Body Art? (tattoos, piercings, scarification . . . all that)

[Mell]

I've looked into getting tats to cover some stretch marks. You can actually use the scars (stretch marks in my case) in the tattoo design, you get creative. I'm considering getting a rather large tattoo on my right hip to cover some stretch marks. If I do an underwater scene, the stretch marks could actually be made to give it even more of an appearance of being under water, and a three dimensional look.

Just my 2 cents, but I think the way get a tattoo that looks really good, is to aim at making it highlight a part of your body that looks very good. Also, when you are considering the tattoo, dont just consider the size, consider the shape of it, and make it blend with the body part you are getting it on. Also, be careful with the colour. Try to get a copy of the tattoo on transparent paper, then stick it on your body with water, and assess it in a mirror from accross a room. If you get the size and/or the colour wrong, then the tattoo could look like a birthmark in certain light or at a distance.

My tattoo is just below my waistline. My waist is very slim and the muscles on it are well toned. I would never get a tattoo on my ass, because the only way I have ever managed to have that in good enough shape was after I was cycling on my bike for 3 weeks at 50 KM daily.

Also, if you are planning to have more babies, consider what a tattoo on your stomach will look like when your are pregnant, and what it would look like if a stretchmark happens where the tattoo is.

 

[Mell]

LOL - in high school I use to use safety pins to pierce my ears and skin webs (between my fingers - especially between my thumb and forefinger) just to freak people out.
I use to stitch beads onto my fingers - to tops - and go around like that. It was fun to make people squirm. But do it now? **** no, that's stupid painful ****.

I used to have safety pins and paper clips in my ears too, in highschool. I only developed an adversity for body piercing, when I worked in the gay district in Toronto, Canada. The people there pierced just about everything, and I got sick of looking at piercings all day everyday. Some of them looked painful.

 

[Redress]

I used to have safety pins and paper clips in my ears too, in highschool. I only developed an adversity for body piercing, when I worked in the gay district in Toronto, Canada. The people there pierced just about everything, and I got sick of looking at piercings all day everyday. Some of them looked painful.

You sound like an old school punk.

Not saying you are old or anything...

 

[Mell]

You sound like an old school punk.

Not saying you are old or anything...

I was more of a wild child, than a punk. I would never have been able to fit into the restraints of punkism. Maybe it would have been easier for my parents and teachers, if I was something as regular as a punk, because then they would at least have had the other parents of punks to commiserate with(well, when they visitied a bigger town they could), but they were alone in dealing with their teen nightmare. At 17, I threw out all my wild clothes. I only kept 2 fairly normal tee shirts(well, normal sort of. One had barbed wire on it) and 2 pairs of jeans. My empty closet freaked my mother out even more than the clothes I threw out did. I then, started a collection of 'sweet 16' style outfits and exchanged my extreme make up for pretty pastels, and then the local boys started to chase after me. They didnt want me during my crazy clothes years, because I lived in an Irish country village, where people who looked like I did were given a lot of space. After that, my mother then started worrying about the collection of local boys who were after me.

I was a teen of the 80s. My mother used to wail at everybody who would listen, about how I was so rebellious. But, I wasnt rebelling. I was just looking like, and doing what I felt like. Now and again, I even did some school work, but only the interesting bits, so I had more knowledge than the other school kids in some parts of some subjects, but knew nothing at all about the rest. I was always either scoring an A+ or a fail in my school tests. There was no in between.

 

[rivrrat]

Just my 2 cents, but I think the way get a tattoo that looks really good, is to aim at making it highlight a part of your body that looks very good.

I both agree and disagree.

It can be used to highlight an area you are proud of. Or, it could turn an area that you are ashamed of into a work of art that you then become proud to show off instead of trying to hide it.

My stretch marks on my hips cannot be undone by dieting or exercise. No matter what I do, they will be there, forever persistent. I could feel ashamed of them, try to hide them. Or, I could find a beautiful tattoo and a great tattoo artist to turn that area of my body that I do not currently like into an area of my body that not only do I not want to hide, I want to show off to the world.

Also, when you are considering the tattoo, dont just consider the size, consider the shape of it, and make it blend with the body part you are getting it on. Also, be careful with the colour. Try to get a copy of the tattoo on transparent paper, then stick it on your body with water, and assess it in a mirror from accross a room. If you get the size and/or the colour wrong, then the tattoo could look like a birthmark in certain light or at a distance.

My tattoo is just below my waistline. My waist is very slim and the muscles on it are well toned. I would never get a tattoo on my ass, because the only way I have ever managed to have that in good enough shape was after I was cycling on my bike for 3 weeks at 50 KM daily.

Good advice. That's what I did with two of the ones I got. They freehanded a stencil and applied it so they could get the lines right where I wanted them, at the right angle, etc.

Also, if you are planning to have more babies, consider what a tattoo on your stomach will look like when your are pregnant, and what it would look like if a stretchmark happens where the tattoo is.

No kids here. Not gonna be any, since I am quickly approaching the "too old to breed" age. And, I'd never get a tattoo on my stomach anyway.

 

[rivrrat]

I have 13 tattoos in total, and I will probably end up getting more. They are addictive.

I think they're addictive too. LOL I only have three, but I have plans for more. One on the back of my neck and one on my lower back for sure. After that, I'm not sure yet what I'll get or where I'll get it. But I can almost guarantee there'll be more.

 

[theangryamerican]

Celtic cross inked between my shoulder blades, I normally wear earrings, but have been toying with the idea of permanently taking them out. Numerous scars, all unintentional

 

[Infinite Chaos]

There are other reasons for tattoos, though - I've met people who have vitiligo and psoriasis who get tattoos to cover their blemishes and other imperfections --

Now that's a reason I could accept for tattoos. I'm not "anti" - but I would find them a total turn-off and completely unattractive in a prospective sexual partner.

-- I would also add that I came by a few "peircings" in a similar fashion. Friggin faulty nailguns. :lol:

Ahah.. a "DIY" tatooist of the wrong sort completely... (picture Steve Martin as a Dentist in Shop of Horrors)

 

[Aunt Spiker]

LOL

We loved the indian ink pin-prick tattoos when I was in school. . . .total suckers for stupid things like initials and hearts on our ankles. . . wore off after a year or something cause it wasn't done well. We thought we were sooooo cool.

 

[Real Korimyr #9]

We loved the indian ink pin-prick tattoos when I was in school. . . .total suckers for stupid things like initials and hearts on our ankles. . . wore off after a year or something cause it wasn't done well. We thought we were sooooo cool.

Heh. I got one of those when I was fourteen. Sixteen years and it's still right there on my hand.

 

[Aunt Spiker]

Heh. I got one of those when I was fourteen. Sixteen years and it's still right there on my hand.

Really?

Thankfully mine all faded - at least - they're not very visible but there is al ittle bit of color left.

 

[reefedjib]

I've steered clear of tattoos through high school, the Army, college, and through the tattoo craze of recent years. I did look into it about a year ago. I wanted to incorporate some elements of my life into the design. Unfortunately, because I had so many elements, it would barely fit onto my upper arm and would be better on my back. That's a bit too much for me, at the moment.

My design incorporated Physics, Astronomy, Bipolar, Diabetes, Love and Hearts, and God. It was to be a torso figure with two faces, like Janus, one happy and one sad. The chest would have a heart inset, with an arrow through it. It's hands would be holding an Insulin molecule. There would be holy rays of light emanating from the body. Finally, there would be a star, with magnetic prominences, over the left shoulder and a moon, with meteorite cratering, over the right shoulder. I have sketches for Janus, the heart, the insulin molecule and the star and moon.