The Illustrated Man, Part 10: Mr. Lucky

For tattoo #10, I decided that I wanted something on my right forearm that was similar to the on one my left forearm, keeping with old school, traditional designs. Josh (formerly of Tiki Tattoo in Lacey, WA) had me look through some work and I found I wanted to have a "Mr. Lucky"-style skull done. Once again, Josh took a rough idea, drew something up of his own based on that idea, and he put together the piece you see in the picture. He also chose the color scheme, and added a nautical star to the tattoo because I wanted one somewhere on me. Although it is hard to tell in this pic-partially because it's small and partially because the tattoo is nearly 10 years old and has faded a little (although it has actually held its color very well thus far)-this Mr. Lucky skull has three gold teeth, one on top and two on bottom. In those gold teeth are an 'X' (representing my straight edge lifestyle) and the number '13' (because, well, why the fuck not? It's a good number), respectively.

The Illustrated Man, Part 9: Straight Razor

This is the ninth tattoo I got, located on the inside of my left forearm (it is now part of a sleeve, but I'll save that for another day). Again, I wanted a more old school traditional design, something the artist was very good at. We took a look at some flash art, I picked a basic design, and then let him go to town on customizing it. It contains a straight razor wrapped in a banner. The banner contains the number '13', the traditional suits in a deck of playing cards a pair of dice rolled to snake eyes. He added some flames and a freehand design was added to the blade, and I allowed him to pick the color scheme from top to bottom. Courtesy of Josh (formerly) of Tiki Tattoo in Lacey, WA (I believe Josh moved to Hawaii and opened up shop there, but I'm not 100% positive).

The Illustrated Man, Part 7: The Joker

The Joker is perhaps my favorite villain in all of comic books, and Mark Hamill's interpretation of the Joker on Batman: The Animated Series/The Adventures of Batman & Robin is phenomenal. So phenomenal that no one is associated more closely with the character than Hamill. I decided it was this was the version of the Joker I wanted to use for my seventh tattoo. I happened to have a deck of playing cards themed after the television series, so I took the deck with me to Tiki Tattoo (Lacey, WA) and used on of the Joker cards in the deck for the inspiration, including making it look like a playing card. An artist named Jim (who was helping out at the shop that day, but owned his own in Seattle; I wish I knew the name of it) drew something up for me. He changed the lettering of the word "Joker" to something more custom, and added some detail to the Joker's eyes to make him look more menacing and psychotic. Although this was one of the most painful tattoos I've ever received (on my right calf), I was incredibly happy with how it turned out. I've even had people tell me it's the coolest Joker tattoo they've ever seen.