I love the fact that a tattoo can completely reveal an aspect of your personality that others might not have known or an aspect of your personality that completely blows people away.  It’s almost as if most people feel more comfortable letting their tattoos do the talking for them.  I feel like I can really relate to this because one of my own tattoos has to do with a part of my life that means quite a lot to me and that not many people know about me.  When people see it they ask about it and I’ll talk about it, but it’s not a part of my life that I’ll typically bring up and talk about otherwise.

So yeah, there are a lot of people out there with tattoos that might be a big contrast to the person you think you know.  After this weekend, the general public found out something quite surprising about a professional athlete thanks to his new tattoo…

Pro basketballer Andrei Kirilenko is now the proud owner of a massive back piece that shamelessly reveals his inner geek.  The Utah Jazz forward’s back tattoo is of his character from the massively popular online video game World of Warcraft.

‘Kirilenko’s character is a Level 80 Paladin, which for you and me is a magical knight that has almost achieved the highest level, having unlocked a vast amount of spells and collected a large cache of impressive weapons.’

Who would have thought that a professional basketball player would be spending his spare time tooling around an online fantasy video game?  And who would have thought that a professional basketball player would take an online fantasy video game so seriously that he’d devote his entire back to an image of his character from said game?  Well, I guess it just goes to show you that sometimes our tattoos are the easiest way to admit difficult truths about ourselves…

And that’s rad.

Though I’ve discussed it in the past on this site, I still feel the need to address the issue of safety issues regarding tattoo ink.  Recently I was planning on getting a new tattoo.  I was really looking forward to it, but then I started to read about the problems that tattoo ink can potentially cause.  Aside from the occasional itchy fit every few months on the surface, I’ve never had any real problems with my tattoos after the fact.  But what I began to learn is that sometimes the after effects of bad tattoo ink aren’t immediately noticeable and that sometimes it’s all just a matter of the ingredients of the ink flowing around inside your system.  I don’t want industrial strength chemicals cruising around inside my lymph nodes and all that, so I decided to start looking into it all a little bit more.

From what I’ve read, vegan ink is a decent alternative to many of the other inks out there on the market.  The supposed problem with vegan ink however, is that it doesn’t last as long as other inks, causing it to fade much quicker.  I went into one of my local tattoo studios with this on my mind and asked the shop manager if they used vegan ink.  He initially seemed a little taken aback, as though it was a question that he didn’t regularly hear.  Regardless, he told me that yes, they did use vegan ink and that I could easily have my tattoo done with it if I so desired.  I then asked him if it was true that vegan ink doesn’t last as long as the regular inks.  On this one he wasn’t sure at all, but he assured me that touch ups were free and that if I got a vegan ink tattoo and it started to fade, I could always come back and get it touched up.  Fair enough, but did I really want to be running back to get touch ups every year or so?  Not really, no.

This article further explores the issue of what’s going on with tattoo inks.  At present time, there is no regulating body on the composition of tattoo ink.  The FDA has recently begun looking into the problem, but they did so only after complaints from consumers who’ve experienced adverse side affects from a tattoo.  The FDA’s investigation has found reason to be concerned:

‘FDA’s own investigation into the chemical composition of inks and their long-term safety has turned up some other concerns. For example, when tattoos fade, as they do over time, what happens to the ink? Where does it go in the body? Researchers are exploring that question, and they think the body rids itself of the inks as it does certain bacteria and other foreign matter.

But some inks — perhaps the reds, oranges, yellows and even whites — may be problematic. The skin cells containing the ink can be killed by sunlight and ink-breakdown products may disperse through the body, scientists say. Research has already found that certain types of pigment migrate from the tattoo site to the body’s lymph nodes. This could potentially damage the lymphatic system, which filters out disease-causing organisms.’

It is slightly reassuring that the FDA is beginning to actually look at these problems, though it’s still far from a real solution.  What needs to happen is transparent and very thorough research into tattoo inks by the very organisations that are meant to regulate and observe potential health threats to the general public.  This needs to happen sooner rather than later.  After all, wouldn’t you like to know exactly what’s being put into your skin the next time that you go in to get a tattoo?  And wouldn’t you like to know exactly what is safe and what isn’t safe for your body?  I know that I sure would.

