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Lots
of children love Disney princesses, but most of them kind of grow out
of it. But not Annfaye Kao, 27, of Taichung, Taiwan.
Annfaye loves Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs so much that she got the entire cast tattooed on her back.
'As a child I used to imagine I was Snow White in a fairytale so it seemed like a good thing to have tattooed on my back.
'Snow White is a part of my childhood and therefore me, so I’m happy I will have it on me forever - it reminds me of my princess dream.'
The Daily Mail has more photos (some NSFW): Link
What Disney movie would you have tattooed on your back? Sadly, I think only Dumbo would have enough heft to fill my backside.
Ryan Carney and his colleagues at Brown University released a scientific paper on the feathers of the Archaeopteryx today. Carney celebrated by having an Archaeopteryx feather tattooed on his arm, thereby gaining himself an entry in Carl Zimmer’s science tattoo collection. But what about the Archaeopteryx?
The first fossil of Archaeopteryx was a single feather–the one that Carney has turned into a tattoo. It was discovered in 1861 in a limestone quarry near the town of Solnhofen and brought to Hermann von Meyer, one of Germany’s leading paleontologists at the time. As scientists would later determine, this exceptional feather was 145 million years old. Despite its antiquity, the feather looked much like the feathers on the wings of living birds.
The fossil was so extraordinary that Von Meyer wondered if some forger had etched it. After all, Solnhofen limestone was prized for making finely detailed lithographic prints. But then von Meyer compared the slab and the counterslab and found them to be identical.
Now 150 years later, we know a lot more about the Archaeopteryx and how it fits in the evolution of dinosaurs to birds. Read how many of these discoveries came about at The Loom. Link
Tattoos have gone from subculture badge to trendy enough to be considered a societal norm. Geeks who were once afraid of their bodies, and getting tattoos on them, are now some of the most enthusiastic sporters of embedded ink.
Scientists are no exception, and they’ve joined the geek nation in adorning themselves with symbols of their passions in life, choosing imagery with a scientific edge in their body art compositions.
Check out the particularly good examples at the Popsci gallery link below, maybe you’ll be inspired to get some ink of your own.
Link –image from SCIENCE INK by Carl Zimmer. Published by Sterling Publishing © 2011
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Neatorama presents a guest post from actor, comedian, and voiceover artist Eddie Deezen. Visit Eddie at his website.
Tattoos. Nowadays, we see them everywhere we look. Movie stars, athletes, singers, and even (albeit rarely) the occasional politician proudly sports his or her special “tats.”
In 1862, the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII), the son of Queen Victoria, became the first “famous” person to receive a tattoo. The prince’s tattoo was a Jerusalem Cross he got when he visited Jerusalem. It is rumored that even Queen Victoria may have had one (heaven forbid!).
Even some of our US presidents have been tattooed. Although no president has been “officially verified,” both Franklin Roosevelt and Theodore Roosevelt reputedly had tattoos of the Roosevelt family crest on their respective persons. Various sources say George W. Bush has a tattoo, either on his arm or his back.
Probably the most popular tattoo for Hollywood celebrities (especially women) is the “star” tattoo. Drew Barrymore, Lindsay Lohan, Kate Hudson, Pink, Kelly Osbourne, and Britney Spears all have stars (Bruce Willis has one, too). OK, let’s take a look at 16 other people who had or have tattoos
Thomas Edison
“The Wizard of Menlo Park” had three dots tattooed on his right hand, in the form of the dots on the face of a die. Edison also invented electric tattoo pens in 1876, under the official name “Stencil-Pens.” It was the predecessor to the later “tattoo machine.”
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston proudly sported an anchor tattoo on his right arm. And why not? His mother, Jennie Churchill, had a snake tattoo encircling her wrist.
John Wilkes Booth
When John Wilkes Booth was a young man, he gave himself a homemade tattoo. Young John drew his initials “J.W.B.” on his right hand with a strong Indian ink. The initials remained on his hand for the rest of his life. When Booth was shot on April 26, 1865 after assassinating president Abraham Lincoln, his body was identified and verified by the tattooed initials.
more …
The woman that has everything has finally got inked. The tokidoki Barbie Doll by Simone Legno is the first ever tattooed Barbie to hit the streets ... er, collectors' shelves. Rage of conservative parents in 3 ... 2 ... 1 ...
