Dave's Portrait of His Great-Grandfather

I spotted Dave at the end of July while picking something up at the 34th Street K-Mart.

He kindly shared this wonderful portrait of his Great-Grandfather, tattooed on his forearm:

His grandfather was originally from Cuba, immigrating to the United States in the 1930s.

And although he passed in 1994, Dave recalls something his grandfather always said: "it's never too late, until you're dead".

Tattooed by Lalo Yunda at Sacred Tattoo NYC, Dave has the pleasure of carrying his very important ancestor with him, wherever he goes.

Thanks to Dave for sharing his inked family heritage with us here on Tattoosday!

The Crow

I haven't gotten a tattoo in a year, and have been feeling the itch. I have an appointment for this upcoming Wednesday. I decided to get two big crows with lightning bolts, they'll probably on my ribs, unless I wuss out. It's kind of a memorial tattoo for my dad, but not totally. Anyway, I'll post pictures and you guys can feel free to make fun of them as much as you want. In anticipation of my appointment, I decided to do some looking around for terrible crow tattoos. I found a lot.

Full disclosure: I was really into The Crow when I was a teenager. Here's a photo of me being totally awesome when I was 13 or 14.

I don't have any ridiculous makeup on in that photo, but I definitely went to school made-up like the crow. The movie was filmed in my hometown (Wilmington, NC) and I went on a pilgrimage to see where Brandon Lee died. I listened to the soundtrack to the movie every day. I still really enjoy the movie. Regardless of my history with the movie, my crow tattoo idea has nothing to do with the movie The Crow. These people's tattoos do. There are so many sweet crow images out there, I don't know why they picked these out....

So here you go. Awful crow tattoos!


I think this crow is supposed to be on fire? It just looks blobby to me.


This is supposed to be the Crow logo, but it's not executed well...


This one too. Plus! Bonus barbed wire armband! I love seeing terrible versions of the same thing. (See my zombie jesus and wizard posts for more)


Crow mask + tribal + cross = goldmine!


Scarred Kanji + flaming crow = bigger goldmine!



I don't understand the spacing and sizing on this. It looks like the tattoos just got slapped on completely randomly. Also the little spritzes of red and yellow are a real nice touch. What is the black blob on the left? Can anyone tell?


skldfskdjf Brandon Lee does not look like that!


And he really, really does not look like this!!!

I hope you enjoyed this confessional edition of awful tattoos. Check back next week to make fun of my crow tattoo!

Raul Honors His Father with a Portrait

I spotted Raul outside of F.I.T. and stopped to ask him about this portrait on his inner left forearm.

The gentleman pictured is Raul's father, based on a photograph of him taken when he was serving as a paratrooper in the Armed Forces of the Argentine Republic.

Raul told me he always had a special relationship with his father, who had always wanted his son to follow in his footsteps in the military. Raul explained that his father, however, changed his tune about this late in his career.

Raul did not indicate whether this was due to his father's feeling about life in the military, or a result of his seeing that his son was not meant for a life as a paratrooper.

Regardless, the portrait is a touching example of a son's affection for his father.

Raul credits this piece to Triple X Tattoo in Manhattan, and remembered the artist being from Australia and named Mike. A call to Triple X did not clarify this, as I could not connect the three elements to positively identify the artist.

Nonetheless, thanks go to Raul for sharing his inked portrait of his father with us here on Tattoosday!

A Portrait of Marilyn

Tom Doherty gave me the best answer I have heard to the question "How many tattoos do you have?"

He looked me in the eye and said, matter-of-factly, "Not enough."

Tom has a ton of ink, and is one of the artists in residence at Another Tattoo Shop in Bound Brook, New Jersey.


It's always like winning the lottery when I chance upon a tattoo artist, because they seem to have a greater appreciation for the idea of Tattoosday and, more importantly, they have siginifantly better work, and more of it to choose from.

So Tom was not only kind enough to agree to participate, but he didn't offer up any of his visible tattoos, but instead lifted his shirt to reveal Marilyn Monroe, smiling from the left side of his torso.

Why does he choose to have Ms. Monroe inked there? He wanted a famous face, a "show-off piece," as he called it. The tattoo was done by his boss at the shop, Matt Pope.

Thanks to Tom for sharing this awesome portrait with us here at Tattoosday!

Kelly Remembers her Grandmother

This awesome portrait was jumping off of Kelly's right shoulder in Penn Plaza last Wednesday.

Kelly has ten tattoos in all, but she chose this portrait for Tattoosday, inked six years ago by Joey Ortega at Kingpin Tattoos in Harker Heights, Texas.

This was, according to Kelly, Ortega's first portrait, and he created for her a lasting memorial to her grandmother, who had meant the world to her.

The portrait is accompanied by the phrase "may angels lead you in," a lyric from the song "Hear You Me" by the band Jimmy Eat World:

May angels lead you in
Hear you me my friends
On sleepless roads, the sleepless go
May angels lead you in

Kelly was in town visiting with her friend Amber. They have matching tattoos. See them below here.

Thanks to Kelly for sharing such a meaningful tattoo here with us on Tattoosday!

Bonus footage- the video from "Hear You Me":

Tattoosday at the Mall, Part 1 - Kevin Wears His Son on his Sleeve

This portrait of Kevin's son, Kevin Jr. graces his inner left forearm.

I had the chance to chat with Kevin (and Kevin Jr.) as we all waited for the women in our lives do some serious shopping damage at the Limited Too store at the Roosevelt Field Mall on Long Island.

Kevin has about 10 tattoos in all and he had this piece inked about two years ago. Kevin Jr. acknowledged he liked that his portrait was on his dad's arm. Kevin Sr. added, laughing, "Let's see how he feels when he's older!"

Kevin and I talked tattoos for ten or fifteen minutes while we waited for the shopping to end.

This portrait was inked by Tim at The Red Parlour in Woodside, Queens. Kevin has known Tim for many years and he has had all of his work done by him.

Thanks to Kevin for sharing his son's portrait here on Tattoosday!

When you really, really love a musician...

It still doesn't mean that getting their portrait tattooed on you is a good idea.

Some more bad portraits

When I first saw this tattoo, I thought the artist was going for a watercolor french impressionist painting style, but then I saw the terrible lettering under the tattoos and realized it's probably the work of a really bad artist.


This was pointed out to me by one of my readers. Thanks, Steph!


This is the worst Betty Page I have seen. The triangle boobs are a little disturbing, but no big deal. The mushface is terrible but I'd like to think that when the tattoo heals it will look better. What is inexcusable, however, is the arms and hands. Especially the right arm. She looks like a T-Rex on one side. Plus she has major camel toe in the armpit area.


And finally... this isn't so much incompetent as ridiculous. The moon baby is kinda cute, but the sun has the biggest nose in the universe and shark teeth. At least the script is done really well.

Free For All Friday

I found a bunch of amazing tattoos today but none that really fit into any good theme. I'm about to rush out of work and go to a wedding this weekend, and my brain is kind of frazzled from some intense video footage I've been working on, so I'm just going to post the pictures and let you guys decide where they fit yourselves.

Have an awesome weekend!

xo

More Zombie Jesus

I found some more Zombie Jesuses (Jesii? Jesusi?) for you guys. It really wasn't very hard. I guess part of the whole allure of Jesus is that he's a zombie, right? Filling in the eyes really would help to make him look more alive and less like he wants to eat brains, though.







these Jesuses have eyes but they're really not any better.

Amazing Back Pieces

I have a confession to make. The more I do research for this blog, the more I am falling in love with terrible biker metal tattoos. I want a million of them. Every time I see a huge back piece with demons or dragons on it I get jealous.

I like to think that this guy started with the demon tramp stamp at the bottom and then worked his way up. My favorite part is the skeletons. They're super sweet.


This lady has pretty much every tattoo cliche imaginable, all in one spot! The squishy-headed crosseyed wizard is my favorite part. You can see he's trying to figure out how he got lumped in with all the other random tattoos and isn't too happy about it.


I should start a zombiejesus category. I am pretty sure I can find a bunch more where this one came from. He really wants brains. Braaaaains.


And, for the grand finale. Words cannot express my sorrow for this dude.

Celebrity Portraits

Okay, so I have been joking for over a year now about getting two amazing portrait tattoos. One one thigh, I want David Duchovny as agent Mulder, with Gillian Anderson as agent Skully, and a bunch of UFO's and aliens and bigfoot and flukeman. On the other thigh, I want David Duchovny as the cross dressing agent on Twin Peaks, with Kyle MacLachlan as agent Cooper, with cherry pie and some logs and some coffee and maybe a dead crow or a percolator with a fish in it. The idea is hilarious to me and somehow I still find it hilarious over a year later (which is one test as to whether a tattoo is really worth getting or not). The thing is, I think David Duchovny would be a really hard guy to get a good portrait of (not to mention the fact that I probably would regret the whole thing later on down the line).

Anyway, here is some proof that celebrity portraits can be downright terrible.

Bad as in Good

After all this trash talking, I thought I'd give you guys a break and prove that tattoos can indeed be totally awesome and rad and amazing. Sometimes "bad" is slang for "good", so this category is "Bad as in Good" and is here to give your eyes a rest every once in a while.

Penguin looks like Penguin and not overly zombified. This is a hard line to walk, but they got it!


This tattoo blew my mind the first time I saw it. I want it. I am so jealous.



Alex Ross Superman. This is so amazing.


sdf,jhsdfkjhsdkfhskj this dude! It's so cool that I am speechless.

Bad Portraits

One of the most unfortunate tattoos that you can have is a badly done portrait, and sadly there are a lot of them out there.
Here is the first of what I am sure will be many installments of Bad Portraits:

The details are what makes this tattoo truly awful. The tattoo of her chest tattoo. The hands (which aren't even in the photo). The cheekbones. The teeth.


This is my favorite bad portrait. It's shark-zombie-bride. I feel so sorry for the guy who got this. Again, note the teeth.


This poor guy has a zombie child on his arm. She doesn't have shark teeth- she seems to be suffering from the opposite problem: gummy mouth.



Okay, this one isn't executed so terribly (I'm sure when it healed it looked pretty decent) but it's creepy as hell!


From the same place that brought you creepy thumbs-up dude, we have creepy-cutter-angel (complete with tattoos-of-tattoos):