Tattooist Nick Whybrow is pretty upfront and straight forward about his work.  In his own words: “I’m in London most of the time.  I do tattoos on people.”  And there you have it.  That’s Nick Whybrow.

Of course there’s far more to this talented tattooist that just a few simple lines of introduction.  Whybrow tattoos (when he’s in London) at Self Sacrifice in Soho.  His work takes on a sort of classic American style, with plenty of colour and a nice beefy heft to it.  The imagery is that of bygone era, where player pianos rang out in whisky saloons and men with pencil thin moustaches checked the time on their pocket watches.  At least that’s how it makes me feel and I certainly do like it.

This summer, between the dates of June 28th-July 2nd, Whybrow will be taking up a guest spot at custom tattoo studio Nine, in Brighton, England.  If you’re interested in getting tattooed by Nick in Brighton, then you should contact the folks at Nine and try and get an appointment.  Otherwise you’ll have to catch up with him in London.  Check out more of Whybrow’s work over here.

In the years that I have been writing for this blog, I have certainly come across some very strange news items that were related to tattoo.  I’ve written about people with misspelled tattoos, people with 3D tattoos, people who’ve dedicated their entire body to tattooing it with portraits of their favourite actor, even people who have been forcibly tattooed against their will.  But it wasn’t until today that I came across something of a first – the hit and run of tattoos, if you will…

Stetson Johnson of Oklahoma City is lucky to be alive after he was brutally attacked and tattooed by a group of people he had just met.  According to Johnson, he first made contact with a girl over MySpace and had agreed to hang out in person.  Johnson ended up at a house where things quickly spiralled out of control.  He was beaten, then had his genitals repeatedly tasered by the girl and her friends.  They then took Johnson to a nearby lake and struck him over the head with a baseball bat, nearly killing him.

When Johnson awoke two hours later, he discovered that he had also been the victim of unwanted tattooing.  On his forehead, “Rapest” was tattooed as well as “I like little boys” across his chest.  Johnson’s attackers who have since been apprehended, claim that he had tried to rape the girl whom he had originally met on MySpace.  Johnson’s mother says that if this is true, why didn’t the girl simply go to the police rather than beating, tasing and tattooing her son?  I tend to agree.

As a result of all this, Johnson and his family are moving and Johnson has had the “Rapest” tattoo on his forehead covered up with a barcode tattoo.  I’m sure there is more to this story than what is currently being said, but regardless of what really happened and why, this sort of act of violence is akin to a drive by shooting or a hit and run car accident.  Though tattooing someone doesn’t kill them, it certainly does brand them for life and the use of an art form as a weapon or form of punishment is quite frankly, sickening.

If there’s one thing I learned after last weekend’s Royal Wedding, it’s that a whole lot of people took it really, really seriously.  That might be different in other countries around the world, but in Canada we still have the Queen on all our money and there are many, many fans of her even though she does absolutely nothing.  As you can probably tell, I’m no fan of the monarchy.

However…I know that I don’t have to tell you about all the different types of big fans of the English monarchy or of all the things that they did in preparation for the wedding or the things that they did on the day of the wedding…except for one dude.  One dude by the name of Stephen Nesbitt was so in to the wedding between William and Kate that he decided he was going to have “Good Luck William and Kate” as well as the date of the wedding tattooed on to his upper thigh.  Why exactly he chose the upper thigh for this sort of tattoo I’ll never know – but then again, I don’t understand why he got the tattoo in the first place, so let’s not split hairs.

Anyway, Nesbitt got his tattoo, trusting tattooist Alan Fleck with the task of getting the little details down – like the exact date of the wedding, for example.  But guess what?  Alan Fleck actually tattooed the wrong date on to Nesbitt’s upper thigh.  The tattoo now reads: Good Luck William and Kate, 28th April 2011.  Uh oh…the wedding of course, took place on the 29th.  So now Nesbitt is left with an inconvenient typo permanently inked into his upper thigh.

This entire incident has actually reconfirmed two things for me, which I will now share with you: 1. Never leave important dates, correct spellings, etc, up to your tattooist.  It’s your responsibility to not only get those things right, but to also double check that everything is in its right place after the tattooist removes the stencil from your skin.  And 2. The Royal family are shape shifting lizards.

3D has made a big comeback in the last few years, there’s no doubt about that.  And while most of the 3D that is on offer is slightly less than impressive in its execution, that doesn’t mean that it’s any less popular.  As it meanders its way through everything from websites to films to television to video games, 3D unsurprisingly has found its way to tattoos.  As a matter of fact, last year I actually wrote about a new sort of “virtual reality” concept of tattoo.  You can read more on that here.

I’m sure that it will be a while yet before 3D tattoos are the norm, but every new idea needs its test monkeys, its “pioneers”, so to speak, and who better to test out these sorts of things than video game nerds?  These guys will do pretty much anything to live alongside the animated reality of the video games they spend their lonely days playing and fantasizing about.  Which is why it didn’t surprise me one bit when I saw that a blogger by the name of CranberryZero has been tattooed with a Nintendo 3DS AR card.

I won’t go into detail about exactly what the AR card does – mostly because I myself don’t really know – but judging by the photos and the ultra blurry/shaky video here, the AR card is a kind of blue screen that allows animation and 3D graphics to appear on it.  What that means is that once this CranberryZero guy got his tattoo, he could then turn on his Nintendo 3DS, which would then project an image on his 3DS screen of computer generated graphics walking around on his forearm.

I guess if this sort of thing is exciting to you, then this is an amazing, awe inspiring idea.  For the rest of us, it simply begs a lot of questions, for example, what the point of a novelty tattoo that requires carrying around a Nintendo 3DS is and isn’t that a lot of work just to have a couple bouncy boxes and little men appear on your arm?

Oh well, I suspect this type of technology is only going to become more popular – and I hope of a higher quality in the coming years.  Then again, it could end up being the equivalent of having a Commodore 64 tattoo from back in the day when you thought that the Commodore 64 was at the heights of technology.  No? Anyone else remember the Commodore 64 out there??  Holla!!!

As art, tattoos should be protected under copyright law.  It only makes sense to me that I couldn’t paint a replica of the Mona Lisa and go around claiming that it was my own original art.  It really shouldn’t make a difference whether you’re talking about the Mona Lisa or a custom tattoo the size of a quarter.  An artist’s art is their art and no one else should be able to gain from it, other than the artist him/herself.

In The Hangover, the 2009 film that pretty much everyone in the world saw, Mike Tyson makes a cameo as himself, complete with his notorious facial tattoo.  This month, The Hangover Part II is due to be released.  Aside from looking identical to its predecessor, there is also one other similarity – though this one could cause the film’s makers and its studio one big giant headache.

In The Hangover Part II, Ed Helms character Stu Price wakes up after a night of drunken debauchery (this time in Bangkok) to discover that he now has the exact same facial tattoo as Mike Tyson.  While this might be considered comedy gold for some, one person who really isn’t laughing is the tattooist who originally gave Mike Tyson his facial tattoo, S. Victor Whitmill.  In fact, Whitmill has launched a copyright lawsuit, trying to block the film’s release.  Serious stuff.

‘The lawsuit argues that the only authorized version of the tattoo is the one on Mike Tyson’s face, and that any other version is a pirated version. It asks the judge to issue an injunction stopping the movie from launching on schedule.’

This whole thing kind of reminds me of the Crispin Glover lawsuit when Back to the Future Part II came out.  You see, in the first Back to the Future film, Glover played George McFly.  Glover didn’t return for the second film and when he didn’t return, Universal Studios saw fit to use Crispin Glover’s likeness without actually paying him for it.  Glover sued and although the case was eventually thrown out of court, it created an entire new clause for filmmaking and the use of an actor’s likeness.

So should S. Victor Whitmill be able to sue over his tattoo design being used without his permission?  I would say so, yes.  And if the courts also see it this way, Warner Brothers Entertainment could end up dishing out a large sum of cash in order to save the release of The Hangover Part II.

London, London, London.  A lot of eyes were on London, England this past weekend as the Royal Wedding took place.  But who cares about the Royal Wedding, right?  Right.  There’s no time to bother ourselves with thoughts of mega-rich royalty parading themselves about when London is a city absolutely filled with first rate tattooists.

As a matter of fact, Edgar Ivanov just happens to be one of those first rate tattooists.  Though he’s originally from Lithuania, Ivanov still fits in perfectly amongst the London tattooists – that is, he’s got the skills to keep up with whatever or whoever London has to offer.

