Wednesday, October 3, 2007

Temporary Tattoo Designs Are The Perfect Trial Solution

Temporary tattoo designs are now very popular. At one time there were only a few sources to get hold of your temporary tattoo designs such as the dispensing machines or local store if you were lucky, but these days they are very widely available. When I was little we used to think how fantastic we were by sporting a temporary tattoo. They weren't much fun to pull off if they didn't go on properly but that never stopped us. Temporary tattoos are also a great 'primer' when deciding on whether or not you really want to go the whole hog and get a real life one.

You can source temporary tattoos in a wide variety of depictions and sizes, from small to large. You name it, the design is available in temporary tattoo design form, from the more traditional tattoos to ultra cool, funky and stylish modern ones. Want a cute dolphin on your left shoulder to try out? No problem. How about a barbed wire depiction on your ankle. You got it. You may want to opt for a word phrase in graphic art tattoo form. Well, those are available too.

I have noticed a trend in real life tattoos towards all black ink designs. You can also find these in the form of temporary tattoo designs and they are well worth taking a look at as they cover a multitude of subject matters.

Celtic designs are every popular and this is no exception with temporary tattoo designs. When considering these rather more traditional designs in real life, you may want to try a temporary one first. It is a good idea to choose a real life tattoo that has some importance to you as an individual or at least something you can identify with. A temporary tattoo affords you the luxury of trying out different designs and how they would look without worrying about the reasons you are choosing the tattoo to adorn your body.

There are even packages available on the market that allow you to make your own temporary tattoo designs. How fantastic. You design the tattoo using what is available in the package and then transfer them onto the desired part of your body that you wish the tattoo to be. Above all, temporary tattoo designs are great fun and anybody can give them a go without having to commit full time to a real tattoo.



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Tattoo Books Help You Make An Informed Decision

Tattoo books are a very helpful and informative source of ideas. With the help of tattoo books you will be able to decide what may be the right tattoo for you personally. There are literally hundreds of tattoos available on the market so finding a good one will not be a problem. When you go into a licensed parlor you will often find that they have tattoo books available for you to take a look at with many different tattoo designs. Everything from Chinese symbols and more risqué designs, to traditional tattoos can be found in tattoo books. Some of these books will also show depictions of these tattoos on an individual so that you can see what they would look like on someone else.

Some people opt for very extravagant tattoos, whereas others go for more simple aesthetic designs. Regardless, a tattoo book will help you in your search and you will find designs jump out at you from the page giving you new ideas for what tattoo design you finally decide upon, or it may even give you inspiration to modify a design, make it unique and call it your own.

If you find a tattoo design you like in a tattoo book, then the best thing you can do is consult your recommended tattoo artist at the parlor and let him/her view it so they can give you advice on whether the design is possible and the right one for you. They may even have some other ideas for you to consider before you take the plunge.

Above all, you want that vision of design transferred from a lifeless piece of paper onto you in the most perfect way possible as you will have to live with it for a long time. Make sure everything about the design and artist you choose is spot on before you commit to having it done.



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These 2 Worlds Should Never Collide

One day my girlfriend wanted to get a tattoo. Naturally, I wanted to give her my input on the design.

Fellow tattoo enthusiasts, we all know the gold standard for boyfriend/girlfriend tattoos is a cursive, italicized name in heavy print. Something like “Jesse” around the breast or buttocks area. But I knew instantly this would not do. I felt my girlfriend and I needed something a bit stronger. We immediately set out to conjure up that image in an intense brainstorming session.

My first instinct was to get a portrait of myself giving Conan the Barbarian a very bad charley horse. This image sent out the proper vibe, in my mind, about where she and I were coming from. But ultimately it was too risky. Given a bit of time, the tattoo could come out looking like me giving a female body builder a thigh massage. Which would not be the proper vibe at all.

My second impulse was a sweet sleeve of circuits, culminating in a picture on her shoulder of me making a robot cry. “It’s about the technology,” I told her. She said she didn’t think her arm was the proper place for that kind of statement. “I couldn’t agree less,” I told her. But it didn’t matter, that one was a no go.

