (and across the Mississippi) when I was about 9 years old. My friend Ezra had just found an excellent trilobite fossil near there the weekend before, and I begged my dad to take me (and Ezra) to the same spot to look for more. I didn’t have much hope that I’d find one as nice as Ezra’s, but sure enough, I picked this one out of the gravel. I’m sure my dad was relieved that I found something; he had been ready to go home for quite a while..
The photos after the jump will give you a better indication of scale…
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