Tattoos anyone?

[Dr. Snubnose]

I agree with EvilD....it's your body and there is no wrong answer....if you think it is...I know people who have gone to the tattoo parlor and had the artist remake the tattoo into something more fitting...I have seen it done and the results I have seen have been amazing....so if your not liking what you did in the past...well...then there is room for a make over if the artist is talented he will do you justice....nothing is forever and only you can decide how to make it right....I have seen it done....the new or final renditions I have seen can be quite impressive....Just saying....Doc:)

[SpyderNut]

I agree with EvilD....it's your body and there is no wrong answer....if you think it is...I know people who have gone to the tattoo parlor and had the artist remake the tattoo into something more fitting...I have seen it done and the results I have seen have been amazing....so if your not liking what you did in the past...well...then there is room for a make over if the artist is talented he will do you justice....nothing is forever and only you can decide how to make it right....I have seen it done....the new or final renditions I have seen can be quite impressive....Just saying....Doc:)

Very true. I once went to church with a gentleman who had a nude woman tattoo on his forearm. He became concerned that it might offend people, so he figured he had to take action to have it removed. For some reason or another, that didn't work out for him. So instead, he went to a tattoo parlor and had them tattoo "clothes" on the nude tattoo! :)

[Evil D]

Yeah anytime you decide to get something that could be offensive, you're asking for regret. They can do some amazing things with cover ups these days but the hot thing now is to get them lasered off or lasered so they're much lighter in color and then tattoo over it. There will come a time when tattoos are no longer permanent and you'll be able to get entire sleeves removed and redone.

[twinboysdad]

Those are nice looking Evil. I have none and honestly I am glad I don't. I like them on other folks though

[DougC-3]

When I was about 8 years old, I found out that you could make a simple tattoo by splitting a green fig stem and pressing it against your skin. The white sap has a proteolytic enzyme in it (ficin - I didn't know that at the time :D ). Actually it just made a red place and scar under the area contacted by the split stems. I think you were supposed to hold it in place for about about half a minute, but I really wanted it to work well, so I held it for maybe 3 or 4 minutes and it raised a pretty good blister. I made a cross on the inside of my wrist and it didn't fade out until I was about 20. I never really had the urge to get anymore tattoos. My preferences and ideas seemed to change pretty regularly and I was pretty sure I'd get tired of a tattoo. Also, although I've always been law abiding, etc, it did cross my mind that if I ever did become a fugitive for whatever reason, it would make it pretty easy to identify me

[twinboysdad]

So no face tats then Doug? :D

[Evil D]

I must say, the fear of being identified if I were ever to find myself as a fugitive of the law had never crossed my mind before that first tattoo was put on me. I guess somewhere in my subconscious I always knew that if it came down to that, I'd just go out guns blazing lol.

[DougC-3]

So no face tats then Doug? :D

Nope, nor elsewhere either :) My pop was a career criminal investigator, so I know they don't just look at your face if they're curious lol -- I'm not really concerned about it.

I must say, the fear of being identified if I were ever to find myself as a fugitive of the law had never crossed my mind before that first tattoo was put on me. I guess somewhere in my subconscious I always knew that if it came down to that, I'd just go out guns blazing lol.

Saw an episode of Forensic Files a couple of days ago where a guy killed a couple of women and later was picked up. He had two fresh looking tear tattoos at the corner of his eye, which indicates in gang symbols that he's killed two people :rolleyes: Later the jury was told to disregard it, but I'll bet they had it in the backs of their minds. One thing I've learned from that program is that a lot of crooks are just plain dumb :D

[Camburt]

Can we remove these tattoos later on? or they are permanent?

[Evil D]

Can we remove these tattoos later on? or they are permanent?

Well laser removal has come a long way. Nothing is really permanent anymore.

[DougC-3]

I've wondered about the X's on your wrists since I noticed them in one of your youtube videos and can't help but wonder about their meaning and how they saved your life. I also wondered about what kind or artwork you do, professional, hobbyist, or perhaps tattoo? I didn't mention these things when the thread first came up because I was afraid they were too personal, but it has rolled around again and caught me at a less considerate time But seriously if this is too personal please just disregard the post.