Via Nylon Blog
Tattoo by Jon L. of Big
Deluxe of Salt Lake City, Utah
I bet this won the Best Decapodian Icon tattoo of all time. Behold, the Virgin Zoidberg tattoo. Don't have one yourself? How toe-tappingly tragic! Link - via davelog
Who says internet memes don’t last? Some people have the most fleeting memes tattoos on their bodies. Imagine trying to explain to your grandchildren why those things were so important to you that you had them permanently inked into your skin. Ranker has a list of ten memes, some with more than one tattoo found. A couple pics are NSFW. Link
What better way to comemmorate your love of optical illusions than to get it tattooed on your back? Our own Jill Harness wrote the definitive Top 10 Optical Illusion Tattoos over at Mighty Optical Illusions blog: Link – via Rue The Day
Is this real or just clever advertising? Ballantine’s, a brand of blended scotch whiskies, has a “leave an impression” tagline, which is just what Marco did by getting a QR code tattoo. On the heels of hoax by the woman who claimed she got tattoos of all of her Facebook friends’ profile pics, many people are doubting the authenticity of this one. What do you think?
Link via the Des Moines Egotist
So it seems Susyj87′s briefly infamous Facebook friends tattoo was a hoax. Not only was the tattoo a fake (a transfer that only lasted a few days), but the video itself was a promo piece for a company called Pretty Social that makes custom gift items using your Facebook photos. As much as I hated the idea of a woman walking around with 152 faces permanently stamped on her arm, I hate this even more.
Sigh. Why are people so weird? This woman got a massive tattoo of 152 of her nearest and dearest Facebook BFFs’ faces tattooed on her arm. As in, permanently etched onto her body. I hope none of these people are fair-weather friends; how does one unfollow a face inked into their skin?
Sheng Xianhui of Kunming, China went into a hospital to have gall stones removed. A week after surgery, his wife noticed a tattoo on his rear end. Sheng claims that the staff at Yunnan Stone Disease Hospital tattooed his backside with characters meaning “stone disease” while he was in surgery.
The hospital has now called police to try to evict Sheng – but he has welcomed the police involvement and asked them to investigate.
“I’m not leaving,” he said. “I’m worried that if I go out for even half an hour, the hospital will claim I had the tattoo done outside.
“But even if I wanted a tattoo, I wouldn’t want those characters and I wouldn’t want it on that part of my body.”
The hospital staff blames the marks on a possible allergic reaction. Link -via Dave Barry
A wedding ring is symbol of commitment and permanence. A tattoo is commitment and permanence in itself. Some couples are skipping the jewelry in favor of matching or complementary tattoos on the couple’s ring fingers. And why not? You don’t have to remove it to shower, work with machinery, or have an MRI. It can’t be lost or stolen. It will never have to be resized or replaced. And you can design your own unique symbols! See a variety of wedding band tattoos in this list by Shaun Usher. Link
Photo: robstephaustralia [Flickr]
Remember the to-do list tattoo (that’s actually more like a notepad tattoo) we featured before on the blog? Well, Neatoramanaut Stephanie shared her own version here. She said:
I’ve got a to do list tattoo and I love it. It’s actually really useful. I figure that as long as I’m getting tattoos, I might as well have one that’s functional!
Reading Neatorama is curiously absent, but perhaps its so obvious that it doesn’t need jottin’ down Thanks Stephanie!
Update 3/22/11: Ah, that’s better now. Thanks Stephanie!
Photo: robstephaustralia [Flickr]
BTW, Stephanie said: "Tattoo by the wonderful Lelia at The Needle’s Kiss in Townsville, QLD"
Photo: overdue underdone [Flickr]
Flickr user overdue underdone has his own "Palm Pilot" (shouldn’t that be wrist pilot?) – a practical tattoo of a notebook/to-do list on his left wrist that lets him jot down notes and things to do.
Link – via Oddee, who has a list of other unusually practical tattoos
The real stories behind popular body-art symbols.
The Jerusalem Cross and the Dragon: A Royal Fad
England’s King E
dward VII started the royal tattoo craze in 1862. During a trip to the Holy Land, the then-Prince of Wales had a Jerusalem Cross inked on his arm. His son, the future King George V, followed in his father’s footsteps and got a dragon tattoo while visiting Japan. Then, on his way back to England, the prince stopped by the same Holy Land tattoo parlor his father had visited and got a Jerusalem Cross of his own. Other royal families soon followed the trend. During the Victorian era, the Grand Duke Alexis of Russia, Prince and Princess Waldemar of Denmark, King Oscar II of Sweden, and Queen Olga of Greece all went under the needle.
