2012: A Tattoo Odyssey

Alternate title of this post:

"I got another tattoo and owie owie owie owie mother hell crap shit that hurts"

WARNING: This post contains photos of my naked upper body so please make sure you are reading this somewhere that you can run off and "take care of yourself" without getting Human Resources all up in your shit.

Onward.

When we last left our hero (me), the decision to have a tattoo that would incorporate my kids' initials of "C" and "P" was in full swing.

And now?

IT'S DONE.

The final design we decided on that would incorporate both my kids' initials of "C" and "P" into something cool that didn't look like crap was this:


You can see the left dragon head and flame curling up making the "C" for "Cameron," and the body and right side of the dragon (and flame) making a "P" for "Payton."

Also? A two-headed fire-breathing dragon pretty much sums up my two children perfectly.

So I made the appointment with my tattoo witch, Lisa, over at Good Mojo Tattoos in Beverly, MA and brought my girlfriend Kerri along because I assumed that I needed something or someone to bite down on and it began.

THE STENCIL

The first part of the ordeal - I mean, 'getting a tattoo' is creating a stencil of it and putting it where you want it to go.


This took 3 tries and is not as easy as it sounds because this tattoo was on my back which required me to look into a mirror reflecting in another mirror and OH MY GOD LOOK AT THE SIZE OF MY BALD SPOT ugh I should really start using Rogaine again and then I should probably lose 5 pounds because I have a bit of a muffin top and..

Lisa: "Jesus Christ will you just tell me if it's okay?"

It was okay.

Here's what the stencil looked like.


Next.

JUST A LITTLE PRICK

The title of this section also describes my personality in general but I'm referring to the starting of the tattoo here.

This begins with Lisa outlining the thing for half-an-hour and then saying, "Okay...that was just a run-through. I'm going to use ink now" and me shitting my pants and then her laughing and saying, "Just kidding. Outline is done."

Witches. Such cards.


Several times during the process my girlfriend would wipe my brow because I was sweating. She did this using a wet paper towel with the hand that I didn't break from squeezing.

Overall it wasn't that painful, as can be seen in this shot of my nonplussed expression:


Other captions include:

"Thank you sir, may I have another!"

"MORE LUBE!"

"This is what it sounds like when doves cry."

"Here we see the opposite of McDonald's 'I'm lovin' it!' slogan."

I'm considering turning this into a caption contest. Have at it in the comments.

INTERMISSION

I had to reverse-cowgirl the tattooing chair to have this done which gave me a wonderful glimpse at my arms so why should I let you guys lose out on that view?

RIGHT.


You almost can't tell that I'm sobbing just off-mirror.

THE FINAL PRODUCT

After about an hour and 15 minutes, Lisa finished.

Here's what it looked like fresh out of the chair:


Perfect.

I sent the pic to my kids via text and they were flipping out about how awesome it was. I can't wait for their reactions when they see it in person later today and their initials are forever emblazoned on my back.

So the pain? Totally worth it.

Would I do it again?

Fuck. No.

But if you want one, and are in the Beverly, Massachusetts area, I suggest you click on the link at the bottom of the page.

Tattooed Moooooog out.

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If you want a tattoo done by some wicked talented people and you're in the Massachusetts area, make sure you check out Good Mojo Tattoos and tell them the Midget Man sent ya:

Fire-Breathing Double-headed Pain - Part 3

When we last left our hero (me), the decision to have a tattoo that would incorporate my kids' initials of "C" and "P" was in full swing.

If you read the last chapter then you know I started heading the way of incorporating my kids "C" and "P" initials into some sort of dragon tattoo but still the concept of what I was looking for escaped me...until...

I took a shower.

I do a large number of things while I'm taking a steamy shower - some of which surprisingly do not include bodily fluids. One of these things I tend to do is draw and doodle on the shower doors or mirror when it's all steamed up.

Typically this just involves me drawing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and flying saucers and Ninja Turtles in flying saucers and sometimes Kama Sutra stuff (or a combo of all 3 things which gets REALLY freaky) but this time my thoughts turned to my tattoo and I somehow came up with this:


BAM.

You can see the left dragon head and flame curling up making the "C" for "Cameron," and the body and right side of the dragon (and flame) making a "P" for "Payton."

Also? A two-headed fire-breathing dragon pretty much sums up my two children perfectly.

I sent this off to my tattoo witch, Lisa, over at Good Mojo Tattoos and she gussied it up and added color and, well:



So, yeah. As I'm writing this, we're making the appointment to get this guy needled into my delicate yet manly skin within the next week or so.

By the time you read it, it will probably already be done and this may be a posthumous blog article you're reading because I'm a giant pussy and will probably die during the thing.

At least I'll have a cool tattoo on my corpse, though.

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UPDATE:

IT'S DONE.

I somehow survived. But it was not pretty. Me = giant wuss.

I have pics of the process and the final result up on my Facebook page... but will have a new post ready tomorrow that may or may not include a caption contest.

Also? It came out AWESOME.

Also also?

Ow.

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If you want a tattoo done by some wicked talented people and you're in the Massachusetts area, make sure you check out Good Mojo Tattoos and tell them the Midget Man sent ya:

Fire-breathing Double-headed Pain - Part 2

When we last left our hero (me) in Part 1 of this series, the decision to have a tattoo that would incorporate my kids' initials of "C" and "P" was in full swing.

