My tattoos

Artists:

Josh Darkly (Adelaide) @joshdarkly
Chiara (Feelin’ Blue Tattoo) (Adelaide) @feelin.blue.tattoo
Matt Telford (Adelaide) matttelfordart.com
Kacey Meg (Adelaide) kaceymegtattoos.com
Jessica Holmes (Adelaide) @jessicaholmestattoo
Scott Middlin (Adelaide) @scottmiddlin
Maury Decay (London) @maurydecay_tattoo
travs.tatts (Hobart)

astronaut

Tattoo by Josh Darkly. This one took two sessions. The idea for this tattoo, like any idea, came to me fully formed in the shower.

pigeon

Tattoo by Josh Darkly. I also have a blog article explaining why pigeons are the best!

koi

Tattoo by Matt Telford. This one hurt a lot, probably the most painful physical sensation that I’ve ever experienced (so far!). I had actually booked in with Matt to get a Flesh and Blood TCG tattoo, but changed my mind and got this fish instead.

peruvian anchoveta

Tattoo by Jessica Holmes. This was my first colour tattoo. Peruvian anchoveta are one of the most heavily exploited wild-caught fish species in the world.

shrimp

Tattoo by Maury Decay. This tattoo references my support for shrimp welfare. I liked getting this from Maury, as they’re vegan and super passionate about not ruining stuff for the non-humans on this planet. This is on the same arm as my koi and anchoveta tattoos—at some point, I might end up making this arm into an aquatic animal sleeve.
This tattoo (along with the starbird from Star Wars, below, and the equals sign on my wrist) are the tattoos that I reference in this EA Forum article.

star wars

Tattoo by Maury Decay. This is the starbird symbol from the animated TV series Star Wars: Rebels. Sabine Wren spray-paints this symbol everywhere in the show. Maury did an awesome job replicating this spray-paint style.

pokemon

Tattoos by Kacey Meg. Teddiursa and Wooloo. These were pre-existing designs (one-offs) offered by Kacey. I found her portfolio absolutely outstanding, and these two tattoos turned out very well too. I intend to add to these by asking Kacey to do Absol and Cubone at some point.

philosophy symbols; i think

The top two symbols are ones that I created. The first symbol represents the Buddhist Discourse on the Simile of the Saw. The schematic picture of a saw hides the characters M and N and the numerals II and I, to represent this Discourse’s location in the Pali canon (Majjhima Nikaya 21). The second symbol represents the Sermon on the Mount. The schematic picture of a mountain hides the characters M and 5 (Matthew 5).
Sadly this was an impulsive walk-in in London, so I have no idea what the name of the tattoo artist is!
The schematic at the bottom is Charles Darwin’s classic “I think” sketch, from his notebook (~1837). I actually got this tattoo in Adelaide (my very first tattoo) but the same London artist kindly offered to touch it up.

winnie the pooh

Tattoo by Scott Middlin. This is an illustration of Winnie the Pooh and Piglet from one of the original two Pooh books (I forget which one! I suspect I might have actually combined two of E. H. Shepard’s wonderful illustrations here).

magic the gathering

Tattoo by Scott Middlin. This has the Lorwyn set symbol from Magic: the Gathering on a twenty-sided die. My friend has a matching one, received at the same time from an artist at the same store, with the Innistrad set symbol. This was a fun day—three of us went to get tattoos, and it turns out that all the artists at the shop play Magic, and Scott showed me his Commander deck!

snail

Tattoo by travs.tatts. I actually forget the artist’s name—this was an impulse decision in Hobart. I had originally booked in with a different artist, but he ended up being sick on the morning of the appointment, so this apprentice took the booking. I’m glad he did—this snail is outstanding. I actually get more compliments about the snail than any other of my tattoos (especially from other players at soccer!). This artist was also very nice and recommended us a great vegan restaurant.

bible quotes

Tattoos by Chiara (Feelin’ Blue Tattoo). These are quotes from the Vulgate Latin Bible. My left shoulder has the passage from Micah “Everyone will sit under his own vine and his own fig tree” and my right shoulder has the passage from Matthew “Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you”. I’m really thrilled with how well these tattoos came out; I think Chiara did an excellent job.

soccer; frog

Tattoos by Chiara (Feelin’ Blue Tattoo). Top: soccer ball. Bottom: Qui-Frog Jinn. My friend got a matching frog, Toadi-Wan Kenobi.