The Anchor: A Sailor’s ID Card
Nothing says “ahoy!” quite like an anchor tattoo. Popeye has one on each arm, and Sir Winston Churchill sported one on his right bicep. The tried-and-true symbol conveys the bearer’s love for the sea. But in the late 18th century, the tattoo also served a practical purpose. During that time, almost all sailors received a “sailor protection certificate,” which carefully documented the tattoos on their bodies. If a sailor went overboard, the tattoos were a lingering proof of his identity, should the body be recovered. Today, most military navies still catalog their sailor’s body art for the same reason. (Image credit: Flickr user K Sandberg)
The Teardrop: A Prisoner’s Tale
An entire gen
re of tattoos can be found behind penitentiary walls, and one of the most famous is the teardrop. Until the 1990s, the tattoo typically meant that the inmate had killed someone. But in recent years, the significance of the teardrop has softened. Prisoners get the tattoo to commemorate someone who had died while they were locked away, or simply to represent the time they’ve served behind bars. The design has also ventured outside the prison population in the past few years, although not all that far; you can see teardrops on the faces of rapper Lil’ Wayne and singer Amy Winehouse. (Image credit: Flickr user Photog*Phillip)
Asian Characters: Lost in Translation
If you’re going to get Chinese or Japanese characters permanently inked into your skin, consult someone who reads the language. Basketball player Marquis Daniels of the Boston Celtics thought he’d gotten his initials on his arm, but instead he got a tattoo that reads “healthy woman roof.” And when singer Britney Spears got a tattoo of the Chinese word for “mysterious,” it turned out to mean “strange.”
So why is it so many tattoos get lost in translation? Flash sheets -the patterns used by most tattoo artists- are rarely fact-checked. Instead, they’re passed around informally from one professional to the next. Legendary tattoo artist Lyle Tuttle, who started inking people in 1949, was known for a more cautious approach: He refused to tattoo foreign characters at all. If he didn’t understand it, he wouldn’t tattoo it. (Image credit: Flickr user Bobby Edwards)
Lambda: Gamer Pride
Recently, fans of Half-Life, a computer game series, have begun showing off new tattoos based on the series’ logo -a stylized, lower-case lambda. In the game, the Greek letter symbolizes resistance, but in the wider tattoo community, it signifies something quite different: “I’m gay and proud.” Back in the early 1970s, when the gay liberation movement was still growing in force, the homosexual community adopted the lambda as a symbol of pride.
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The article by Clay Wirestone is reprinted from Scatterbrained section of the January-February 2011 issue of mental_floss magazine. Subscribe today to get it delivered to you!
Be sure to visit mental_floss‘ website and blog for more fun stuff!
When life gives you lemon, make lemonade. How about when it takes away all your hair, except for a little tuft at the back? Well, this guy sure made the best of it!
Find this, and more crazy hairstyles over at Oddee: Link
After Kim Mordue lost her son, she decided to carry him with her forever in her heart … and in her tattoos:
Three years ago, Kim Mordue lost her son Lloyd to a fatal run in with the party drug GHB. Kim’s husband runs a tattoo parlor, and together they’ve found a way to deal with her grief with ink. Lloyd’s ashes have been mixed with tattoo ink, and used to give Kim a new tat. When asked about the tattoo, she had the following to say:
As soon as I knew it was possible, I wanted to have the ashes tattoos as a tribute to him. Now, he’ll be with me for the rest of my life.
Link | Story by Richard Smith at Mirror
Junior Bio major, roller derby girl and Tumblr blogger iheartar got a new and very cool tattoo. Han would be proud! Link – via DBSW
Think your tattoos are cool? Well, can they protect your from bullets and possess your body?
Oddity Central has a fascinating look at the Thai Wat Bang Phra Tattoo Festival:
Each year, tattooed devotees come to Wat Bang Phra temple, a place famous for its tattoo masters, to pay their respects to the art of Sak Yant, in a special ceremony known as Wai Khru. Attended by tens of thousands of people, the event becomes quite a spectacle when the animal spirit possessions begin.
At one point, a loud and frightening growl is heard from somewhere in that sea of people, but only foreigners seem to react to it. Then monkey sounds are heard, and people start running towards the temple – specifically towards the shrine of Luang Poh Pern, a respected tattoo artist who served at Wat Bang Phra – waving their arms in the air and yelling like crazy. They are in fact being possessed by the animals tattooed on their bodies. If they have a tiger tattoo, they start growling, if it’s a snake, they start crawling on the ground, but eventually they all start running like crazy toward the shrine.
Link (Photo: Paula Bronstein)
Photo: Rich Marafioti (2009)
These bacon tattoos are so smokin’ hot that you can almost smell the sweet aroma of sizzling bacon. Almost.
Oddee has got the gallery of 12 Craziest Bacon Tattoos: Link | After that, be sure to visit the NeatoShop’s Bacon Store
Cool Material blog spotted this awesome roll of paper towel printed with classic tattoo designs:
Keeping that in mind, if it’s not easy no man is ever going to clean, so luckily someone invented paper towel. Leave it to Rockett St George to upgrade even the simplest of manly necessities. These “kitchen rolls” (leave it to the British) are covered with traditional tattoo art. It’s paper towel that looks awesome, what else do you need to know? Except that now, even when you’re cleaning you can feel a little bit more manly.
