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….
Blogroll!
The most fun tattoo blog I’ve discovered lately is Electric Plog, from illustrator / comic book artist / tattoo artist / skateboard designer / photographer Electric Pick of Conspiracy Inc. Tattoo in Copenhagen, Denmark. I think I need to make a tattoo pilgrimage to northern Europe; they’ve got some great stuff goin’ on over there…
I first learned about Electric Pick from 96khz’s awesome Batman tattoo in Devil Dinosaur’s Geek Tattoos flickr group! Thanks 96khz! Thanks Devil Dinosaur!
Not only are ‘Pick’s original custom pieces beautiful to behold, he’s a prolific blogger and a funny guy! And he ends every sentence with some number of exclamation points!!!
It seems that most of his artwork involves sexy pin-ups in a variety of themes and settings, futuristic cityscapes, robots (the good kind and the evil kind), and international espionage (for some reason, the spies are always in cute little animal costume/disguises). He also has a strange obsession with trams!
I’m also kinda hooked on the blog of Electric Pick’s partner in crime at Conspiracy Inc., Uncle Allan, and that of Allan’s wife, Princess Inferno. I know it’s weirdly voyeuristic to follow the life and times of a group of Danish friends, but it’s fun! Like reality TV, but better, because there are no commercials and everyone involved isn’t awful. Besides, you have to be a little bit of an exhibitionist to blog about yourself in the first place, right?
Other recent (not-necessarily tattoo-related) blog subscriptions include:
- the soon after now: An art-nerd blog by my former French teacher, EastVillKit, who also happens to be a music nerd and a comix nerd. He is both insightful and unpretentious in his descriptions of art and life; a rare combination in my experience.
- Hooper’s Electric: Check out Thomas Hooper’s beautiful work; I especially like his big circular patterned blackwork pieces, of perfect radial symmetry and mesmerizing intricacy. Bonus points for working right here in Brooklyn (at least some of the time)! Double bonus points cuz I saw a guy with an impressive tattoo on the subway platform, and then recognized the piece (and the guy) on Hooper’s blog!
- Measure for Measure: Roseanne Cash, Suzanne Vega, Andrew Bird, and Darrell Brown describe their songwriting (and recording!) process, along with anecdotes from their careers, in this excellent New York Times blog.
What are you reading lately?
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.
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