And, speaking of the videos, it's strange how assumptions you make about a person's manner from their writing can differ from the way they seems on videos. Maybe I was influence by the solemn, mausoleum-like atmosphere suggested by your skull avatar, but your posts always seem sort of slow, deliberate, authoritative and definitive, with a dead silence between the words, but the videos are more quick, animated, and maybe with a faint yankee accent? :D

[Evil D]

I've wondered about the X's on your wrists since I noticed them in one of your youtube videos and can't help but wonder about their meaning and how they saved your life. I also wondered about what kind or artwork you do, professional, hobbyist, or perhaps tattoo? I didn't mention these things when the thread first came up because I was afraid they were too personal, but it has rolled around again and caught me at a less considerate time But seriously if this is too personal please just disregard the post.

And, speaking of the videos, it's strange how assumptions you make about a person's manner from their writing can differ from the way they seems on videos. Maybe I was influence by the solemn, mausoleum-like atmosphere suggested by your skull avatar, but your posts always seem sort of slow, deliberate, authoritative and definitive, with a dead silence between the words, but the videos are more quick, animated, and maybe with a faint yankee accent? :D

LOL, Ohio born and raised so I guess that makes me a yankee. I have a bit of a slur when I talk too. (now that you mention videos, the last one I put on You Tube I was kinda worked up over some stupid crap on Facebook, so I sound pretty harsh in that one LOL). I try to use decent grammar when I'm typing and avoid being misunderstood, so I'm sure it comes off as mechanical sometimes. The internet has created a whole world where we interact with people on a daily basis without really getting to know what other people's mannerisms are. It's so hard to pick up on personality traits through text. I'm really an easy going and pretty goofy person, having 2 kids has brought the kid back out of me quite a bit. I still look like an angry biker and people tell me all the time after they've gotten to know me that I'm nothing like they expected me to be judging by my appearance. I'm a pretty big guy, have a lot of tattoos (some of which aren't the most happy looking), have a huge beard and a shaved head and I always look angry, so making first impressions is not something I'm good at.

As for the skull avatar thing, that's a painting I did a few years ago. I don't do art professionally because I have the worst case of artist block ever. I have a very hard time putting my imagination down on paper, and I kind of have a problem with the idea of selling art....it just doesn't feel right to me. I came very close to being a tattoo artist, but I just can't dedicate the time it requires to learn and be good at it while also working full time and being a dad. I refuse to be another guy who's scratching people up with crappy tattoos, I have too much respect for the art and for the people who carry around your artwork for the rest of their lives. I used to do a lot of drawing and painting, and a lot of it was tattoo flash style work. The skull painting (if you can believe it) is actually only the 2nd thing I've ever painted, aside from odds and ends that I did in art class way back in school. It's taken from a medical photo of a real skull, and then I added the roses just to give it some color contrast. It took me literally a year to finish because I kept leaving it and coming back to it. That's another reason I can't do art for a living..I'm way too slow at it.



While we're on the subject, "Evil D" is an old nickname from high school. My name is David, so that's where the D comes from. It's also a play on the world Devil, having the D at the end. No real reason, mostly just the nickname thing. I guess it sounded cool at the time :p


As for the X's...that's a bit of a long story, and to sum it up just wouldn't do it justice. But, it's not something I'm shy about talking about so I'll type it all out if you care to read it...

Growing up, I had a pretty large group of friends. In our teens, those friends all went through the usual drug/alcohol "experimenting" stage. For them it was less about experimenting, and more about full blown diving in with both feet. In the summer, there were parties every single night. One brother and sister in the group were quite wealthy, and lived on a large piece of land where these parties were held, and their parents didn't care what we did. To put it into perspective, there were literally full blown drug induced orgies happening fairly regularly. Me however, I never did any of it. Never drank, never did the drugs, never got in on the orgies. Me and my best friend growing up, we never did any of that. We were all into BMX, and riding was my life, and I couldn't understand the appeal of doing something that kept me away from riding. It was funny how often we were accused of being stoners, despite having never done any of it.

Fast forward to about age 18ish. Several of my friends are now dead, many from drunk driving accidents, some from overdose, some from drug influenced suicide. Some are going to prison. Over those years, I sat back and watched some very bright people destroy themselves, while I just kept riding my bike and having a good time. I guess I learned from their mistakes. That is, until one summer I went through a hard break up with the ol' high school sweetheart, and decided that drinking didn't sound so bad afterall. So, I developed a bit of a hobby out of taking shots of any hard liquor I could find (I don't recommend taking shots of Bacardi 151). This lasted all of about 6 months before one night, after a party, I found myself sitting in the kitchen pouring myself the last shot out of a Segrams bottle, and I looked around to find that everyone else had passed out in pools of their own puke. I realized I had drank the entire bottle by myself, and was still at it long after the party ended. Even being drunk, I was aware enough to ask myself WTF am I doing here and what was the goal of this? What was I trying to accomplish, and didn't I already know where this life lead?

Here's where the story really gets silly. This was around the mid-late '90s. The internet was blossoming. Chat rooms where still a thing, and the idea of online dating hadn't been labeled as completely insane yet. I had met a girl from Buffalo who was a body piercer, which was something I wanted to learn. So, we decided we would pack up our stuff and move to San Francisco and be body piercers. So, I sold everything I owned down to a suitcase full of clothes, and bought a Greyhound ticket and off we went to SF after 2 weeks of hanging out together. It was actually a pretty solid relationship. I liked this girl quite a bit, and we clicked. She was a very...free soul LOL.

Our time in SF basically consisted of trying to find jobs in a sea full of people who were trying to find jobs. You couldn't even get hired on at Wendy's (believe me, I tried). One evening, she didn't come home. I sat in our little one room apartment fearing for the worst. Eventually, around 3am or so, she came stumbling in. Beat to **** and back. Scrapes and cuts and bruises. She explained that she had been mugged and beaten and had spent the evening in the ER. She even still had those white pads stuck to her chest from the heart monitor. She told me a story about meeting some people and hanging out with them for a while, and then "some guy" beat the snot out of her. Well, I decided that the next morning we were getting up bright and early, and she was going to take me to this guy and I was going to show him what it feels like to be slapped around a bit.

And the next morning we did exactly that. Off I went, walking around the streets of SF, in a rage, ready to hurt the first person she pointed out and said "that's the guy" to. Looking back on it now, she could have pointed to any random dude and I would have stomped on him, and the poor guy wouldn't have known why. Luckily, she didn't point anyone out and we eventually just went home. Over the next couple days, I kept thinking about her story, and it just didn't make sense to me. I had been beat up, I've had my share of beat downs, but I've never heard of someone having a heart monitor in the ER from an *** beating...at least not from how minor her injuries were. Yeah, you get beat unconscious or put into a coma sure, but she was just banged up. So, I started picking apart her story, and the more I pushed the less it made sense, until finally she confessed that there was no fight, nobody attacked her. She had spent the evening shooting up heroin, stumbling around the gutter, and had done all that to herself, up until the point that she overdosed on it and was taken to the ER. Her mistake was forgetting to peel off the heart monitor stickers, or the story would have held up.

Well, this did not sit well with me at all. Suddenly, the reality of my situation became quite clear. I was on the other side of the country, in a huge city I knew nothing about, with about a grand in cash to my name and no job, with a girl I barely knew, who had a closet heroin addiction she forgot to mention. The "small fish in a big pond" feeling came over me, and I decided I had my fill of SF. So, I bought another bus ticket and back to Ohio I went. I got back to find that one of my friends' sisters had been killed in a drunk driving accident (her boyfriend ran a stop sign while drunk with her in the car...he lived). It just became very clear to me, that this lifestyle was creeping ever so close to being my lifestyle, and I had seen enough lives destroyed by it and I wanted no part of it.

This is about the time I discovered the bands Minor Threat and Earth Crisis. They sang of this lifestyle called "straight edge", where you basically choose to live a drug free life. It just made sense to me. Here I was the whole time living that life, and someone had put a name to it. After years of being the kid who kept saying no at parties and standing up to so much peer pressure, and being made to feel like the outcast because I didn't party with them, now there was a group of people who understood me, who I could finally identify with. And so, I found the straight edge life was for me. This didn't really take any change at all, because I was never really about that life, apart from my little run in with Jack and Jim. I got close with one other guy in our group who had similar feelings, and we ran with the whole straight edge thing. It just felt good. It was the typical teenage needing to feel part of something thing, and as much as I hate to admit it, I did need something to motivate me, something to validate my opinion and for someone to just tell me I was right for once (on that note, I have to say unlike most kids, my parents were always there for me, my mother supported everything I did, so none of this had anything to do with a crappy home life).

Back in about '84 or so, the band Minor Threat put out a song called Straight Edge. This little 46 second long song inadvertently started this entire Straight Edge thing, and it took off and eventually became a world wide movement. Turns out there are millions of people out there who just don't identify with the drugs and drinking thing. When you're underage, and you go into a bar, you get big black X's drawn on your hands to show everyone that you're not drinking that night. The band, and then everyone else, would do this on their own in defiance.


I had learned about Straight Edge through the positive ideas it promoted, I saw it as nothing more than a personal choice to make my own life better, and that's what it really is all about. Unfortunately, much like organized religion, there is another side where people use it for their own gains, and there are groups of people out there who live this lifestyle as if it were a gang, and they have a very "us vs. them" attitude and use straight edge as a reason to hurt others for not sharing in their beliefs. These people took it to a militant level, and of course that's when the media took notice, and these days when you mention straight edge to people, you never know what side they're going to associate it with.

I was very dedicated to that lifestyle. I truly believed that it was for me, and so the X's came to be. I knew I didn't want big black X's on the back of my hands for the rest of my life, so I put them in a place that worked for me. I put them on my wrists, because at the time I still had the urge to drink, so right there at the end of my arm right before the hand that pours that drink, I gave myself a reminder of the commitment I made to myself. And, I'm proud to say I haven't had a sip of booze in nearly 20 years. These days it's a lot less about straight edge for me, and more about just knowing that the person I was when I was hammered drunk is not the person I am or want to be today. Now I have kids that look up to me, and they're my motivation. But, I definitely still believe in the straight edge mentality, I just wish it wasn't tainted by these A-holes out there who run around and beat people up for smoking a cig or having a beer.

I'm still friends with many of those people I grew up with, and my best friend then is still my best friend now. Last weekend we were watching UFC and he had a few beers. I couldn't have cared less. I don't judge others for their actions, I don't look down on anyone for how they choose to live their lives. Now, had he got drunk and tried to drive home, that would've been a different story, but I know he's smarter than that. The friend that I found the whole straight edge life with, he has a matching X on his right arm, but he went on to go back to drinking and such after he got older. I'm fine with that too. Even Ian MacKaye who sang for Minor Threat went on to apparently do his own bit of drug experimenting in the years that followed. There are days when I feel like I could go for a glass of Jack on the rocks, but at this point in my life I just don't have a need for it. Maybe someday when my kids are grown and I'm a crotchety old man lol.

So, there's my story. On regretting tattoos, you won't hear any of that from me. I love my X's. They mean the world to me. They absolutely helped me get through some of the hardest periods of my life and I wouldn't be here today if it wasn't for Straight Edge, and that's no joke. I love telling this story, and I'll talk about this lifestyle to anyone who wants to listen. Or, I won't. That's fine too. Today I don't have one single friend who's straight edge, not one single friend who doesn't drink. Even my wife will have a fruity girl drink once in a while when we get to go out without the kids. I've learned that you can't change the world by forcing your opinions and views onto other people, because that makes you no better than the people who force their views onto you. This was and will always be a choice I made for myself.

[DougC-3]

Thanks for the detailed reply, David. It's quite a story and it's very interesting how it all fits together. I really think you should publish it somewhere where it could help and support young people who think they have to cave in to peer pressure and start the downward slide when they really didn't have any interest, desire or need to do it in the beginning, and maybe some who knew exactly what they were doing but need to know that, with some determination, they can stop the process.

Having grown up in an earlier time, I had never heard of the Straight Edge singing groups or movement. Most of they guys I knew never had enough money stay drunk for very long, but I don't think there are many people whose lives haven't been touched or affected in some way by a drug or alcohol problem, whether theirs or that of a relative or friend.

If you happen to have any more art work you've done that you are interested in posting, I think this would be an appropriate place to do it, since it's your thread and it's about art :D

[Evil D]

If you happen to have any more art work you've done that you are interested in posting, I think this would be an appropriate place to do it, since it's your thread and it's about art :D

I do, but it's all really old stuff. I need to get back into it, but now my art table is the kids' computer table LOL.

This is another acrylic (as is the skull painting) done on a cheap piece of card stock type paper that I found at work. I liked the color and texture. It's a flaming lotus. It's a good bit larger than the skull, that paper is somewhere around 15x18 or so. This was the first painting I've done since little pieces during high school, so I really had no idea what I was doing as far as blending paints and such.



Here's some progress pics of the skull. It was originally started on a long sheet of water color paper shaped sort of like a long board skateboard, and was going to have huge wings coming out from behind it. After it took me so long to finish the skull itself, I got super burned out and there was no way I was going to paint the wings too. So, I trimmed it down and painted the roses and blacked out the rest. I think it worked out well, the black background adds to the depth and contrast of the white/gray in the skull.



The rest that I have pics of are a bunch of tattoo flash style pieces done in colored pencil, back before I got more into paints.