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Well, she is 101 years old, so technically, grandma is old enough to get a tattoo:
Mimi Rosenthal, 101, pushed her Winnie Walker off to the side and sat back in the black leather chair. At 4 feet, 10 inches, her feet didn’t quite rest on the floor. And for her third tattoo, she wanted to be comfortable.
"Let’s find something for your feet," said tattoo artist Michelle Gallo-Kohlas, a longtime family friend entrusted with the honor of inking Rosenthal’s arm.
Several teenage girls’ voices traveled down the hall Saturday afternoon from the waiting room of Requiem Body Art, an upscale piercing and tattoo shop.
"Is she getting a tattoo?"
"Are you serious?"
"That is soooo cool!"
Shary Lyssy Marshall of St. Petersburg Times has the story of this rebel grandma: Link (Photo: Will Vragovic) – via Look At This
Add this to the (long) list of things that you shouldn’t tattoo on your body: The Joker! He just doesn’t look good, people!
Ugliest Tattoos has more: Link – via Great White Snark
Photo: Francis Storr [Flickr]
Our pal Geeks Are Sexy blog has a nifty compilation of geeky tattoos. I particularly like the one Francis Storr photographed @media 2006 conference shown above. There’s no need to close the tag on love, of course, because love is foreeeeveeerrr!!
Fingerstache – $4.95 | More Gag Gifts
What is it about the fingerstache that captured the fancy of the hip crowd of the web?
Of course, kids have been drawing mustaches on their fingers (or upper lips, much to the consternation of mom) with markers for ages, but the whole fingerstache phenomenon got jump started when a tattoo artist named Giovani of the High Street Tattoo in Columbus, Ohio, tattooed a mustache on a client’s finger as a joke back in 2003.
Fingerstaches started popping up everywhere, and soon enough it became a full-blown Internet meme. There are about 1,500 photos on Flickr tagged "finger mustache," Facebook fan page, and even a social networking site for "fingerstachers."
If you want the hip look without the pain and commitment of a tattoo, you can even get a temporary Fingerstache tattoo, made by our pal Gama-Go, over at the NeatoShop.
It’s a silly phenomenon, which is probably why it is so viral, but it’s not the silliest mustache we’ve ever seen on the web. That title, I believe, currently belongs to this guy:
Many athletes get corporate sponsorships, but boxer Billy Gibby – also known as Billy the Human Billboard – proudly wears his sponsors’ logos not on his uniform, but on his body. Yep, he got ‘em tattooed:
Since that time, Billy has collected 26 more tattoos from corporate sponsors, including Liberty Tax Service, Host Gator, Grown Up Geek, Cam4 (see video of this tattoo) and a slew of adult sites.
He hopes to go for a Guinness world record for the most corporate logos tattooed on his body. He’s been featured in various print media ranging from Bizarre magazine to the San Diego Tribune. He’s even got his own Facebook fan page, which, from all appearances, wasn’t created by him. He keeps a blog that hasn’t received many updates lately but lists his fees for placement of potential buyers’ logos on his body ($3,000 for a 6-inch by 1-inch chest tattoo, $20,000 for a 6-by-1-inch forehead tattoo).
Joe Peacock wrote this interesting story for AOL News: Link
An anonymous amateur herpetologist sent this picture of her tattoo to Carl Zimmer, who collects science tattoos. The snake is Henry, a North Brazilian Boa constrictor. A tattoo artist inked Henry on the woman’s leg freehand over a 14 month period! Link
Most little children like to doodle, but 3-year-old Ruby Dickinson really takes toddler art to the next level: she’s set to be the world’s youngest tattoo artist!
The toddler is set to become the world’s youngest tattoo artist after learning the trade from her father, Blane, who runs a tattoo parlour in Wales.
Mr Dickinson, 36, is importing an ink gun from the U.S. that has been specially designed to be used by small hands.
Mehndi is a decorative art form of South Asia dating back to at least the 12th century, and probably with cultural roots in pharaonic Egypt. Although the process superficially resembles tattooing, the henna pigment does not penetrate beyond the surface of the skin, and thus is temporary and ideally suited for celebratory events such as weddings.
Henna stains are orange soon after application, but darken over the following three days to a reddish brown. Soles and palms have the thickest layer of skin and so take up the most lawsone, and take it to the greatest depth, so that hands and feet will have the darkest and most long-lasting stains.
Link. Photo credit Jujuba, via a gallery at Titam et le Sirop d’Érable. There is another gallery at Hulchul.