catcher in the rye

Tattoos by Chiara (Feelin’ Blue Tattoo). I wouldn’t be a proper emo kid without a Catcher in the Rye tattoo. This is the classic cover illustration showing the carousel horse from the final scene of the novel. The quote “It’s history. It’s poetry.” is from the scene with Mr Antolini, which I think is the book’s climax. I added a cigarette because I think it’s funny—Holden and Mr Antolini were drinking in the scene, and I imagine them smoking because Holden was smoking for pretty much the whole novel.

murakami

Tattoo by Chiara (Feelin’ Blue Tattoo). This tattoo celebrates the author Haruki Murakami. This is a cover illustration from a recent edition of Norwegian Wood, part of the outstanding series of graphics created by illustrator Noma Bar as part of a set of new editions of Murakami’s novels. My favourite Murakami novel is actually Killing Commendatore, but that novel didn’t receive an edition with a Noma Bar cover and I struggled to come up with a design for that book myself.

right hand

Tattoos by Chiara (Feelin’ Blue Tattoo).

Above wrist = Vulgate Latin Bible quote “Pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians).
Top of hand = “Listen, listen”, which is the beginning of a practice poem from Plum Village and intended to be internally recited during the sound of the bell. The full poem reads “Listen, listen, this wonderful sound, brings me back, to my true home.”
Sound wave = an illustration of the sound of a meditation bell from Plum Village.
1780 = date of the first printing of Jeremy Bentham’s philosophical work An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation, which includes the quote, popular in animal advocacy circles to this day, “The question is not, Can they reason?, nor Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?”
1964 = date of publication of Ruth Harrison’s book Animal Machines, a seminal and highly influential book criticising the effects of industrialised animal agriculture in the United States.
1975 = date of publication of Peter Singer’s book Animal Liberation, a classic for the animal advocacy movement.

left hand

Tattoos by Chiara (Feelin’ Blue Tattoo).

Ghost! From one of Chiara’s flash sheets. I think it’s cute!
Top of knuckles: black ribbon (remembrance); dove with olive branch (peace); peace symbol (peace); poppy (remembrance).
Bottom of knuckles: chicken footprint; fish; shrimp footprint (!); pig footprint. These four were all drawn by me.

eeyore

Tattoo by Chiara (Feelin’ Blue Tattoo). Chiara actually drew this before she became a tattoo artist, but I admired the drawing on her booth wall so asked for it!

pride

Tattoo by Chiara (Feelin’ Blue Tattoo). This one hurt lots.

sibling; equals; semicolon

The triangle design, by Chiara (Feelin’ Blue Tattoo), is a matching sibling tattoo. My sister and I got one each. She is the second of five, and I’m the fifth.
Semi-colon, by Chiara (Feelin’ Blue Tattoo). The meaning of this tattoo is explained here.
Equals sign, by Maury Decay. I wanted to get something celebrating pride from Maury, as they’re queer too.

estrogen

Tattoo by Chiara (Feelin’ Blue Tattoo). The chemical symbol for estrogen. I am a proud estrogen enjoyer.

florence nightingale

Tattoo by Chiara (Feelin’ Blue Tattoo). This is the famous pie graph used by Florence Nightingale to communicate the impact of her hospital reforms on injured soldiers’ death rates to British policymakers (story described in more detail here). While Nightingale’s use of pie graphs in this instance has been criticised (and I think pie graphs are, in fact, a rubbish way to visualise data and should never be used), it remains that this was a demonstration of Nightingale’s outstanding ability to communicate statistical data to convince policymakers of the value of her reforms in preventing unnecessary suffering and death.

proto-indo-europeans

Tattoo by Chiara (Feelin’ Blue Tattoo). This is a map, produced by David W. Anthony in the book The Horse, the Wheel, and Language. The map shows the hypothesised range of the homeland of the Yamnaya culture, who are believed to be speakers of the Proto-Indo-European language. This language is the common ancestor of all Indo-European languages, an astonishingly diverse language family containing English, the Romance languages, the Slavic languages, Greek, Sanskrit (!), the Iranian languages, and many others. The deep roots and shared similarities between these languages fascinates me. Today, the area illustrated in this graph is in eastern Ukraine and western Russia!

pulsar

Tattoo by Chiara (Feelin’ Blue Tattoo). This is the famous pulsar map. This is part of the set of designs, created by the team consisting of Carl Sagan, Frank Drake, Linda Salzman Sagan, on board the 1972 and 1973 Pioneer spacecraft. The pulsar map was also used on the famous golden record on the two 1977 Voyager spacecraft.

station eleven

Tattoo by Chiara (Feelin’ Blue Tattoo). This symbol is a recurring motif in the novel Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel (and the TV series adaptation of the novel). The symbol even appears as a tattoo on one of the characters! This is one of my favourite books and one of my favourite TV series.