Specialising in photo realistic tattooing in both black and grey and colour (although if I’m being honest here, I have to say that his black and grey work is the superior of the two), Ivanov renders images that embrace darkness and horror, yet remain extremely difficult to take your eyes away from.  These are detailed, thick, vibrant renderings and there is no shortage of life in anything that Ivanov tattoos.

Ivanov tattoos at Old London Road Tattoos and according to the his bio on OLRT’s website, he’s been tattooing for just over 5 years.  A very short time indeed, but apparently long enough to put together a very impressive portfolio.  Check him out the next time you’re in London!

Thanks very much to the indispensable Big Tattoo Planet for the photos.

A lot of people who dislike tattoos use the logic that a tattoo might look cool now, but it certainly won’t once you’re old.  Personally I think that this is a total rubbish bit of logic, mostly because worrying about what your tattoos look like is probably the least of your worries once (and if) you become old.

If however, you do firmly stand by this rule of being frightened of what your tattoo might one day look like, perhaps you can now take some comfort in knowing that a new mathematical model has been created by Ian Eames, a student at University College London.  The model monitors the spread of ink particles beneath the skin, allowing Eames to see to what degree a tattoo will blur or fade given the time to do so.

‘Ian Eames, a reader in fluid mechanics at University College London, who has published details of the model in Mathematics Today and , said small details in a tattoo were lost first while thicker lines were less affected, and larger tattoos fared better in appearance than smaller ones. The details of complex patterns are lost after about 10 years.

Eames’s model enables him to estimate the movement of ink particles and predict how a particular design will change with time. “The dye spreads in some sense like heat spreading along a metal bar. But the rate of spreading is very, very small and takes many years to spread a few millimetres,” he said.’

I’m not sure exactly what use this model could be put to.  I mean, are we meant to have them set up in tattoo studios so that tattooists can show potential customers what their tattoo will look like 40 years from now?  Hardly seems practical.  Judging by the photos of the work that the model does, it seems to me that an equal prediction can be achieved by taking an out of focus photo of a tattoo.

What is this guy wasting his time with stuff like this anyway?  I mean, he’s at University.  Shouldn’t he be figuring out important stuff, like how to build a bong that makes sandwiches every time you or your friends take a hit?  Sheesh, some people just don’t understand the importance of higher education.

In case you’ve been living under a rock for the past few years, I’ll just let you know that the tattoo industry is worth a whole lot of money.  A whole lot.  We tend to forget exactly how much when for the majority of us, the tattoo industry is little more than the handful of locals we know down on such and such street who tattoo for a living.  And while that is the heart of the industry and the most realistic aspect of the industry, it doesn’t change the fact that there are some big players attached to tattooing.

Probably the biggest tattoo name that I can think of in terms of actual revenue gained is Ed Hardy.  Ed Hardy’s clothing line has become more widely known and famous than his actual tattoo work in some circles.  It’s the clothing brand that people love to hate and which many nightclubs and bars have firmly etched onto their doormen’s “clothing not permitted” lists.  Why?  Because it’s tacky as shit.

All that however, is beside the point.  Especially when it comes to Iconix Brand Group, who recently paid a whopping $55 Million for 85% of the worldwide master license for the Ed Hardy brand.  Tacky or not, that’s some serious scratch.  The remaining 15% of the company belongs to Ed Hardy himself, who has very little to do with the actual production of Ed Hardy products.

‘“We are excited to be able to utilize our marketing and licensing expertise to reenergize the Ed Hardy brand. The brand has an extremely high level of consumer awareness in the United States as well as very strong international business,” Neil Cole, Iconix’s chairman and chief executive, said in a statement.

New York–based Iconix, whose stable of brands includesCandie’s, Joe Boxer, Bongo, Rampage, Mossimo, Ocean Pacific, Roca Wear and Badgley Mischka, announced the acquisition on April 27. It expects the Ed Hardy brand to generate $15 million to $16 million a year in royalty payments.’

Let that be a lesson to all of you aspiring tattooists out there.  Work hard, get plenty of rest, eat well, exercise and one day you too might be able to start a company with your name attached to it, which a massive corporation will then purchase for millions of dollars and which you’ll have no control over.

Don’t let the dream die!