Tattoos they are a-changin

On the question of tattoos, I’m waiting for some answers.

And the man I hope will provide them is late. I fidget, I buy a can of coffee from a vending machine, roll the hot cylinder between my chilly hands, march my cold feet in place on the sidewalk at the taxi stand where I’m supposed to wait. I take in the unspectacular view – the pachinko parlor, a squat grey building with a big sign of flashing electric lights; the tidy cake shop; the trio of elderly women gossiping at the bus stop. I wave away another taxi cab and lean against the wall, positioning myself so as to catch some of the late afternoon sunlight streaming down on little west-Tokyo Musashseki station. I go over my questions.

Why, I ask myself, would a man invest more than 150 hours of his time, over a two year period, in a weekly series of painful puncture wounds that would leave a meter-tall image of legendary little forest-dwelling bear-killer Kintaro indelibly sunk into the skin of his shoulders, back, buttocks, and thighs?

Suddenly, the trio of chatterbox women become quiet, and a weird stillness seems to descend on the entire scene before me. About the only thing moving is a cream-colored van with dark tinted windows. As it glides into the taxi stand the wrong way, the van’s side door slides open electronically and a low, husky voice comes from the still invisible interior. "Monty-san," it calls out.

I climb in.

The driver I do not recognize – a skinny guy, young, with a buzz-cut and a pair of dark glasses. He will not say a word the entire afternoon. I do, however, know the plump man sitting in the passenger seat cuddling "Poo," his pet shih tsu. He is Takagi Yukio, whose body hosts the tattoo I’m interested in. I met Takagi at a funny little party a week earlier, through a German friend who works as a bodyguard for Japanese pro-wrestler Fujiwara Kumicho, one of Takagi’s associates. After having sized me up and made a play for my date, Takagi agreed to let me come to his "studio" to photograph his tattoo. A five minute drive and we arrive at said studio, which turns out to be a large western-style room containing a desk and two chairs, a double bed, a karaoke machine, and nothing else. When Takagi begins to disrobe, I take a quick inventory of who knows where I am on this afternoon. The total is zero, so I get a little nervous.

"I got the tattoo when I was 22," explains a now-naked Takagi in a matter-of-fact voice, "because I’m a yakuza." Takagi’s tattoo is part of the tradition of the band of "tekiya," or festival and carnival workers, which make up his family background. Fifteen years later, at age 37, Takagi has graduated from a travelling hawker of octopus balls to actor and film production advisor, thanks mostly to his connections to and familiarity with the underworld. "When a film includes yakuza," he says, "the director hires me to make the characters more realistic.

"They also" he winks, "use this studio for the bedroom scenes" Takagi recently completed work on the Toei film company’s gangster flick "Gokudo Sangoshi III."

After finishing our photo session in a tatami room upstairs, Takagi informs me that it is customary for Japanese journalists to pay him 100,000 yen for an interview or photo. The skinny sidekick shifts slightly in my uneasy silence before Takagi reaches out and pats me on the back. "I’ll make an exception this time," he laughs, "just make sure I get a copy of the magazine."

I won’t forget, I assure him.

For Takagi and those like him, the tattoo marks the rite of passage into a group. But there is also an emerging class of young Japanese for whom a tattoo has come to symbolize the opposite – individuality.

"Ever since the New York City hardcore music scene became trendy in Japan some ten years ago, there has been very intense interest in all aspects of American alternative culture," says Pissken, who edits the magazine "Burst," Japan’s leading monthly of things raunchy, revolutionary and irreverent. The March 1999 issue features a pictorial on the bosozoku, Japan’s clean-cut answer to the Hell’s Angels; as well as a selection of nasty scatological photographs; and extensive reporting on the country’s tattoo boom.

"The appearance of American-style, walk-in tattoo parlors over the last five years," says Pissken, "has made it easier than ever for young Japanese to emulate the style of their American musician and biker idols. Where tattoo artists used to be exclusive to the yakuza, now there are hundreds, maybe thousands of clean-cut young kids in their 20s and 30s out there waiting with their machines."

Indeed, introduction of the American-style electric needle machine (most are actually made in England) has dramatically reduced the time, cost, and pain involved in getting a tattoo in Japan. Still, an obvious distinction between tattoo-mania and other body-treatment trends to hit this country is that unlike tanning or hair coloring, the tattoo is forever – a symbol which proclaims that being different is one’s destiny.

Or one’s "Dastiny," as a young Shibuya tattoo artist confesses he once inscribed on a pale white banner unfurling over the bicep of a young customer. "The guy came back a few days later and pointed out the spelling error, but when I found the piece of paper he had originally brought in and asked me to copy, we realized it was his mistake." Enter the black cat’s tail, a fall-back design employed by tattoo artists faced with the task of undoing the undoable. When a long, winding black cat’s tail passes over the text in a tattoo, rendering one or more letters in relief, it is often because the artist is covering up a misspelling.

"Of course we’re professional," protests the tattoo artist, who prefers to remain nameless, "but I’m Japanese, how was I supposed to know how to spell ‘destiny’?"

Scratch Addiction, one of the first American-style tattoo shops to open in Tokyo, offers an alternative to the black cat’s tail – a "do-it-yourself tattoo removal kit." Displayed in a case beside the Harajuku shop’s door, the kit consists of a single item – a pocketknife.

Ha ha.

"At first I considered whether I might one day have second thoughts about getting them, like if I got married, but I just don’t think about it any more," says Godenki Keiko, 23, of the flower and bird tattoos that circle her ankle and run across her back and chest. Godenki began her tattooing when she was 20 years old, the legal minimum age in much of Japan (some regions, including Tokyo, set the minimum age at 18). Soon after starting, however, Godenki discovered that she had more on her shoulders than a tattoo – she carried a stigma. Fortunately, when she was let go from her pachinko parlor job because her tattoos were partly visible through the white blouse of the shop’s summer uniform, Scratch Addiction offered Godenki a job.

Two years later, she says she enjoys both the hip atmosphere and her job’s perks, as she now gets her tattoos for free. As Godenki – who has shown her mother but not her father the artwork – smiles at the bruised aftermath of today’s augmentation to the tattoo on her chest, it is hard to guess where the young woman’s addiction will stop.

Scratch Addiction artist Ichinohe Yushi, 31, says that about half the people who come into the shop already have tattoos. About 90% of his customers are the teen-to-twenty-five crowd that make the scene outside on trendy Takashita Dori, and most opt for "tribal" designs, usually based on Maori or Celtic patterns. Prices at the shop start at 13,000 yen for the simple kanji favored by foreign customers, and can climb into the hundreds of thousands of yen for larger, multi-colored images.

Ichinohe, who learned his craft in California, has a handsome face and scrawny body riddled almost neck to ankle with designs that include a ’53 Cadillac, a half-dead (and half-alive) Elvis, several lucky numbers, his mom’s name (Reiko), UFOs, and one of his most popular original-designs – the pistol-packing tom cat. His left leg ("that’s where I practice…") is a patchwork of graffiti.

"I guess," he smiles, "I started out wanting a label that said I was ‘bad’!"

Apart from drunks or minors, there is only type of customer Ichinohe will not put under his needle – yakuza. "I respect all tattooists," he explains, "but we’re all different and we’re all doing our own thing. So," and here Ichinohe’s voice drops to a whisper, "if a yakuza were to come in the shop, I wouldn’t touch him. Just like in America, where the skull and helmet design is only for the Hell’s Angels and regular tattooists won’t do it – that’s the tattooist’s code."

Other no-no’s at Scratch Addiction include racist, cult, or "political" tattoos, as well as any design on the face or genitals. But for those who simply must have a swastika on their forehead, there are other shops in Tokyo that will oblige.

Take the nearby studio Noon, where resident artist Mamiya Eizo, 42, offers a menu that goes beyond anywhere-on-the-body-tattoos to include piercing, branding, scarification, and implants. Author of Japan’s Body Art classic, "The Piercing Bible," Mamiya’s physique has acquired some 200 extra orifices, 20 of which ventilate his, well, just guess. Mamiya reports that the tongue is this year’s favorite place to pierce, and produces a catalogue detailing his eight different approaches for doing so. A fresh-faced, buck-toothed girl walks into the shop and says she wants a small blue butterfly on her shoulder. I find myself thinking, "that’s how it starts…"

Although an increasing number of young people are getting tattoos, few would characterize Japan as a country where public perceptions and social conventions change quickly. For most people here, a tattoo still says "yakuza."

Late last summer, as Tokyo artist Matsumoto Gento was hanging his work for an exhibition at the Wonder Museum, the Canon corporation’s Makuhari photo gallery, company executives called an emergency meeting which the artist was not invited to attend. From the meeting came an ultimatum: Unless Matsumoto removed a particular set of two-meter tall, computer-enhanced portraits, the show would not open. The reason? According to museum assistant manager Shintaro Abe, the pictures were simply "too shocking for a gallery that children might visit." What Canon had deemed taboo was tattoos.

And they weren’t even real tattoos! The dense net of colorful faux-tattoos that covered the bodies of Matsumoto’s models from head to toe, obscured only by fundoshi (loincloths) or white cotton briefs, were generated using photo-shop computer software. Months after a resolute Matsumoto saw his show cancelled, Canon still would not offer an official comment on why they found the work so "shocking."

A possible explanation lies in a non sequitur – because gangsters have tattoos, anyone who has a tattoo must be a gangster. Hence, many Japanese saunas, public baths, and swimming pools, in an ongoing but outdated effort to keep out undesirables, bar all people with tattoos.

"It’s a rule we have," explains a Wild Blue Yokohama spokesperson when asked about the indoor, virtual-beach amusement park’s policy of refusing entry to people with tattoos. When asked if this is because yakuza have tattoos, the spokesperson briefly puts me on hold before returning as an ad hoc diplomat. "I can’t say that," she answers, "it might be so, but my boss tells me I can’t say that."

If it seems difficult to imagine the young people getting tattoos these days in Japan as yakuza, it is outright impossible to picture Herb Irving as one. Irving, 35, is a Canadian-born English-teacher and sometime musical comedian working the regular Club Asia comedy nights in Shibuya. He has a Keith Richards Telecaster electric guitar tattooed on his right bicep. And while he hasn’t ever had a problem visiting sentos or onsens, a couple of years ago, while Irving was splashing around at Wild Blue Yokohama with two Japanese friends, the rather small and fairly pale guitar on his arm attracted the attention of lifeguards, who promptly ordered it covered.

Bandages were applied over the offending tattoo, and they were of course soon washed away in the surf. A second alert lifeguard approached Irving, and more bandages were applied only to be torn off in the afternoon pseudo-beach fun. Then a team of zealous park officials descended on reckless Irving with polite threats. Eventually, on the forth attempt, the tattoo was successfully concealed beneath a patchwork of bigger, more adhesive bandages.

Tattoos they are a-changin

On the question of tattoos, I’m waiting for some answers.

And the man I hope will provide them is late. I fidget, I buy a can of coffee from a vending machine, roll the hot cylinder between my chilly hands, march my cold feet in place on the sidewalk at the taxi stand where I’m supposed to wait. I take in the unspectacular view – the pachinko parlor, a squat grey building with a big sign of flashing electric lights; the tidy cake shop; the trio of elderly women gossiping at the bus stop. I wave away another taxi cab and lean against the wall, positioning myself so as to catch some of the late afternoon sunlight streaming down on little west-Tokyo Musashseki station. I go over my questions.

Why, I ask myself, would a man invest more than 150 hours of his time, over a two year period, in a weekly series of painful puncture wounds that would leave a meter-tall image of legendary little forest-dwelling bear-killer Kintaro indelibly sunk into the skin of his shoulders, back, buttocks, and thighs?

Suddenly, the trio of chatterbox women become quiet, and a weird stillness seems to descend on the entire scene before me. About the only thing moving is a cream-colored van with dark tinted windows. As it glides into the taxi stand the wrong way, the van’s side door slides open electronically and a low, husky voice comes from the still invisible interior. "Monty-san," it calls out.

I climb in.

The driver I do not recognize – a skinny guy, young, with a buzz-cut and a pair of dark glasses. He will not say a word the entire afternoon. I do, however, know the plump man sitting in the passenger seat cuddling "Poo," his pet shih tsu. He is Takagi Yukio, whose body hosts the tattoo I’m interested in. I met Takagi at a funny little party a week earlier, through a German friend who works as a bodyguard for Japanese pro-wrestler Fujiwara Kumicho, one of Takagi’s associates. After having sized me up and made a play for my date, Takagi agreed to let me come to his "studio" to photograph his tattoo. A five minute drive and we arrive at said studio, which turns out to be a large western-style room containing a desk and two chairs, a double bed, a karaoke machine, and nothing else. When Takagi begins to disrobe, I take a quick inventory of who knows where I am on this afternoon. The total is zero, so I get a little nervous.

"I got the tattoo when I was 22," explains a now-naked Takagi in a matter-of-fact voice, "because I’m a yakuza." Takagi’s tattoo is part of the tradition of the band of "tekiya," or festival and carnival workers, which make up his family background. Fifteen years later, at age 37, Takagi has graduated from a travelling hawker of octopus balls to actor and film production advisor, thanks mostly to his connections to and familiarity with the underworld. "When a film includes yakuza," he says, "the director hires me to make the characters more realistic.

