missmaralaena

@beez I've noticed that with most tattoo artists working in the Japanese motif, when tattooing animals and creatures, most won't highlight or fill in the eyes until the piece is nearly completely. We've heard the old saying that, "the eyes are the windows to the soul" and the Chinese take this literally. They believe when you "dot" the eyes or fill in the eyes, the creature should be complete and would come to life as it were. If it wasn't complete and "brought to life" it would bring bad lucky and imbalanced as you've indicated. If you ever been in a Chinese community and witnessed the Lion dances during the Chinese New Year or other special occasions, the event is started by the "dotting of the eyes" of the Lion with incense, thereby waking up the Lion to start the dance that wards off evil.

Hey Folks,
We all obviously have our personal reasons for getting tattoos. I thought it would be fun and interesting to hear thoughts and experiences regarding getting or not getting a tattoo because of some superstitions, personal beliefs, cultural customs or taboos. Apologies for my very long-winded dialogue below.
My own perspective is a bit of a double-edged sword. I’m American born Chinese, raised in the Lower East Side/Chinatown of NYC. My parents and grandparents are/were Buddhists. My maternal grandmother (Grams), who had a major role in my early upbringing, was a devout practicing Buddhist. I’ve never been religious but was always respectful of the customs and beliefs. It was Grams who naturally started me on the path of some of these beliefs and informed me of some of the more peculiar superstitions that ended up influencing my tattoo choices later on in life.
As most of us know in Asian cultures, tattoos are still a taboo subject and subculture. However I’ve never been one to go with the grain so much but I ended up getting my first tattoo in my early 30’s. My first tattoo was a koi with water and cherries, done in a Japanese motif. I’ve always loved goldfish and koi as a kid and I remembered begging my grandmother to get them for me. Grams would flat out refuse. You see, while goldfish and koi are considered good luck, if they die, the Chinese believed your luck dies with it. Being very conscious of that, I figured a tattoo is permanent and the koi would “live” forever. It just so happened that when I got this first tattoo, it was at the end of the same year Grams had passed away. Part of it was in honor and remembrance of her.
My next tattoo was of a dragon, my Chinese zodiac sign. I received a stern lecture from my mom on this. Even though she accepted this path I was on with getting tattooed, she had indicated it was bad luck to get my own zodiac figure tattooed on myself. It would be in conflict with one’s self. Too late I explained to her and we’d just have to see what the eventual outcome with be in my destiny, hahaha.
Now when I had decided to get my back tattooed, a lot of odd things popped up that I had to consider. First, the literal connotations of getting my back inked, the Chinese would say you are getting stabbed in the back, bad karma. Of course didn’t take too much stock in that and plowed forward. Next, while I am in complete awe of most back pieces and overall tattoos for that matter, I had made a decision not to get any religious or associated figures tattooed on me. No Kannon, Buddha, demons, Monkey King, etc. You get the idea. It is considered bad luck and disrespectful to get a deity tattoo, let alone on your back where you would be “resting on them”. It broke my heart as I adore the powerful and serene image of Kannon riding a dragon and although life is short and one should always try to get what they want, I just couldn’t see myself breaking away from this belief. To the point I was scared I would “anger the gods” and have bad luck for the rest of my days. Hence you’ll notice in my gallery, my tattoos comprise of creatures and florals and will continue with this theme until I’m “done.”
One thing that’s never been spoken of in a negative light is that it is okay to get a mantra or chant or just Buddhist scripture tattooed on yourself. These would act like talismans or amulets to ward off evil or bad luck. I’ve recently been researching Sanskrit and Bonji characters that I will eventually incorporate into my collection.

@Rawok, haha indeed! I won't argue ;)
I'm visiting Sweden kind of on a whim -- I'll already be in Europe this fall, and I have a friend here in the states who's from Stockholm, and he promised me free lodging with friends and family of his who are still in Stockholm -- I never pass up a free place to stay in an otherwise expensive place, haha! Looking forward to exploring a bit as it will be my first time to a Scandinavian country.

