Cross My Knees and Hope to Die


I fully understand if Factorygirl wants vengeance for that awful joke in the title. That said, the no pants/fresh cutting/stripy socks triumvirate surely trumps the abysmal wordplay. Well played, my friend.

(Cutting by Rev Lower at Evolved Body Art in Columbus, Ohio.)

See more in Misc. Cuttings (Scarification)

Who Was That Masked Man?


I’m pretty confident that, as close as you may get to guessing this one, no one’s going to get it right on the nose … and no peeking at the tags, cheaters.

(That’d be Xenceval, sporting an 8 mm. Prince Albert, a few frenum piercings, and what appears to be a mustache fashioned out of black washable marker.)

See more in PAs (Prince Alberts) (Male Genital Piercing) (members only)

You Know More Than You Think You Do


Quite the murderer’s row of babies on the old ModBlog lately, no? First we had last week’s Smurficide, and now Back Sass Jezebel‘s stunning little Dahlia Grace here just made my heart explode. Good grief. It just got a little dusty here at the office.

(“My little girl loves her daddy,” says the new mama, and those would be daddy’s hands, with tattoo work by Tom at Inksanity in Somerset, New Jersey.)

See more in Hand Tattoos (Tattoos)

All Around the Circle


It can be a crap-shoot when adapting a painting into a tattoo, trying to balance which elements can be translated effectively and which will require certain modifications. Consider what Wil from Randy Adams Tattoo in Ft. Worth, Texas, did to interpret Dali’s The Ship here. Everything seems a little more “solid” in the tattoo than in the original (Ed. note: I am not a student of visual art and there is not even a slight chance that I’ll use the proper terminology here), and that it was consciously “tattooified” (Ed. note: This, however, is a perfectly cromulent art term) rather than the artist making an effort to create a carbon-copy of the source material. In this case, this seems like an appropriate course to take. What do you all think? About this interpretation, about adapting paintings into tattoos in general, about the world … let’s chat, ModBlog.

Fun Times at the Baltimore Tattoo Arts Convention ’09


And so here is international playboy John Durante, hanging out at the Baltimore Tattoo Arts Convention at the end of January, and just cold skewering folks all over the place (including the lovely Tracie) as part of a performance involving, among others, Nu Ethix Suspensions. Lots of great photos from this set should be up on BME in the next day or two, but you can get a sneak preview by checking out the page of the lovely Miss Ruth Decay, who sent in the majority of these bad boys.

See more in Nu Ethix Suspensions LLC (Suspension Teams and Bonus Galleries)

This is a Public Service Announcement


This isn’t a particularly provocative statement, but DrPhil‘s back-piece up there is one of the more original designs I’ve seen in a while. Not that something has to be unique to be great, of course, but there’s some stylistic stuff here you just don’t see very often, and I think it makes for an interesting piece. Also, any reference to The Clash, intentional or not, is a winner.

(Tattoo on DrPhil, by Basti at Morbus Gravis in Darmstadt, Germany.)

See more in Fairies and Angels (Tattoos)

A Supposedly Fun Thing


This is Laura’s sweet tribute tattoo for her parents, done by Wendi Ramirez at Shaman Modifications in Austin, Texas. I have to say, dad looks like a fun guy. Panama hat? Mustache? Aloha shirt? Nicely done. I’m a sucker for cruise-wear, what can I say?

See more in Portrait Tattoos (Tattoos)