"They also" he winks, "use this studio for the bedroom scenes" Takagi recently completed work on the Toei film company’s gangster flick "Gokudo Sangoshi III."

After finishing our photo session in a tatami room upstairs, Takagi informs me that it is customary for Japanese journalists to pay him 100,000 yen for an interview or photo. The skinny sidekick shifts slightly in my uneasy silence before Takagi reaches out and pats me on the back. "I’ll make an exception this time," he laughs, "just make sure I get a copy of the magazine."

I won’t forget, I assure him.

For Takagi and those like him, the tattoo marks the rite of passage into a group. But there is also an emerging class of young Japanese for whom a tattoo has come to symbolize the opposite – individuality.

"Ever since the New York City hardcore music scene became trendy in Japan some ten years ago, there has been very intense interest in all aspects of American alternative culture," says Pissken, who edits the magazine "Burst," Japan’s leading monthly of things raunchy, revolutionary and irreverent. The March 1999 issue features a pictorial on the bosozoku, Japan’s clean-cut answer to the Hell’s Angels; as well as a selection of nasty scatological photographs; and extensive reporting on the country’s tattoo boom.

"The appearance of American-style, walk-in tattoo parlors over the last five years," says Pissken, "has made it easier than ever for young Japanese to emulate the style of their American musician and biker idols. Where tattoo artists used to be exclusive to the yakuza, now there are hundreds, maybe thousands of clean-cut young kids in their 20s and 30s out there waiting with their machines."

Indeed, introduction of the American-style electric needle machine (most are actually made in England) has dramatically reduced the time, cost, and pain involved in getting a tattoo in Japan. Still, an obvious distinction between tattoo-mania and other body-treatment trends to hit this country is that unlike tanning or hair coloring, the tattoo is forever – a symbol which proclaims that being different is one’s destiny.

Or one’s "Dastiny," as a young Shibuya tattoo artist confesses he once inscribed on a pale white banner unfurling over the bicep of a young customer. "The guy came back a few days later and pointed out the spelling error, but when I found the piece of paper he had originally brought in and asked me to copy, we realized it was his mistake." Enter the black cat’s tail, a fall-back design employed by tattoo artists faced with the task of undoing the undoable. When a long, winding black cat’s tail passes over the text in a tattoo, rendering one or more letters in relief, it is often because the artist is covering up a misspelling.

"Of course we’re professional," protests the tattoo artist, who prefers to remain nameless, "but I’m Japanese, how was I supposed to know how to spell ‘destiny’?"

Scratch Addiction, one of the first American-style tattoo shops to open in Tokyo, offers an alternative to the black cat’s tail – a "do-it-yourself tattoo removal kit." Displayed in a case beside the Harajuku shop’s door, the kit consists of a single item – a pocketknife.

Ha ha.

"At first I considered whether I might one day have second thoughts about getting them, like if I got married, but I just don’t think about it any more," says Godenki Keiko, 23, of the flower and bird tattoos that circle her ankle and run across her back and chest. Godenki began her tattooing when she was 20 years old, the legal minimum age in much of Japan (some regions, including Tokyo, set the minimum age at 18). Soon after starting, however, Godenki discovered that she had more on her shoulders than a tattoo – she carried a stigma. Fortunately, when she was let go from her pachinko parlor job because her tattoos were partly visible through the white blouse of the shop’s summer uniform, Scratch Addiction offered Godenki a job.

Two years later, she says she enjoys both the hip atmosphere and her job’s perks, as she now gets her tattoos for free. As Godenki – who has shown her mother but not her father the artwork – smiles at the bruised aftermath of today’s augmentation to the tattoo on her chest, it is hard to guess where the young woman’s addiction will stop.

Scratch Addiction artist Ichinohe Yushi, 31, says that about half the people who come into the shop already have tattoos. About 90% of his customers are the teen-to-twenty-five crowd that make the scene outside on trendy Takashita Dori, and most opt for "tribal" designs, usually based on Maori or Celtic patterns. Prices at the shop start at 13,000 yen for the simple kanji favored by foreign customers, and can climb into the hundreds of thousands of yen for larger, multi-colored images.

Ichinohe, who learned his craft in California, has a handsome face and scrawny body riddled almost neck to ankle with designs that include a ’53 Cadillac, a half-dead (and half-alive) Elvis, several lucky numbers, his mom’s name (Reiko), UFOs, and one of his most popular original-designs – the pistol-packing tom cat. His left leg ("that’s where I practice…") is a patchwork of graffiti.

"I guess," he smiles, "I started out wanting a label that said I was ‘bad’!"

Apart from drunks or minors, there is only type of customer Ichinohe will not put under his needle – yakuza. "I respect all tattooists," he explains, "but we’re all different and we’re all doing our own thing. So," and here Ichinohe’s voice drops to a whisper, "if a yakuza were to come in the shop, I wouldn’t touch him. Just like in America, where the skull and helmet design is only for the Hell’s Angels and regular tattooists won’t do it – that’s the tattooist’s code."

Other no-no’s at Scratch Addiction include racist, cult, or "political" tattoos, as well as any design on the face or genitals. But for those who simply must have a swastika on their forehead, there are other shops in Tokyo that will oblige.

Take the nearby studio Noon, where resident artist Mamiya Eizo, 42, offers a menu that goes beyond anywhere-on-the-body-tattoos to include piercing, branding, scarification, and implants. Author of Japan’s Body Art classic, "The Piercing Bible," Mamiya’s physique has acquired some 200 extra orifices, 20 of which ventilate his, well, just guess. Mamiya reports that the tongue is this year’s favorite place to pierce, and produces a catalogue detailing his eight different approaches for doing so. A fresh-faced, buck-toothed girl walks into the shop and says she wants a small blue butterfly on her shoulder. I find myself thinking, "that’s how it starts…"

Although an increasing number of young people are getting tattoos, few would characterize Japan as a country where public perceptions and social conventions change quickly. For most people here, a tattoo still says "yakuza."

Late last summer, as Tokyo artist Matsumoto Gento was hanging his work for an exhibition at the Wonder Museum, the Canon corporation’s Makuhari photo gallery, company executives called an emergency meeting which the artist was not invited to attend. From the meeting came an ultimatum: Unless Matsumoto removed a particular set of two-meter tall, computer-enhanced portraits, the show would not open. The reason? According to museum assistant manager Shintaro Abe, the pictures were simply "too shocking for a gallery that children might visit." What Canon had deemed taboo was tattoos.