Not sure about anyone else here, but I've had to tattoo over too many long-healed upper thigh scars on girls in my generation to gloss over body image issues so easily. Or heard girls that can't weigh more than 125 pounds talk about how they want to lose weight before they tattoo their ribs or belly. Or been asked about covering stretch marks from when they had kids, despite that being a completely normal and natural thing. Etc., etc., etc.
So, rather than think you're entirely the victim and getting attacked here (which I would say has gone a bit overboard, based on misunderstanding of some of your original points due to poor phrasing and explanation), realize that you do have a warped understanding of how deeply body image can affect women who have been conditioned by society to hate their bodies.
Also, you should worry far more about poorly done tattoos than tattoos that don't fit the body.

If you need to explain it because it can't communicate anything by itself, it's shit art.

I'm going to be this thread's poster child when I get famous. Suck on my future dickkkkkkkk
Edit: I guess I got drunk and went on the internet again.

So I just moved to Berlin. It feels like I'm crazy but actually I'm here for an artist residency for the next two months. Now I have to go out and work on my German and try to meet people or something. And I'm itching to work getting tattooed in there sometime as well.
I just really had to share that!!!!!!

So I just moved to Berlin. It feels like I'm crazy but actually I'm here for an artist residency for the next two months. Now I have to go out and work on my German and try to meet people or something. And I'm itching to work getting tattooed in there sometime as well.
I just really had to share that!!!!!!

So I just moved to Berlin. It feels like I'm crazy but actually I'm here for an artist residency for the next two months. Now I have to go out and work on my German and try to meet people or something. And I'm itching to work getting tattooed in there sometime as well.
I just really had to share that!!!!!!

So I just moved to Berlin. It feels like I'm crazy but actually I'm here for an artist residency for the next two months. Now I have to go out and work on my German and try to meet people or something. And I'm itching to work getting tattooed in there sometime as well.
I just really had to share that!!!!!!

that makes me think this

That guy spelt "ART" like KoЯn.

IDK-seems like the majority of tattoo publications are built on pics of "hawt" girls with poor tattoos.

"this is a bad idea"
"this will stop me from becoming gainfully employed"
"this is to let you know I'm an idiot"

I'm not insecure. I'm an asshole. Huge difference.
:D

But it's all good times though.

"I feel FAT"

i could probably draw, and spell better, with a marker taped to my dick.

"where'd the rest of my body suit go? Are it and my penis having a cocaine party without me? bummer"

Douche chills is gold. It also perfectly describes the disgusted face/shake I do when I can't deal with someone.
I think it's okay this super douche doesn't like tattooed women because I'm damn sure I could speak for any tattooed woman and say we don't like him either.
This was a hilarious morning read for me.

This thread has great potential.

I got both my thighs tattooed this year by Ade Stacey at Nine Tattoo in Brighton. Awesome guy and I love the pieces that he did for me. Baku on one side and Kirin on the other. Something a bit different. The picture of the Baku has come from Ade's own website as you might have guessed from the water mark. In terms of the twitching I got a bit of that towards the bottom of the muscle near the knee but otherwise it wasn't too bad for 5hours+ of tattooing each time.

Always grateful for an opportunity to show my Stell baku. For the OP, it took about 5 hours, pain wasn't too bad. I'd much rather do another thigh tattoo than another session on my back.

As a kindergarten (multi-subject) teacher, I love teaching art and have gotten more into it this year than ever. Aside from visual art I also do a lot with music & drama. These are some of the art projects we have done this year.
One super awesome thing about it is that our most recent art project (the Mondrian one) was suggested to me by @cltattooing on Instagram!! I just think it's really cool that a tattooer from Oakland who I've never met in person has influenced my Los Angeles kindergarten class. The internet can be so far reaching and positive.

"PC" is one of those words that should've died in the '90s with that horrible Jeremy Piven movie. (PCU (1994) - IMDb) It implies that my beliefs aren't my own. That deep down we're all racist/sexist/homophobic but not brave enough to say it like great American heroes Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, et al. I will say that we generally don't discuss politics here because it's divisive and impolite. Though I will admit to having a liberal ideology, which is this: don't be a dick. But hey, @The Dude, A for effort on backtracking. So in the spirit of forgiveness, let's start over.
Hi! Welcome to LST. Got any tattoos? Can we see 'em?