This is a sparrow, I had originally planned to do another one in blue but never got around to it.


Sacred heart, because no tattoo flash collection is complete without one lol.


Good vs. evil and such...I can't take credit for the design of these, I stole them from a tattoo magazine just for practice.


Another lotus. Actually, the exact same lotus. I did this one long before I did the painting, and just redid it as a practice piece.


This is painted on a strip of cardboard. If I remember right, they stand for "truth, loyalty, and advancement". It probably says "I love egg rolls" LOL.


This one was done with solid lead sticks (like pentil but without the wood). I believe it says "truth, honesty, loyalty". No idea what I was getting at with the eye and the light rays, just thought it was cool.


And an old box knife I painted years ago when I was working retail lol.


Well I thought that was it but I ran across some even older stuff...I was a teen when I did these, a couple are dated for '94-95. I guess I used to do some pretty depressing artwork. Teen angst and all that LOL.

Samus Aran done with a Bic pen on who knows what kind of paper while staying the night with a friend.


This was done with gold and black gel pens on the inside of a school journal. No really, I wasn't a depressed teen at all :o


Lead pencil sketch of my own left hand. Again, no idea..lol


I believe this was done with a Pilot pen, I think I may have sketched this one after a break up. Seems about right :D

[Evil D]

Oops two more. This is just a scan of the skull painting I did on my scanner. I thought it was cool because it picked up the texture of the water color paper and more of the brush strokes. A camera doesn't capture the detail as well. This is a pretty small painting, it's cut down to 8x10 so the skull itself is pretty small.


It got framed in a shadow box. If I had planned it better (without the wings) I would have centered it up better.

(pay no attention to my hairy cat tree lol)

[holeshot]

Wow! Great tats! I have two, one done by Henry Goldfield back in 97, a simple arrow on my right deltoid and three Xs in I had done below them two years ago to mark my 30th wedding anaversery.

[DougC-3]

Looks like you showed some talent from early on. Maybe looking at your old files will inspire you to start back and overcome your block. My favorite is the scan of the skull, and the framed shot looks good. I tended to draw "aerodynamic" rocket like cars from the fifth grade and some fairly "macrab" droodles into adolescence. Have you ever looked at Hieronymus Bosch's paintings (15th century Flemish artist)? They would not make very uplifting tats LOL.

About your life story (so far). I think you could add details and expand it into a publishable story. You could change the names "to protect the innocent" and guilty :D

[Evil D]

About your life story (so far). I think you could add details and expand it into a publishable story. You could change the names "to protect the innocent" and guilty :D

Yeah...ya know the saddest part for me is that I left that poor girl standing in a bus station by herself. Looking back on all that, I wish I could have done more to help her, but I know people who have addictions have to want the help in the first place and I don't know if she did. All I knew at the time was I had no income so if I didn't make something happen right then and there, I would most likely be stuck there homeless within the month, and that was not somewhere I was going to find myself.

What sucks even more is not knowing what ever became of her. I've done internet searches and tried to find her, just to see how she did, but I can't find her. Hopefully she's just not the social media type

[DougC-3]

About your life story (so far). I think you could add details and expand it into a publishable story. You could change the names "to protect the innocent" and guilty :D

Yeah...ya know the saddest part for me is that I left that poor girl standing in a bus station by herself. Looking back on all that, I wish I could have done more to help her, but I know people who have addictions have to want the help in the first place and I don't know if she did. All I knew at the time was I had no income so if I didn't make something happen right then and there, I would most likely be stuck there homeless within the month, and that was not somewhere I was going to find myself.

What sucks even more is not knowing what ever became of her. I've done internet searches and tried to find her, just to see how she did, but I can't find her. Hopefully she's just not the social media type

Well, I don't even play a relationship counselor on TV, but I think it's generally considered a bad idea to start a relationship with the idea of overcoming behavioral problems of your partner. I think the consensus is that they usually just get worse And going out and shooting up heroin without letting you know and leading you on a possibly dangerous wild goose chase looking for an imaginary assailant seems like a pretty serious violation of confidence to me :eek: You were probably pretty smart to get out of it while you could without getting in any deeper.

[stream26]

Hi ! I m new to this forum and this topic acrual for me.I just got my first tattoo, actually two of them. I chose a design that had a lot of meaning to me and symbolized a very important part of my life that I want to memorialize forever… I think it’s very tasteful, and I have no problem showing it to people.personally I like watercolor tattoo It is like Monet on your body .