And they weren’t even real tattoos! The dense net of colorful faux-tattoos that covered the bodies of Matsumoto’s models from head to toe, obscured only by fundoshi (loincloths) or white cotton briefs, were generated using photo-shop computer software. Months after a resolute Matsumoto saw his show cancelled, Canon still would not offer an official comment on why they found the work so "shocking."

A possible explanation lies in a non sequitur – because gangsters have tattoos, anyone who has a tattoo must be a gangster. Hence, many Japanese saunas, public baths, and swimming pools, in an ongoing but outdated effort to keep out undesirables, bar all people with tattoos.

"It’s a rule we have," explains a Wild Blue Yokohama spokesperson when asked about the indoor, virtual-beach amusement park’s policy of refusing entry to people with tattoos. When asked if this is because yakuza have tattoos, the spokesperson briefly puts me on hold before returning as an ad hoc diplomat. "I can’t say that," she answers, "it might be so, but my boss tells me I can’t say that."

If it seems difficult to imagine the young people getting tattoos these days in Japan as yakuza, it is outright impossible to picture Herb Irving as one. Irving, 35, is a Canadian-born English-teacher and sometime musical comedian working the regular Club Asia comedy nights in Shibuya. He has a Keith Richards Telecaster electric guitar tattooed on his right bicep. And while he hasn’t ever had a problem visiting sentos or onsens, a couple of years ago, while Irving was splashing around at Wild Blue Yokohama with two Japanese friends, the rather small and fairly pale guitar on his arm attracted the attention of lifeguards, who promptly ordered it covered.

Bandages were applied over the offending tattoo, and they were of course soon washed away in the surf. A second alert lifeguard approached Irving, and more bandages were applied only to be torn off in the afternoon pseudo-beach fun. Then a team of zealous park officials descended on reckless Irving with polite threats. Eventually, on the forth attempt, the tattoo was successfully concealed beneath a patchwork of bigger, more adhesive bandages.

Tattoos they are a-changin

On the question of tattoos, I’m waiting for some answers.

And the man I hope will provide them is late. I fidget, I buy a can of coffee from a vending machine, roll the hot cylinder between my chilly hands, march my cold feet in place on the sidewalk at the taxi stand where I’m supposed to wait. I take in the unspectacular view – the pachinko parlor, a squat grey building with a big sign of flashing electric lights; the tidy cake shop; the trio of elderly women gossiping at the bus stop. I wave away another taxi cab and lean against the wall, positioning myself so as to catch some of the late afternoon sunlight streaming down on little west-Tokyo Musashseki station. I go over my questions.

Why, I ask myself, would a man invest more than 150 hours of his time, over a two year period, in a weekly series of painful puncture wounds that would leave a meter-tall image of legendary little forest-dwelling bear-killer Kintaro indelibly sunk into the skin of his shoulders, back, buttocks, and thighs?

Suddenly, the trio of chatterbox women become quiet, and a weird stillness seems to descend on the entire scene before me. About the only thing moving is a cream-colored van with dark tinted windows. As it glides into the taxi stand the wrong way, the van’s side door slides open electronically and a low, husky voice comes from the still invisible interior. "Monty-san," it calls out.

I climb in.

The driver I do not recognize – a skinny guy, young, with a buzz-cut and a pair of dark glasses. He will not say a word the entire afternoon. I do, however, know the plump man sitting in the passenger seat cuddling "Poo," his pet shih tsu. He is Takagi Yukio, whose body hosts the tattoo I’m interested in. I met Takagi at a funny little party a week earlier, through a German friend who works as a bodyguard for Japanese pro-wrestler Fujiwara Kumicho, one of Takagi’s associates. After having sized me up and made a play for my date, Takagi agreed to let me come to his "studio" to photograph his tattoo. A five minute drive and we arrive at said studio, which turns out to be a large western-style room containing a desk and two chairs, a double bed, a karaoke machine, and nothing else. When Takagi begins to disrobe, I take a quick inventory of who knows where I am on this afternoon. The total is zero, so I get a little nervous.

"I got the tattoo when I was 22," explains a now-naked Takagi in a matter-of-fact voice, "because I’m a yakuza." Takagi’s tattoo is part of the tradition of the band of "tekiya," or festival and carnival workers, which make up his family background. Fifteen years later, at age 37, Takagi has graduated from a travelling hawker of octopus balls to actor and film production advisor, thanks mostly to his connections to and familiarity with the underworld. "When a film includes yakuza," he says, "the director hires me to make the characters more realistic.

"They also" he winks, "use this studio for the bedroom scenes" Takagi recently completed work on the Toei film company’s gangster flick "Gokudo Sangoshi III."

After finishing our photo session in a tatami room upstairs, Takagi informs me that it is customary for Japanese journalists to pay him 100,000 yen for an interview or photo. The skinny sidekick shifts slightly in my uneasy silence before Takagi reaches out and pats me on the back. "I’ll make an exception this time," he laughs, "just make sure I get a copy of the magazine."

I won’t forget, I assure him.

For Takagi and those like him, the tattoo marks the rite of passage into a group. But there is also an emerging class of young Japanese for whom a tattoo has come to symbolize the opposite – individuality.

"Ever since the New York City hardcore music scene became trendy in Japan some ten years ago, there has been very intense interest in all aspects of American alternative culture," says Pissken, who edits the magazine "Burst," Japan’s leading monthly of things raunchy, revolutionary and irreverent. The March 1999 issue features a pictorial on the bosozoku, Japan’s clean-cut answer to the Hell’s Angels; as well as a selection of nasty scatological photographs; and extensive reporting on the country’s tattoo boom.

"The appearance of American-style, walk-in tattoo parlors over the last five years," says Pissken, "has made it easier than ever for young Japanese to emulate the style of their American musician and biker idols. Where tattoo artists used to be exclusive to the yakuza, now there are hundreds, maybe thousands of clean-cut young kids in their 20s and 30s out there waiting with their machines."

Indeed, introduction of the American-style electric needle machine (most are actually made in England) has dramatically reduced the time, cost, and pain involved in getting a tattoo in Japan. Still, an obvious distinction between tattoo-mania and other body-treatment trends to hit this country is that unlike tanning or hair coloring, the tattoo is forever – a symbol which proclaims that being different is one’s destiny.

Or one’s "Dastiny," as a young Shibuya tattoo artist confesses he once inscribed on a pale white banner unfurling over the bicep of a young customer. "The guy came back a few days later and pointed out the spelling error, but when I found the piece of paper he had originally brought in and asked me to copy, we realized it was his mistake." Enter the black cat’s tail, a fall-back design employed by tattoo artists faced with the task of undoing the undoable. When a long, winding black cat’s tail passes over the text in a tattoo, rendering one or more letters in relief, it is often because the artist is covering up a misspelling.

"Of course we’re professional," protests the tattoo artist, who prefers to remain nameless, "but I’m Japanese, how was I supposed to know how to spell ‘destiny’?"

Scratch Addiction, one of the first American-style tattoo shops to open in Tokyo, offers an alternative to the black cat’s tail – a "do-it-yourself tattoo removal kit." Displayed in a case beside the Harajuku shop’s door, the kit consists of a single item – a pocketknife.

Ha ha.

"At first I considered whether I might one day have second thoughts about getting them, like if I got married, but I just don’t think about it any more," says Godenki Keiko, 23, of the flower and bird tattoos that circle her ankle and run across her back and chest. Godenki began her tattooing when she was 20 years old, the legal minimum age in much of Japan (some regions, including Tokyo, set the minimum age at 18). Soon after starting, however, Godenki discovered that she had more on her shoulders than a tattoo – she carried a stigma. Fortunately, when she was let go from her pachinko parlor job because her tattoos were partly visible through the white blouse of the shop’s summer uniform, Scratch Addiction offered Godenki a job.

Two years later, she says she enjoys both the hip atmosphere and her job’s perks, as she now gets her tattoos for free. As Godenki – who has shown her mother but not her father the artwork – smiles at the bruised aftermath of today’s augmentation to the tattoo on her chest, it is hard to guess where the young woman’s addiction will stop.

Scratch Addiction artist Ichinohe Yushi, 31, says that about half the people who come into the shop already have tattoos. About 90% of his customers are the teen-to-twenty-five crowd that make the scene outside on trendy Takashita Dori, and most opt for "tribal" designs, usually based on Maori or Celtic patterns. Prices at the shop start at 13,000 yen for the simple kanji favored by foreign customers, and can climb into the hundreds of thousands of yen for larger, multi-colored images.

Ichinohe, who learned his craft in California, has a handsome face and scrawny body riddled almost neck to ankle with designs that include a ’53 Cadillac, a half-dead (and half-alive) Elvis, several lucky numbers, his mom’s name (Reiko), UFOs, and one of his most popular original-designs – the pistol-packing tom cat. His left leg ("that’s where I practice…") is a patchwork of graffiti.

"I guess," he smiles, "I started out wanting a label that said I was ‘bad’!"

Apart from drunks or minors, there is only type of customer Ichinohe will not put under his needle – yakuza. "I respect all tattooists," he explains, "but we’re all different and we’re all doing our own thing. So," and here Ichinohe’s voice drops to a whisper, "if a yakuza were to come in the shop, I wouldn’t touch him. Just like in America, where the skull and helmet design is only for the Hell’s Angels and regular tattooists won’t do it – that’s the tattooist’s code."

Other no-no’s at Scratch Addiction include racist, cult, or "political" tattoos, as well as any design on the face or genitals. But for those who simply must have a swastika on their forehead, there are other shops in Tokyo that will oblige.

Take the nearby studio Noon, where resident artist Mamiya Eizo, 42, offers a menu that goes beyond anywhere-on-the-body-tattoos to include piercing, branding, scarification, and implants. Author of Japan’s Body Art classic, "The Piercing Bible," Mamiya’s physique has acquired some 200 extra orifices, 20 of which ventilate his, well, just guess. Mamiya reports that the tongue is this year’s favorite place to pierce, and produces a catalogue detailing his eight different approaches for doing so. A fresh-faced, buck-toothed girl walks into the shop and says she wants a small blue butterfly on her shoulder. I find myself thinking, "that’s how it starts…"

Although an increasing number of young people are getting tattoos, few would characterize Japan as a country where public perceptions and social conventions change quickly. For most people here, a tattoo still says "yakuza."

Late last summer, as Tokyo artist Matsumoto Gento was hanging his work for an exhibition at the Wonder Museum, the Canon corporation’s Makuhari photo gallery, company executives called an emergency meeting which the artist was not invited to attend. From the meeting came an ultimatum: Unless Matsumoto removed a particular set of two-meter tall, computer-enhanced portraits, the show would not open. The reason? According to museum assistant manager Shintaro Abe, the pictures were simply "too shocking for a gallery that children might visit." What Canon had deemed taboo was tattoos.

And they weren’t even real tattoos! The dense net of colorful faux-tattoos that covered the bodies of Matsumoto’s models from head to toe, obscured only by fundoshi (loincloths) or white cotton briefs, were generated using photo-shop computer software. Months after a resolute Matsumoto saw his show cancelled, Canon still would not offer an official comment on why they found the work so "shocking."

A possible explanation lies in a non sequitur – because gangsters have tattoos, anyone who has a tattoo must be a gangster. Hence, many Japanese saunas, public baths, and swimming pools, in an ongoing but outdated effort to keep out undesirables, bar all people with tattoos.

"It’s a rule we have," explains a Wild Blue Yokohama spokesperson when asked about the indoor, virtual-beach amusement park’s policy of refusing entry to people with tattoos. When asked if this is because yakuza have tattoos, the spokesperson briefly puts me on hold before returning as an ad hoc diplomat. "I can’t say that," she answers, "it might be so, but my boss tells me I can’t say that."

If it seems difficult to imagine the young people getting tattoos these days in Japan as yakuza, it is outright impossible to picture Herb Irving as one. Irving, 35, is a Canadian-born English-teacher and sometime musical comedian working the regular Club Asia comedy nights in Shibuya. He has a Keith Richards Telecaster electric guitar tattooed on his right bicep. And while he hasn’t ever had a problem visiting sentos or onsens, a couple of years ago, while Irving was splashing around at Wild Blue Yokohama with two Japanese friends, the rather small and fairly pale guitar on his arm attracted the attention of lifeguards, who promptly ordered it covered.

Bandages were applied over the offending tattoo, and they were of course soon washed away in the surf. A second alert lifeguard approached Irving, and more bandages were applied only to be torn off in the afternoon pseudo-beach fun. Then a team of zealous park officials descended on reckless Irving with polite threats. Eventually, on the forth attempt, the tattoo was successfully concealed beneath a patchwork of bigger, more adhesive bandages.

Tattoos they are a-changin

On the question of tattoos, I’m waiting for some answers.

And the man I hope will provide them is late. I fidget, I buy a can of coffee from a vending machine, roll the hot cylinder between my chilly hands, march my cold feet in place on the sidewalk at the taxi stand where I’m supposed to wait. I take in the unspectacular view – the pachinko parlor, a squat grey building with a big sign of flashing electric lights; the tidy cake shop; the trio of elderly women gossiping at the bus stop. I wave away another taxi cab and lean against the wall, positioning myself so as to catch some of the late afternoon sunlight streaming down on little west-Tokyo Musashseki station. I go over my questions.

Why, I ask myself, would a man invest more than 150 hours of his time, over a two year period, in a weekly series of painful puncture wounds that would leave a meter-tall image of legendary little forest-dwelling bear-killer Kintaro indelibly sunk into the skin of his shoulders, back, buttocks, and thighs?

Suddenly, the trio of chatterbox women become quiet, and a weird stillness seems to descend on the entire scene before me. About the only thing moving is a cream-colored van with dark tinted windows. As it glides into the taxi stand the wrong way, the van’s side door slides open electronically and a low, husky voice comes from the still invisible interior. "Monty-san," it calls out.

I climb in.

The driver I do not recognize – a skinny guy, young, with a buzz-cut and a pair of dark glasses. He will not say a word the entire afternoon. I do, however, know the plump man sitting in the passenger seat cuddling "Poo," his pet shih tsu. He is Takagi Yukio, whose body hosts the tattoo I’m interested in. I met Takagi at a funny little party a week earlier, through a German friend who works as a bodyguard for Japanese pro-wrestler Fujiwara Kumicho, one of Takagi’s associates. After having sized me up and made a play for my date, Takagi agreed to let me come to his "studio" to photograph his tattoo. A five minute drive and we arrive at said studio, which turns out to be a large western-style room containing a desk and two chairs, a double bed, a karaoke machine, and nothing else. When Takagi begins to disrobe, I take a quick inventory of who knows where I am on this afternoon. The total is zero, so I get a little nervous.

"I got the tattoo when I was 22," explains a now-naked Takagi in a matter-of-fact voice, "because I’m a yakuza." Takagi’s tattoo is part of the tradition of the band of "tekiya," or festival and carnival workers, which make up his family background. Fifteen years later, at age 37, Takagi has graduated from a travelling hawker of octopus balls to actor and film production advisor, thanks mostly to his connections to and familiarity with the underworld. "When a film includes yakuza," he says, "the director hires me to make the characters more realistic.

"They also" he winks, "use this studio for the bedroom scenes" Takagi recently completed work on the Toei film company’s gangster flick "Gokudo Sangoshi III."

After finishing our photo session in a tatami room upstairs, Takagi informs me that it is customary for Japanese journalists to pay him 100,000 yen for an interview or photo. The skinny sidekick shifts slightly in my uneasy silence before Takagi reaches out and pats me on the back. "I’ll make an exception this time," he laughs, "just make sure I get a copy of the magazine."

I won’t forget, I assure him.

For Takagi and those like him, the tattoo marks the rite of passage into a group. But there is also an emerging class of young Japanese for whom a tattoo has come to symbolize the opposite – individuality.

"Ever since the New York City hardcore music scene became trendy in Japan some ten years ago, there has been very intense interest in all aspects of American alternative culture," says Pissken, who edits the magazine "Burst," Japan’s leading monthly of things raunchy, revolutionary and irreverent. The March 1999 issue features a pictorial on the bosozoku, Japan’s clean-cut answer to the Hell’s Angels; as well as a selection of nasty scatological photographs; and extensive reporting on the country’s tattoo boom.

"The appearance of American-style, walk-in tattoo parlors over the last five years," says Pissken, "has made it easier than ever for young Japanese to emulate the style of their American musician and biker idols. Where tattoo artists used to be exclusive to the yakuza, now there are hundreds, maybe thousands of clean-cut young kids in their 20s and 30s out there waiting with their machines."

Indeed, introduction of the American-style electric needle machine (most are actually made in England) has dramatically reduced the time, cost, and pain involved in getting a tattoo in Japan. Still, an obvious distinction between tattoo-mania and other body-treatment trends to hit this country is that unlike tanning or hair coloring, the tattoo is forever – a symbol which proclaims that being different is one’s destiny.

Or one’s "Dastiny," as a young Shibuya tattoo artist confesses he once inscribed on a pale white banner unfurling over the bicep of a young customer. "The guy came back a few days later and pointed out the spelling error, but when I found the piece of paper he had originally brought in and asked me to copy, we realized it was his mistake." Enter the black cat’s tail, a fall-back design employed by tattoo artists faced with the task of undoing the undoable. When a long, winding black cat’s tail passes over the text in a tattoo, rendering one or more letters in relief, it is often because the artist is covering up a misspelling.

"Of course we’re professional," protests the tattoo artist, who prefers to remain nameless, "but I’m Japanese, how was I supposed to know how to spell ‘destiny’?"

Scratch Addiction, one of the first American-style tattoo shops to open in Tokyo, offers an alternative to the black cat’s tail – a "do-it-yourself tattoo removal kit." Displayed in a case beside the Harajuku shop’s door, the kit consists of a single item – a pocketknife.

Ha ha.

"At first I considered whether I might one day have second thoughts about getting them, like if I got married, but I just don’t think about it any more," says Godenki Keiko, 23, of the flower and bird tattoos that circle her ankle and run across her back and chest. Godenki began her tattooing when she was 20 years old, the legal minimum age in much of Japan (some regions, including Tokyo, set the minimum age at 18). Soon after starting, however, Godenki discovered that she had more on her shoulders than a tattoo – she carried a stigma. Fortunately, when she was let go from her pachinko parlor job because her tattoos were partly visible through the white blouse of the shop’s summer uniform, Scratch Addiction offered Godenki a job.

Two years later, she says she enjoys both the hip atmosphere and her job’s perks, as she now gets her tattoos for free. As Godenki – who has shown her mother but not her father the artwork – smiles at the bruised aftermath of today’s augmentation to the tattoo on her chest, it is hard to guess where the young woman’s addiction will stop.

Scratch Addiction artist Ichinohe Yushi, 31, says that about half the people who come into the shop already have tattoos. About 90% of his customers are the teen-to-twenty-five crowd that make the scene outside on trendy Takashita Dori, and most opt for "tribal" designs, usually based on Maori or Celtic patterns. Prices at the shop start at 13,000 yen for the simple kanji favored by foreign customers, and can climb into the hundreds of thousands of yen for larger, multi-colored images.

Ichinohe, who learned his craft in California, has a handsome face and scrawny body riddled almost neck to ankle with designs that include a ’53 Cadillac, a half-dead (and half-alive) Elvis, several lucky numbers, his mom’s name (Reiko), UFOs, and one of his most popular original-designs – the pistol-packing tom cat. His left leg ("that’s where I practice…") is a patchwork of graffiti.

"I guess," he smiles, "I started out wanting a label that said I was ‘bad’!"

Apart from drunks or minors, there is only type of customer Ichinohe will not put under his needle – yakuza. "I respect all tattooists," he explains, "but we’re all different and we’re all doing our own thing. So," and here Ichinohe’s voice drops to a whisper, "if a yakuza were to come in the shop, I wouldn’t touch him. Just like in America, where the skull and helmet design is only for the Hell’s Angels and regular tattooists won’t do it – that’s the tattooist’s code."

Other no-no’s at Scratch Addiction include racist, cult, or "political" tattoos, as well as any design on the face or genitals. But for those who simply must have a swastika on their forehead, there are other shops in Tokyo that will oblige.

Take the nearby studio Noon, where resident artist Mamiya Eizo, 42, offers a menu that goes beyond anywhere-on-the-body-tattoos to include piercing, branding, scarification, and implants. Author of Japan’s Body Art classic, "The Piercing Bible," Mamiya’s physique has acquired some 200 extra orifices, 20 of which ventilate his, well, just guess. Mamiya reports that the tongue is this year’s favorite place to pierce, and produces a catalogue detailing his eight different approaches for doing so. A fresh-faced, buck-toothed girl walks into the shop and says she wants a small blue butterfly on her shoulder. I find myself thinking, "that’s how it starts…"

Although an increasing number of young people are getting tattoos, few would characterize Japan as a country where public perceptions and social conventions change quickly. For most people here, a tattoo still says "yakuza."

Late last summer, as Tokyo artist Matsumoto Gento was hanging his work for an exhibition at the Wonder Museum, the Canon corporation’s Makuhari photo gallery, company executives called an emergency meeting which the artist was not invited to attend. From the meeting came an ultimatum: Unless Matsumoto removed a particular set of two-meter tall, computer-enhanced portraits, the show would not open. The reason? According to museum assistant manager Shintaro Abe, the pictures were simply "too shocking for a gallery that children might visit." What Canon had deemed taboo was tattoos.

And they weren’t even real tattoos! The dense net of colorful faux-tattoos that covered the bodies of Matsumoto’s models from head to toe, obscured only by fundoshi (loincloths) or white cotton briefs, were generated using photo-shop computer software. Months after a resolute Matsumoto saw his show cancelled, Canon still would not offer an official comment on why they found the work so "shocking."

A possible explanation lies in a non sequitur – because gangsters have tattoos, anyone who has a tattoo must be a gangster. Hence, many Japanese saunas, public baths, and swimming pools, in an ongoing but outdated effort to keep out undesirables, bar all people with tattoos.

"It’s a rule we have," explains a Wild Blue Yokohama spokesperson when asked about the indoor, virtual-beach amusement park’s policy of refusing entry to people with tattoos. When asked if this is because yakuza have tattoos, the spokesperson briefly puts me on hold before returning as an ad hoc diplomat. "I can’t say that," she answers, "it might be so, but my boss tells me I can’t say that."

If it seems difficult to imagine the young people getting tattoos these days in Japan as yakuza, it is outright impossible to picture Herb Irving as one. Irving, 35, is a Canadian-born English-teacher and sometime musical comedian working the regular Club Asia comedy nights in Shibuya. He has a Keith Richards Telecaster electric guitar tattooed on his right bicep. And while he hasn’t ever had a problem visiting sentos or onsens, a couple of years ago, while Irving was splashing around at Wild Blue Yokohama with two Japanese friends, the rather small and fairly pale guitar on his arm attracted the attention of lifeguards, who promptly ordered it covered.

Bandages were applied over the offending tattoo, and they were of course soon washed away in the surf. A second alert lifeguard approached Irving, and more bandages were applied only to be torn off in the afternoon pseudo-beach fun. Then a team of zealous park officials descended on reckless Irving with polite threats. Eventually, on the forth attempt, the tattoo was successfully concealed beneath a patchwork of bigger, more adhesive bandages.

Choosing Lower Back Tattoo Designs

Is a negative phrase used recently to describe lower back tattoos. With the increasing number of people who now have them, it seems clear that there are going to be some good choices and some bad choices. If you want one, go for it, but spend a bit of time researching to ensure yours is a good decision.

For lots of people, a lower back tattoo is a positive decision because it allows you to amend your style of clothing to suit whether you want the tattoo to be on view. This is great if you happen to work in a corporate environment. Understandably, the amount of light you give your ink will depend on the warmth of your country.

Girls are drawn to this location because the lower back is purportedly the core of female creativity. To emphasise this part of your body is to draw attention to this creative force and illustrate your independence from other people. Physically, a lower back tattoo will highlight your feminine curves by focussing the eyes and compliementing your shape. An additional positive feature of this location is that it is quite wide and yet can be hidden, so it allows more creativity to be included in the sorts of lower back tattoo designs which may be chosen.

When deciding which of the many lower back tattoo designs to have tattooed onto your skin, you should remember that the tattoo must be for you – you have to want to be inked for yourself and not for anyone else. Locate and energise yourself for yourself! Once you are happy this is so, there are a few decisions you need to make.

Firstly: the design. Visit any tattoo parlor and you’ll see many, many potential images; it can be overwhelming. By having several ideas before you make this visit will save you time and focus your initial ideas on what you want without distractions. Do you want something connected to space (stars, moons, planets, star signs)? How about something more ancestral (stunning markings, maybe linked to your family or your country’s forefathers)? How about symbols (crosses, gorgeous celtic symbols, languages from different times)? Are you drawn to animals (the pride of lions, eagles’ strength, deers’ grace)? Do you love plants (a lotus’ life span, the elegance of a rose, the fragrance of your preferred stem)? With the increasing figures of relationship breakdowns, it’s probably a better idea to not be tattoed with your partner’s name. However, there’s nothing stopping you from including their name if that’s what you really want or the name of your children/ or parents.

Second of all, mirror images. The lower back is an ideal place for a mirror image design; your hips are symmetrical and a design which tracks this symmetry will draw attention to your femininity and praise your curvyness. However, if you prefer a tattoo which is not symmetrical, then go for it! Some sweet miniature stars or even a reptile would be awesome. Just remember: it is your tattoo, so make it right for you!

Finally, color. Do you desire a black and white tattoo (eternal, graceful, delicate) or a colourful tattoo which certainly empowers your ink and perfects the image you want? For many, the decision of whether to have color depends on the design, but take some time to note down what you find appealing in the tattoos of others.

Choosing Lower Back Tattoo Designs

Is a negative phrase used recently to describe lower back tattoos. With the increasing number of people who now have them, it seems clear that there are going to be some good choices and some bad choices. If you want one, go for it, but spend a bit of time researching to ensure yours is a good decision.

For lots of people, a lower back tattoo is a positive decision because it allows you to amend your style of clothing to suit whether you want the tattoo to be on view. This is great if you happen to work in a corporate environment. Understandably, the amount of light you give your ink will depend on the warmth of your country.

Girls are drawn to this location because the lower back is purportedly the core of female creativity. To emphasise this part of your body is to draw attention to this creative force and illustrate your independence from other people. Physically, a lower back tattoo will highlight your feminine curves by focussing the eyes and compliementing your shape. An additional positive feature of this location is that it is quite wide and yet can be hidden, so it allows more creativity to be included in the sorts of lower back tattoo designs which may be chosen.

When deciding which of the many lower back tattoo designs to have tattooed onto your skin, you should remember that the tattoo must be for you – you have to want to be inked for yourself and not for anyone else. Locate and energise yourself for yourself! Once you are happy this is so, there are a few decisions you need to make.

Firstly: the design. Visit any tattoo parlor and you’ll see many, many potential images; it can be overwhelming. By having several ideas before you make this visit will save you time and focus your initial ideas on what you want without distractions. Do you want something connected to space (stars, moons, planets, star signs)? How about something more ancestral (stunning markings, maybe linked to your family or your country’s forefathers)? How about symbols (crosses, gorgeous celtic symbols, languages from different times)? Are you drawn to animals (the pride of lions, eagles’ strength, deers’ grace)? Do you love plants (a lotus’ life span, the elegance of a rose, the fragrance of your preferred stem)? With the increasing figures of relationship breakdowns, it’s probably a better idea to not be tattoed with your partner’s name. However, there’s nothing stopping you from including their name if that’s what you really want or the name of your children/ or parents.

Second of all, mirror images. The lower back is an ideal place for a mirror image design; your hips are symmetrical and a design which tracks this symmetry will draw attention to your femininity and praise your curvyness. However, if you prefer a tattoo which is not symmetrical, then go for it! Some sweet miniature stars or even a reptile would be awesome. Just remember: it is your tattoo, so make it right for you!

Finally, color. Do you desire a black and white tattoo (eternal, graceful, delicate) or a colourful tattoo which certainly empowers your ink and perfects the image you want? For many, the decision of whether to have color depends on the design, but take some time to note down what you find appealing in the tattoos of others.

tattoo designs

tattoo designs

tattoo

tattoo

beautiful tribal tattoo

tattoo designs

tattoo designs

tattoo

tattoo

beautiful tribal tattoo

Lower Back Tribal Tattoos - Magical Historical Roots

Lower back tribal tattoos have become very popular in recent modern times, this article explains why.

For centuries we have painted ourselves with tattoos and recently the appearance of this body art form has exploded in popularity with great numbers of people getting themselves inked.

There are a variety of different styles in tattoo design from crude home made forms using a bottle of shop bought ink and a sewing needle to highly sophisticated methods involving the latest colors of ink and very quick needle guns employed by professional tattooists. They get the job done in record time and some of these tattooists are close to being the modern equivalent of a Michelangelo or Pablo Picasso.

What is achieved by the tattoo artists using their great designs and colored ink is quite remarkable.

Why do folk settle for getting inked with historical designs that are normally in the single colors of henna or black? The answer like most things is multi faceted and the roots of which begin in the mists of time itself. Historically, before we communicated properly with speech, we used this art form as a way of communicating with each other.

Many of us will have seen cavemen animal drawings on cave walls and the depiction was normally so good we could tell which animals they were. Drawing on their bodies became a natural extension of that art form. The inked body drawings would tell of great victories and other notable events.

The leaders of the tribe would have special designs that would depict their standing within the community and the most effective place for the tribal back tattoos was on the back so that they could be followed into battle or when hunting for animals. It was a case of follow the leader in those days and those generals led from the front rather than being safely deployed behind their troops which is the case in modern day wars.

Lower back tribal tattoos have become popular with women as they have a flattering effect on the shape of a woman's body. The waist is given the illusion of being smaller whereas the hips appear to be enhanced giving an overall more shapely appearance.

Men often prefer their tribal back tattoos on the upper back which again enhances the body shape appearance by giving the effect of widening the shoulders, reducing the waist and giving the impression of the classic V shape.

New ink

Yeah I know, I suck. I haven't been the greatest at keeping this blog updated. What can I say, having 2 jobs takes alot of time out of a day. Anyhow here is my latest work:

"We strive to be worthy of their devotion". I'd been looking for something that would represent dogs in way I loved. (One of my jobs is as a dog trainer.) I stumbled across this celtic version of a pawprint and knew this was it. My tattoo guy did a great job designing the rest of it with the quote. The forget-me-knots are in memory of the dogs gone but not forgotten. I think I'm going to go back and add more flowers above it on my shoulder.

New ink

Yeah I know, I suck. I haven't been the greatest at keeping this blog updated. What can I say, having 2 jobs takes alot of time out of a day. Anyhow here is my latest work:

"We strive to be worthy of their devotion". I'd been looking for something that would represent dogs in way I loved. (One of my jobs is as a dog trainer.) I stumbled across this celtic version of a pawprint and knew this was it. My tattoo guy did a great job designing the rest of it with the quote. The forget-me-knots are in memory of the dogs gone but not forgotten. I think I'm going to go back and add more flowers above it on my shoulder.

New ink

Yeah I know, I suck. I haven't been the greatest at keeping this blog updated. What can I say, having 2 jobs takes alot of time out of a day. Anyhow here is my latest work:

"We strive to be worthy of their devotion". I'd been looking for something that would represent dogs in way I loved. (One of my jobs is as a dog trainer.) I stumbled across this celtic version of a pawprint and knew this was it. My tattoo guy did a great job designing the rest of it with the quote. The forget-me-knots are in memory of the dogs gone but not forgotten. I think I'm going to go back and add more flowers above it on my shoulder.

New ink

Yeah I know, I suck. I haven't been the greatest at keeping this blog updated. What can I say, having 2 jobs takes alot of time out of a day. Anyhow here is my latest work:

"We strive to be worthy of their devotion". I'd been looking for something that would represent dogs in way I loved. (One of my jobs is as a dog trainer.) I stumbled across this celtic version of a pawprint and knew this was it. My tattoo guy did a great job designing the rest of it with the quote. The forget-me-knots are in memory of the dogs gone but not forgotten. I think I'm going to go back and add more flowers above it on my shoulder.

Japanese New Design Tattoos on Full Back Body Girl in today

Japanese New Design Tattoo on Full Back Body Girl (1)

Japanese New Design Tattoo on Full Back Body Girl (2)

Japanese New Design Tattoo on Full Back Body Girl (3)

Japanese New Design Tattoos on Full Back Body Girl in today

Japanese New Design Tattoo on Full Back Body Girl (1)

Japanese New Design Tattoo on Full Back Body Girl (2)

Japanese New Design Tattoo on Full Back Body Girl (3)