Welcome to Gaia! ::

Well that's cool. I kinda got the impression from other people and from the media that it was some enormous fiasco that involved spending way too much money, etc. Kinda nice to know it actually is more about... giving thanks, and not just here.

:shrugs.: heh. america. rolleyes although, to be fair, canada is pretty wierd too. xd

So I'm studying tattoo-art for no particular reason other than that it intrigues me, and I came across this interesting story:

Should you encounter a Frenchman with playing cards tattooed on his hands, walk briefly in the other direction, for each of the four suits signifies a nefarious act: "I clubbed him to the ground, I stabbed his heart, I stole his money, I buried him in the ground."
~Skin Shoes, The Tattoo Bible, by Chris Wroblewski.

I'm still looking.

One thing that is actually a turn-off with tattoos for me is the antiquated style with high-saturation primary and secondary colors. I guess I've just seen one-too-many REAL works of skin-art, and so all of these circa 50's and 70's images bug me. I mean, there's no sense of anatomy, no sense of depth or shading, and people "collect" little tattoos until their bodies look like a bizarre stamp collection born of a masochistic fantasy. But then again, maybe I just have unreasonable ideals regarding tattooing. To me, if you're going to insert an image under your skin, it should be a bit more meaningful than a monkey with your bellybutton as his bum-hole or a version of Jesus Christ that looks like a doped-up used-car-salesman. stare

I think it's a hold-over from the days I wanted to be a horse-breeder. I came to believe that just have a foal here and there does NOT qualify you as a respectable professional breeder, just a hobbyist. To be a professional breeder, the goal is not to make pretty little ponies, but to improve the breed itself. I spent what probably amounted to weeks studying breeding lines and performance stats, craftily dreaming about what magical combination of mares and stallions would make the perfect foal. It's the whole onwards-and-upwards philosophy, I suppose.

Now, as an artist, I push myself so that almost every piece of art I produce improves my skill as an artist. If I didn't, then my art would be meaningless to me. So I guess I also feel this way about tattoos and tattooists--a tattoo should make your body better; inking a tattoo should improve your skill and you should never half-a** something that's going to be with someone else for the rest of their lives.

But life-long experience has told me that I have unrealistic ideals. ninja

heh. I feel that your opinion on the matter is important and valid. if you try to convince your future customers of your reasoning, they may learn not to get something they'll regret. and you'll earn good rep for it! smile

@ Elta: your emotes are awesome! xd thanks for posting the codes for them, too! heart

@.@

... do you think you could imagine up a male side as well, with a unisex area between them? the possibilities are outerspace!