Inked Up Angels: Part 1, Pink's X-Men

Back in April, I ran into two young ladies in Penn Station. Both were significantly tattooed and I was delighted when they agreed to talk to me and allowed me to snap a few photos.

In order to give each woman her proper due, I'll start with "Pink", who showed me her tattoo first.

Actually, she was already showing her tattoos. With a full leg sleeve and an estimated eleven pieces in all (approximately), she already had a lot of ink on full display.

She showed me her right bicep to exhibit the following piece in progress:


Pink advised me that this is a tattoo of Gambit and Rogue. Shwoing my ignorance, I questioned who they were, assuming they were characters from a comic. I was in the right neighborhood, as they are characters from the X-Men.

This piece was tattooed by Pat Sheridan at The White Lotus Tattoo & Art Gallery in Toms River, New Jersey.

As it turns out, both Pink and her friend Kat are part of a group called The Inked Up Angels (their MySpace page is here). The Inked Up Angels can best be described as a gathering of young ladies with tattoos who model, but without the nudity of the Suicide Girls.

If you head over to their MySpace page and root around the photos section, you'll see more pictures of Pink, including some cool shots where her other tattoos are viewable.

And, stay tuned for part two of this post, where Pink's friend Kat unveils what I can safely say is one of the most amazing tattoos I've ever had the pleasure to capture for Tattoosday.

Thanks again to Pink for sharing her work with us here!

The Ship Keeps Sailing Along (Revisiting Carrie's Ribcage)

Last September, I posted this amazing tattoo:


If you missed it the first time around, go back and read the full post here before proceeding...

There.

Did you read/reread it? Good.

This is what it looks like now:


One of the great things about writing this blog, besides meeting people with incredible tattoos, is that some of the tattooed subjects become friends. Carrie and I have stayed in touch and we chat from time to time. She even submitted the tattoos she and her husband received as wedding gifts (this post here).

As for this updated version of the pirate ship, the first post was done in two sittings and she has had two more to add the color, about 4 hours worth of work on the color. She estimates (and hopes) that one more sitting will take care of filling in the rest of the ship and the top sail.

As mentioned in the first post, this piece is the work of Charles "Chuck" Denise at Revolver Tattoo in New Brunswick, New Jersey.

Thanks again to Carrie for updating us here at Tattoosday on the progress of this phenomenal tattoo!

Ricky & Jessica's Matching Nightmarish Tattoos

I met Jessica and Ricky outside of Penn Station during the last week of April.

I had spotted one of Ricky's four tattoos on his right bicep:


This is, of course, a tattoo based on the great film A Nightmare Before Christmas, with the character Jack Skellington in the foreground and his girlfriend Sally in the background, standing on the recognizable Tim Burton hill.


What's particularly cool about the leering Jack tattoo is that it was inked at the same time as Ricky's girlfriend Jessica's piece:


This tattoo, one of eleven that Jessica sports, is on her right ankle. The design is similar, with the hill in the background, only the roles are reversed.

In the foreground is Sally, and Jack stands in the background.

The two tattoos, a matching set, were customized for the couple that sports them by Sean at Spanky's Tattoo Studio in Camden, New Jersey.

As a fan of The Nightmare Before Christmas, I totally appreciate the representation of the two main characters in ink, and the romantic in me loves the fact that Jessica and Ricky expressed their relationship in this fashion (Full disclosure: my wife and I have matching Jack and Sally coffee mugs).

A Nightmare Before Christmas tattoo has appeared on the blog previously here.

Thanks to Ricky and Jessica for sharing their tattoos with us here on Tattoosday!

Ronda's Olympic Tattoos

As many of my resources were tied up with the Tattooed Poets Project in April, I kept my encounters with random tattooed people in New York to a minimum, saving them for special occasions.

However, I couldn't resist on Tuesday, April 21, when I spotted a familiar symbol on the right ankle of a woman in the Amtrak section of Penn Station:


Those are, of course, the recognizable Olympic rings.

One can imagine how pleased I was when the individual to whom this tattoo belonged was open to discussing not only her tattoos, but their significance.

For Ronda Rousey, like many athletes (see this New York Times article here), getting tattoos to commemorate attendance and participation in the Olympics, is a rite of passage.

But Ronda isn't just any Olympic athlete. She participated in both the 2004 games in Athens, and the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. In fact, she won the Bronze Medal in China in the sport of judo (middleweight division)

and became the first American woman ever to medal in that event.

She actually has at least three pieces that circumvent circumnavigate her ankle. The tail end of one can be seen to the left of the Olympic rings. Here's the beginning (and majority) of the slogan:


That is "Citius, Altius, Fortius," which is the motto of the modern Olympic games. Translated into English it means "Swifter, Higher, Stronger".

Also on the ankle is a third element, which is a Greek head garland:


This is a symbol of the 2004 Athens games, at which Ronda also competed.

She did not medal that year, but she was also the youngest, at 17, judo competitor in the Games, and was a rising star.

A resident of Los Angeles, Ronda had all three tattoos done at Ink Monkey Tattoo in Venice, California.

On a side note, personally, I always get a charge out of meeting a complete stranger and talking to them about their tattoos. That excitement is the fuel that energizes the Tattoosday experience for me.

Days later, I was still pumped about meeting an Olympic athlete. Most Olympians will say they're just like everyone else, normal folks like you and me. But, I beg to differ. Ronda isn't a member of the "Dream Team" or a star in track or gymnastics or beach volleyball or any of the "marquis" events. Nonetheless, here is a woman who participates in a sport and, in August 2008, was one of the top three women in the world in that event. She accomplished what so many athletes aspire to. She stood on a podium and even though the Star-Spangled Banner wasn't blaring on the P.A. system, she wore a medal around her neck and saw the American flag raised because of her remarkable athletic accomplishment.

It is an honor to have her featured here on Tattoosday and I thank her profusely, from the bottom of my tattoo-loving heart.

Click here to see a recap of Ronda's Olympic medal run, including a glimpse of the medal ceremony.

Thanks to Ronda for sharing her tattoos with us here on Tattoosday!

Ashley's Two Little Birds

Last July, I met two tattooed women, Becky and Ashley, outside of Borders (Becky's post is here, Ashley's is here) on Penn Plaza.

A few months later, in one of my more embarrassing moments as an ink-spotter, I approached Becky again, outside of Macy*s, and asked her about her tattoos. She reminded me that she was already featured on Tattoosday, and I reddened, apologized, and moved on. In my defense, the tattoo I featured was on her foot, and it was covered in the subsequent encounter.

Flash forward to the last Friday in April, and I spotted both Ashley and Becky again, outside of Macy*s. I wasn't sure, but something seemed familiar, so I approached cautiously. Becky had dyed her black, so my failure to identify the two of them immediately was again explainable.

But unlike the previous encounter with Becky, this time I wasn't embarrassed and Ashley volunteered her two newest tattoos.

Ashley, a make-up artist, about two months ago, had two small "Mom" and "Dad" tribute tattoos inked behind her ears. Mom is on the left:


And Dad is on the right:


The birds remind her of something that her mother would tell her when she was a little girl. She would tell Ashley that if she wasn't good, the birds would get her. That, combined with the small forget-me-nots, make these small, pretty, tattoos nice tributes to her parents.

The work was done by Mohawk John at Three Kings Tattoo in Brooklyn. Work from Three Kings has appeared previously on Tattoosday here.

Thanks to Ashley for re-visiting us here on Tattoosday and sharing her newest tattoos!

Grace's Black and Gray Koi

I met Grace earlier this week outside of Penn Station. She has three stars tattooed on the inside of her right wrist and had a cherry blossom (above) inked on the back of her neck.

About a year ago, she expanded it, adding the koi fish below it:


She attributed the work to an artist named Kevin, and he did in it in a small shop in Koreatown in Manhattan.

Grace says that the tattoo is purely decorative, with no underlying meaning, and that she has no plans to add color. She likes the black and gray appearance of the piece.

Thanks to Grace for sharing her tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!

Ben's Amazing Back Piece

With the Tattooed Poets Series under way last month, I was a bit remiss in posting about the "regular" tattoo encounters.

With apologies to the following volunteer, I am presenting some amazing work on a gentleman named Ben, who I spotted back on April 2 while walking through Penn Station.

Ben was wearing a short-sleeve shirt and had tattoos covering his arms. When I approached him and explained Tattoosday, he enthusiastically agreed to participate. In fact, he removed his shirt to reveal an incredible back piece:



The one problem with featuring huge tattoos like this is not getting all the details in. What follows are some of the finer points of the tattoo.

At the bottom of the back is an hourglass design, within which is, Ben said, kanji representing the word "redemption":


The piece represents that he has "only so much time to redeem himself".

The main set of Chinese text in the center of the back was loosely translated by Ben as "I have trust in no man except for the trust I save for myself":


Also of note on the back are the two kanji representing "father" (the right side) and "forgive me" (the left side). These characters are in disks on either side at the top of the back.

The back was done by an artist no longer practicing at Skin Deep Tattoo on Long Island.

Imagine busy Penn Station, a guy standing there talking to a bespectacled blogger, camera in hand, beholding a subject covered in ink. Where to even begin?

It's like taking someone to the world's largest buffet and telling them they can only fill one small plate with food.

The back as a whole was impressive, but Ben was willing to share more, and we settled on this view, with a dragon and a geisha:


Ben credits this part of his body's tapestry to an artist named Loco working out of Dharma Tattoo in Miami Springs, Florida.

Thanks to Ben for sharing his amazing tattoos with us here on Tattoosday!