After all was said and done, we settled on her nickname, “Coconut Throat” on her left ankle. I said, “Why not just get a coconut on your throat?” But she felt that a coconut on her neck would look too much like an injury from far away. We aren’t together anymore


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Trusting the Inkslinger

After the third session on my sleeve a couple of days ago, I realised I left with something more than just ink – a bond between myself and my tattoo artist. This gets stronger after every visit, and I have worked out that it is down to the trust I have gained in him. After all, how can you not form a relationship (and I’m speaking purely social here) with someone who is putting in hours of work and effort, using careful and perfected skill to drag needles through your skin? How did I manage to achieve this?

Firstly, like all good teachings in life, it took a mistake to start my search for the right tattooist for me. When I was 17, I got my first tattoo – it was awful. When I was 18, I decided to do something about it, and was gaining a little more information about tattoos at this time. So I trawled through the studios in my nearest town, avoiding the ones I knew had a bad reputation for putting out some dodgy tattoos. I came across one, and as soon as I went inside was impressed by how clean it looked, and the people there were surprisingly friendly (something I assumed tattooists lacked when I was younger, imagining the stereotypical ‘bald, fat, sleazy and unhygienic’ type that is usually used to depict a tattooist). I brought in my design and before I knew it, my older tattoo now looked more enhanced. But I wasn’t satisfied.

The problem was, that I had started to learn about the tattoo world, and after a few months of having the previously mentioned one done, knew I would want more tattoos. But I also knew that the tattooist I’d gone to last, as nice and as good as he was, wouldn’t be good enough for me. You see, I had started to collect all the tattoo magazines available, including USA & other EU publications. I was starting to get a fantastic view into the custom tattoo world – the backpieces, bodysuits and sleeves blew me away. I got familiar with the famous artists’ work, and couldn’t believe that this level of style, technique and skill could even exist on something like skin.

Never being someone to ‘follow the crowd’, I had never had much of an interest to get a tattoo of a ‘typical’ design – no flower, dolphin, Chinese symbol, tazmanian devil, ‘tribal’, or Winnie the Pooh would EVER have a place on my body, and that was certain. I am also slightly perfectionist when it comes to art – when a piece actually requires, even demands to be realistic or exact, it obviously must be composed with a hand that can perform these skills. Looking at my tattoo, I knew the tattooist wouldn’t be able to ink up an entire sleeve – he didn’t appear to use much imagination when it came to the actual tattoos – often quite happily just copying the flash designs. Although I wasn’t intending to get a realistic tattoo next (far from it in fact), I wanted to be able to give the artist complete artistic freedom. And to allow this, I needed to be able to trust him/her completely.

And to gain this, I needed to find the right person, who had a high reputation for being one of the best custom tattoo artists. Looking around my town, he/she certainly didn’t exist here. So, I chatted with some other tattooists about my quest, and together with the magazines I’d acquired, was given some priceless advice. This led me to finding my tattoo artist. And the bizarre thing is - now I’ve chosen to have him sleeve me up, with future plans for other large pieces, I could not imagine going to anyone else. The thought of sitting in someone else’s tattooing chair, makes me feel very nervous. The immense trust I have gained in my artist is something that will last for years. I could not imagine going to anyone else now, in fear that they would not do as good a job.

It comes as no surprise that I deliberately chose one of the best custom tattoo artists in the UK in the end, and why not? He has gained this title for a reason after all. However, for others it might not necessarily need to be this way, mattering only about this issue of trust. So, my advice to you and to others is to PLEASE, use your instincts. If you want a tattoo that much, you have shown a strong interest in tattooing, so why just settle with some guy sat on his bed, waving a little machine made from his walkman motor and his dad’s gardening wire? Why settle for the tattoo studio round the corner, with dirty stained walls and floors and a tattooist that clearly doesn’t care about sanitation? Why settle for a tattooist that doesn’t even really LOOK at the design they’re tattooing on you, only to sit back afterwards and realise they’ve made a mistake? Why settle for someone you don’t feel comfortable around? If you don’t like their personality, their humour or opinions, then GO SOMEWHERE ELSE! Find someone you ‘click’ with, someone you know you could sit down and allow to tattoo you, without you even needing to look and watch consistently that what they’re doing IS a dragon and not a fluffy teddy bear.

Take your time. You have years to really choose the right tattooist. A tattoo is not something that someone ‘wants’, and wants it ‘NOW’. There is no urgency in getting a tattoo – so be patient and hold out until you’re sure. Keep your eyes out for tattoo studios, check them out, see what the tattooist is like. Even keep your options open about the design – who knows, you might realise you don’t even really want that unicorn tattooed on you, or maybe you could even end up with a custom piece! Lastly, do not assume you have to go to your nearest tattooist for a tattoo – not even the one in town or the town next. If it is that important to you, then look as far and as wide as is needed. I travel for approximately 2 hours to get to mine, for example – and I know others that actually go abroad for theirs.



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Running a Business and Being an Artist

So this past weekend my mom, sister, and I went to get tattooed. For my mom and sister it was their 5th tattoo, but only the second for me. We almost ended up not doing it at all. The problem was how the tattoo shops were run. It was “first come first serve” for small tattoos and by appointment only for custom tattoos. This sounds fine unless the shop has no system in place to determine who got there first and the person at the front desk doesn’t know what the artists schedule is.

The first place we went to on Saturday only had one artist, no front desk person, and a line of around 5 people. We waited a half hour before the artist was even able to give us the paperwork to fill out and to tell us how long our wait would probably be. We decided to come back the next day right when they opened so we could be first in line and not have to wait quite so long. The artist at that shop told us that would be fine, to be there at noon, and to just take the paperwork with us for the next day.

So we show up the next day a little early and wait around outside. Finally someone comes to the door and it’s the guy who works out front. He tells us the artist is all booked up with appointments and that if we come back in a few days there will be more artists and we should be able to get in with no problem. Very frustrating, but what are you going to do, if they don’t have any openings they don’t have any. Unfortunately I was only in town for the weekend so we had to go elsewhere.

We ended up at a place down the street that was very nice, but again had a few issues that almost lost them our business. This time we were the first ones there, actually the second but the first ones left out of frustration at waiting, so we didn’t have to wait for others to finish we just had to wait for the artist to be ready. We ended up being there for 3 ½ hours. Each tattoo took 20-30 min, so it was the in between time that took so long. I can let go of the time he took to prepare materials, draw the design, and clean up afterward, but it got annoying that he had to keep answering the phone and talking to other customers in the shop about what they wanted and how long they would have to wait.

I understand that it can be hard to run a business and that extra help cuts into the profits, but from a customer’s perspective it is very annoying to have to wait around while the only person in the shop takes care of everything. I love being around artists. They have a wonderful perspective on things and can make everyday life a little more enjoyable. But if they don’t have a clue how to run a business they are only going to upset their customers and lose out on prospective repeat customers and referrals. It seems like a better idea would be to go into it as a partnership where one person runs the business and on person does the tattoos, and then add people as needed. I for example have little to no artistic ability, but I am great at customer service. I would love to own a tattoo shop, mostly because I could get work done anytime I wanted, but I would never be able to be the artist and the owner and the front desk person etc. And I don’t think any one should do all that, unless they want to limit their shop’s potential. Both place my family and I visited were doing well enough, but I bet they would benefit from a little more organization and forethought.



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He's Real, I Met Him, and I'm a Little Scared

It was getting late at the shop one night and we had one artist still hard at work while another was closing down his station. I too was hard at work with my feet up watching the 60” TV that absolutely needs to be monitored at all times. I heard the “ding” of the door opening and there stood in front of me, well if you read the summary, that’s right. Santa Clause. Star stricken, I anxiously asked him, “Can I help you with something?” It was then that Santa spoke and blew my freakin mind!

Old Saint Nick made precise on contact with me and in a softly spoken voice stated, “I’d like to get a Prince Albert, but I have a few questions.” Mainly he was concerned with his ability to urinate properly after the deed was done. Luckily the artist that was still hard at work was also a piercer and overheard the question and handled it ever so gingerly. He simply explained that if you don’t have any jewelry in then you just need to flip your amigo over in a barrel roll fashion when you “go” and everything will be fine. He also found it necessary to then ask Mr. Kringle if he was capable of this action with his “North Pole” and that he himself could do all types of acrobatic shit with his. After about 20 minutes of hysterical laughter I emerged from my fetal position picking myself up off the floor so I could schedule and appointment for him.

I know what you’re thinking, “I thought you said he was a tattoo enthusiast.” Well he was. While scheduling his appointment we were talking about tattoos and he mentioned he had a back piece. Before I could ask what it was he had already offered to show it off and was in the process of lifting his shirt. This gentleman had very wide shoulders and his back piece went from shoulder to belt line depicting a scene from an opera where a man calls upon a fire god to cast a ring of fire around a woman in eternal sleep so only one hero can rescue her. The size, color, details and artwork in general were beautiful.

Needles to say I went home that evening with mixed feelings about Santa Clause. On one hand he jumped up a few pegs on my kick ass scale due to the sweet ink he had. On the other hand he was still that mysterious guy that knows when you’re sleeping or awake and wants his “Rudolph” to have a “nose ring.” Regardless, I am leaving extra milk and cookies out his year as a token of my respect or a bribe to not give me a Prince Albert for Christmas.


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Itchiness, Flakiness, and Peeling: The Healing Process

So I’m half way through the second week of healing after getting my second tattoo and all I want to do it scratch it. I don’t remember my first one itching so much. I wonder if the location has something to do with it, or if the fact that this one is color and the first one was black.

I do know that location can affect the rate of healing for any wound. The closer to the heart the better the circulation and the faster the healing. That’s probably one contributing factor to my first tattoo, on my abdomen, healing quickly. My new one is on my foot, so more than likely it’s going to take a while to heal.

I noticed most tattoo artists give the same advice for taking care of tattoos. I’ve been following my artist’s instructions as closely as I can and so far things look good. I just keep thinking about how much it hurt and how I really don’t want to have to get it touched up.

Pain is subjective and different parts of the body experience pain differently. I now know that the tops of my feet experience a lot of pain. I’m still glad I put it there. My thought is that you shouldn’t choose a location without thinking about it first. I chose my design and the top of my foot near my ankle seemed like the best place for it. And an hour of pain really wasn’t that bad---now that it’s over.

It’s just the damn itchy, flaky, peeling healing process that’s driving me crazy. After reading about the healing process and how to properly care for a new tattoo I still just want to scratch it. It’s like having an itchy nose and not being able to do anything about it. It’s torturous. Since it was self inflicted does that make me a masochist?



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Why Gene Kelley Is Still Popular Today

Gene Kelley was born in 1912 in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. He had grown up with talent that wasn't seen often at the time. He had flashy dance moves and a dynamic personality. He quickly became a well known actor in the 1940's. With his dance moves he appeared in 47 films, which alone was quite a feat for the time. He acted with his brother, Fred Kelley, briefly in theatre but the big screen was calling him.

In 1942 he starred with Judy Garland on the big screen in a movie called "Me and My Gal". This was the true launch of Gene Kelley's career, as MGM Studios recognized his talent at once. Being the largest and most powerful studio in Hollywood, MGM signed him on to become one of the most recognized talents of all time.

With WWII underway, many people from Europe fled to America to avoid the Nazi powers. They came to Hollywood with talents as artists such as singers, dancers, and actors. This became an active time for Hollywood and MGM studios as the entertainment world expanded. Gene Kelley had a talent that was often compared to Fred Astaire. With awesome dance moves and an electric personality Gene Kelley brought the working man to the big screen in his street clothes and rugged good looks. His powerful dance moves intrigued the audience and electrified Hollywood.

When Gene Kelly starred with Debbie Reynolds in the hit "Singing in the Rain" in 1952, he captured the hearts of many. His powerful and yet graceful dancing style earned him an instant love of adoring fans. Being a smash hit, the film was one of the first 25 films selected by the Library of Congress for its National Film Registry of movies to be part of the American Heritage, an elite status even today.

Gene Kelley's stardom increased as he starred in film such as An American in Paris, Cats Don't Dance, Christmas Holiday, A Guide for the Married Man, Marjorie Morningstar, That's Dancing and That's Entertainment.

His talents were clearly recognized as being original and heartwarming. He had an athletic style of dance so free and innovative that he continues to impress yet today. In 1992, he was entered into the theater hall of fame because of his work on "My Pal Joey" with his brother Fred Kelley. He continues to be a part of American culture as he was the silent eye behind Madonna in 1993 for her Girlie Show Tour. In 1994 he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Bill Clinton.

In his personal life Gene Kelley was married three times and had fathered three children. On February 2, 1996 in Beverly Hills, California Gene Kelley passed away due to multiple strokes. He will forever be remembered as a great talented dancer and artist.




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