Sadly, the sketches I was coming up with looked more like rejects from the "Draw Scruffy" arts program that you'd find on matchbooks back in the day so I turned to my friend, witch (no shit) and amazing tattoo artist, Lisa from Good Mojo Tattoos in Salem, MA to give me some other ideas using her flair for actually being able to draw shit.

Here's what Lisa sent me:

Design sketch #1: "VINE"


Lisa titled this one 'vine'.

Pros: You can clearly make out the "C" and "P" and it's obvious that Lisa is adding some flair to the concept. Also, this is pretty accurate as my kids are clingy and like to climb on shit.

Cons: My back is kind of freckly and I fear this will end up looking like a bunch of dead grapes.

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Design sketch #2: Stars and Moon


Um.

When I was thinking of writing this post, I mentioned it to Lisa on Facebook:

Me: "Hey..I was thinking of doing a post about my tattoo..showing all the sketches and stuff. Also, as would be custom for me, some of them may or may not be subjected to slight ridicule. Like the moon and stars one where you apparently forgot I'm not an 8-year old girl."

Lisa: "You mean you're NOT an 8-year-old girl?"

Touche'.

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INTERMISSION


END OF INTERMISSION

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Design sketch #3: Fire and Water


OOH.

This was the first one that I went, "Ah. I think we're on to something."

Pros: Looks cool. Love the fire vs. water concept.

Cons: Both my kids are actually fire. Like a blazing San Diego wildfire type thing. As in when my kids show up, you want to dig a ditch separating you from them and then head for high ground.

But I really really liked the fire...and this got me thinking:

DRAGONS BREATHE FIRE!

Me: "Lisa...I like the fire but Payton will NOT want to be water..so how about a dragon breathing fire?"

Lisa: "You're a pain in my ass."

Actually, Lisa didn't say that because she's not mean to people for no reason like I am but she DID send me back this:


Okay okay..BUT..

*if you listen closely, you can hear Lisa swearing at me under her breath

Let's make it a little more badassish.

So I sent Lisa this sketch of a serpent/dragon thingy wrapped around a sword breathing an arc of fire:


..because the "C" is the fire and the "P" is both the dragon and the sword. See? See?!

Lisa took the sketch and came up with this:


NOW WE'RE COOKIN!

But we weren't done yet because I showed it to my kids who thought it was cool but Cam was a little bummed because his sister was this cool serpent thingy wrapped around a sword and he was basically just her bad breath and that pretty much put the kibosh on this design.

FML.

That and the fact that when I posted it on my Facebook page people were, like, "Dude..snakes don't breathe fire."

Oh. Oh yeah. But what if they have bad breath? Dammit. Nevermind.

And thus? I changed it ONE MORE TIME.

To what, you ask? Well for that, you'll have to stay tuned for the next post.

ENTER THE DRAGON...

(to be continued...)


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If you want a tattoo done by some wicked talented people and you're in the Massachusetts area, make sure you check out Good Mojo Tattoos and tell them the Midget Man sent ya:

Fire-breathing double-headed pain - Part 1

No, I'm not talking about the Kardashians.

I'm getting a new tattoo.

For those who know me and my love of needles and getting tattooed the first time where I thought I was going to effing die, this should make you go:

"Why, Rodney? Why subject that nearly perfectly-sculpted body to such hedonistic torture? WHY MESS WITH PERFECTION? You are an Adonis!"

To which I say, "Thanks, mom."

But the answer, to put it bluntly, is "my kids."

You see, I've always wanted to have my kids' names or initials of "C" and "P" tattooed on my body somewhere.

Because someday, when I'm old and dying, the people caring for me will look at my tattoo and go, "so what does this stand for?" and I'll reply "What have you done with my Korean maid? I like pudding and muscle magazines! Yo Gabba Gabba!" because in this scenario I'm 96 and have no clue where I am.

To begin this adventure I enlisted the help of my friend and - literally - witch, Lisa 'InkWitch' Ainsworth over at Good Mojo Tattoos to help me with the design.

To start, I sent her a couple of sketches of my own on how I wanted the "C" and "P" to look. Please note that I didn't go with a "P" and "C" ordering because I'd hate for someone to think that meant 'Politically Correct' because HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHA OMG I shouldn't have to explain that AT ALL.

Design sketch #1:


I did this one obviously myself using my skills honed over many many years in Microsoft Paint.

I actually kind of liked this one because it was ying-yangish but then I stood back and realized that it looked like a lollipop.

How many licks does it take to get to the center of Rodney's back? The world may never know.

Design sketches #2 and #3:


I drew these thinking I could kind of smush the letters together to form some kind of cool design but basically all I came up with was a little game of Tetris and a logo I could sell for upwards of $10 to a company with the initials, "CP."

Design sketch #3:

Taking the smushed initial idea of #2 a little further, I decided to make it more swoopy like this:

Then I realized I actually just drew the head of a mosquito.



It was, at this point, becoming painfully obvious that if the design was left up to me, this was going to be the worst tramp stamp ever.

I mean, um, "shoulder tattoo."

*spits

As such, in stepped Lisa with some sketches of her own to save the day.

Or at least try to. I'm kind of anal about things.

At least that's what my tramp stamp says.

(to be continued...)


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If you want a tattoo done by some wicked talented people and you're in the Massachusetts area, make sure you check out Good Mojo Tattoos and tell them the Midget Man sent ya: