Good afternoon, folks! Let’s kick off our day with this fun addition to our esteemed collection of hand and knuckle tattoos by Jeff Miller at Body Art Tattoos in Stratford, New Jersey. What can we say? We enjoy vaguely-antagonistic-but-good-humored-nonetheless tattoos. We hope this gentleman gets some good use out of his newly adorned knuckles.
And hey, it’s Friday, ModBloggers. Right in the face.
Comparatively speaking, head tattoos are a pretty low-risk investment, no? Sure, nobody’s happy with a shitty tattoo, but at least if there’s a screw-up atop your noggin, more often that not, nobody else has to know about it. With that said, though, we guess we’re just lucky that so many of the ones we receive are of the sort for which people should be proud to strut around clean-shaved—like this one, say, or these bad boys. Or, you know, the one above by Tattoo Joe at Physical Graffiti Tattoo in Bridgeport, Connecticut, which makes a fine addition to the canon, we think.
See more in “Facial and Neck Tattoos“ (Tattoos)
Anatomical heart tattoos? We see ‘em from time to time, and we tend to be fans. Now, anatomical heart tattoos with ever-so subversive dicks and balls hidden amongst the ventricles and such like Heirophantress is sporting? That’s some 1950s-era Walt Disney shit right there. Keep it up.
(Tattoo by Kit Hall at Deluxe Tattoo in Chicago, Illinois.)
See more in “Hearts and Love Tattoos“ (Tattoos)
And hey, while we’re on the subject of Mr. Wiscombe below, let’s keep things black-and-gray-ish (and western Canada-ish) with this perturbed and tortured demon-type by Shawn Thompson at Strange City in Edmonton, Alberta. Now, as an impartial resource, we can neither confirm nor deny the frequency with which Mr. Thompson conjures such wretched hell-beasts, nor do we feel comfortable offering an opinion on his dark and terrible talents. We will merely suggest that you do not cross him. That is all.
See more in “Shawn Thompson Tattoo Mini Porfolio“ (Tattoo Artist Portfolios)
There’s a proud and storied tradition of steering apprentices towards amusing and potentially embarrassing tattoos (more), for loyalty’s sake, which is one of those traditions that rubs some people the wrong way, but, hey—as long as there’s no real coercion, a funny tattoo is a funny tattoo. Well! Aaron Chapman, the owner of and head artist at Eternal Ink in Madisonville, Kentucky, sends in this BME Pain Olympics-inspired tattoo, forever etched in place on the leg of his apprentice, Michael Agnew. That Pain Olympics video was a hoax (shh, don’t tell all the YouTube reaction-video participants!), but this? This is as real as it gets. Ha ha, balls.
And with that, ModBloggers, we bid adieu to Tuesday, with professional waver Bluetat doing said bidding on our behalf. What’s the secret to looking as happy as our friend up there, you ask? According to him: “Spend 13 years or so getting tattooed blue, then post stupid poses of yourself with a mannequin named ‘Baby-May-Sue’ on the Internet.” Hey, whatever works! If you’re going to try that, though, make sure you go to an artist as capable as Matt at Westside Tattoo in Westend, Queensland, Australia, who’s handled about 80 percent of what you see above—and also, what you see below. As in, you know, after the jump.
The last time we saw Bree, she was much too covered up for us to have any idea of what was going on on her gams. But hey, lucky for us, she’s not nearly as bundled up this time around! Frankly, we feel better about it this way. It would have been rude to ask her to ditch the pants at any time, let alone in the dead of winter. And! We’ve got a close-up after the jump of this excellent, colorful work by Ben There and Josh Schwegal from Seattle’s Slave to the Needle.
David writes in about his tattoo:
Several months ago, my beautiful friend Aly sent me this image via E-mail and followed up with several text messages demanding I check my E-mail right away. I did and was totally blown away by the image that was there—a photograph of this woman (that several people claim to believe was involved with Tawapa) sitting in front of me. I knew seconds later that she was going to be be tattooed on me. I went back to Daniel Jones (of Asylum Studios in Salem, Virginia) who had done another beautiful color portrait of another indigenous person and asked him to do it. He studied the image for about a month and we scheduled the tattoo for opening day of the 15th annual Greensboro (Little John), North Carolina, tattoo convention. Daniel felt challenged and nervous but confident. His focus and dedication to this tattoo were unmatched by anything I’d seen him do and it ended up winning him first-place color tattoo of the day! This whole experience has been awesome fore me and Daniel alike. Thanks got out to Aly, Daniel, the photographer who took the original picture and everyone at the Little John tattoo convention.
It’s excellent work, but this is certainly reminiscent of this post—another instance where the quality of the work was widely praised, but some readers felt uncomfortable with the idea of getting tattooed with a “random face,” for lack of a better term. On the other hand, though, is this all that different from getting a tattoo of a piece of (non-face) art with which you feel a deep connection?
The last time we featured Brianna here on your old pal ModBlog, we got a pretty good look at her Nerd Life and BME tattoos, but weren’t really offered a similar vantage point of her Amaryllis flower shoulder tattoos by Tim Senecal at Pisst Fish in West Springfield, Massachusetts (who is also working on the aforementioned BME piece). Which, you know, is a shame, considering we love the placement, and they’re awfully pretty to boot. But hey, while the Internet may never forget, at least it lets us right our wrongs on occasion, so enjoy. A few more shots in different locations, after the jump.
And just like that, David Pozo of Forevermore Tattoo Parlour in Glasgow, Scotland, wins the afternoon! “After the Buttergina’s appearance on ModBlog,” he says, “people seemed to dig the rib piece (seen above), so put it up as well!” We don’t make a habit of humoring threats like this, but we’ll make an exception in this case on account of the unfettered joy a weaponized Sailor Jerry shark gives us. Also, it’s good to know we have someone on whom to rely in the event that Party Shark gets out of hand.
See more in “Old School (and Old) Tattoos“ (Tattoos)
