Yup , another D&D character falls prey to bad decisions and malicious dungeon masters…

(Archer tattoo from RateMyInk.com; no artist info available)

via roblfc1892.deviantart.com

Borgnine, my Dwarf character in Jonathan Becker's Thursday-night B/X Dungeons & Dragons game, died last night after four gaming sessions by drowning in the bowels of White Plume Mountain, while attempting to recover the magical artifact Whelm, a trident giving the bearer certain powers of Poseidon.

Oh, and this tattoo of a "Warhammer Dwarf" on deviantARTist roblfc1892's calf is pretty badass, too… (artist credited as "my friend". boo.)

From what I can tell, all of the collectors pictured below have three things in common: they like fish, they feel some connection to the concept of "survival", and they are nerdy enough to get a big tattoo of a living fossil.

This beauty adorns Mary McCarthy (no artist info available). Photo from The Love Lab, which seems to be a fish science website. How awesome is it that they have a "tattoos" section?

Arne Kuilman's piece (by Jan-Paul of Admiraal Tattoo in Amsterdam) is a nice balance of realistic and stylized. He's got some great shots in various stages of tattooage, as well as some cool source images in his flickr photostream. Lots of info about coelacanths in his captions, too. I didn't know, for instance, that the coelacanth's typical "headstand" is about 30 degrees.

Flickr member kittenhiccups says the real story behind her coelacanth (no artist info available) has to do with "evolution, beauty, horror, life, death, defying expectations, surviving
against all odds, my own phobias, and a bunch of symbolic stuff that
means more to me than I can say," but if you ask, the answer you're more likely to get
is, "I just think they're cool, I guess."

Hans Rueffert (contestant on the first season of The Next Food Network Star!) chronicles his tattoo experience on his blog. His coelacanth tells the story of his victorious battle with stomach cancer (extra nerd points because the numbers within the scales spell out "cancer" numerically). Tattoo by Deano, no shop or location info listed; based on original artwork by Richard Kirk.

I never pass up an opportunity to plug the geek-licious tattoos on Carl Zimmer's Sciece Tattoo Emporium, and this coelacanth tattoo (by Craig Cooley, currently tattooing at Stingray Body Art in Boston, MA) on Vicki Rosenswieg's abdomen is certainly plug-worthy. Here's an in-progress shot, as well.

Rusty Piton's "mysterious coelacanth", by Alex Higgens at the Tattoo Factory in Chicago, IL.

Flickr member pczoide gave me the idea for this post by adding his Japanese koi-inspired coelacanth to my Dinosaur Tattoos pool. More shots of this tattoo in progress and after later sessions in his "Finding Nemo" set. I can't wait to see this one completed; I think it will be my favorite one! Tattoo by Davi Duarte at Estúdio Muito Além de Tatuagem in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil.

via www.flickr.com

Tardis tattoos by Boris the Russian at South
Tacoma Tattoo in Lakewood, WA.

The artist didn’t understand why I wanted it “upside-down”. Uhhhh….’cause it’s for ME!

via trollop23.livejournal.com

I hadn’t seen the cover of Incredible Hulk #49 before. Love to see the nerdy mash-up tattoos!

Thanks to trollop23 for sending in via email!

UPDATE: I’ve been informed that this tattoo was inked by Scott Veldhoen at Eternal Image Tattoos in Alberta, Canada. Nice work, Scott! (Lots of good stuff on his site, especially this nerdy gem.)

From ModBlog’s coverage of Tattoo Hollywood (No artist attribution).

Dali-inspired AT-AT by Paul at Old School Tattoo in Bellingham, Washington.

Really, this excellent piece by Paul at Old School Tattoo in Bellingham, Washington had me at “AT-AT,” but this collector’s idea to make it unique by incorporating elements of Salvador Dali’s recurring spindly-legged elephants is pretty awesome.

The Elephants, by Salvador Dali, c. 1948

Quoth Dali, “I am painting pictures which make me die for joy, I am creating with an absolute naturalness, without the slightest aesthetic concern, I am making things that inspire me with a profound emotion and I am trying to paint them honestly.”

If you say so…

via ModBlog

Necronomicon tattoo by Jesse Smith

So creepy how she smiles as her eyes bleed/melt, with Cthulhu looming in the background.

Although The Necronomicon is a fictional book created by Lovecraft, many authors since have referenced it in their work.

Lovecraft approved, believing such common allusions built up “a background of evil verisimilitude.” Many readers have believed it to be a real work, with booksellers and librarians receiving many requests for it; pranksters have listed it in rare book catalogues, and a student smuggled a card for it into the Yale University Library’s card catalog. (Wikipedia)

All I know is that this is one of the most impressive tattoos I’ve ever seen. More views here, here, and here.

This one’s for Dark Slope.

Ink Nerd rockin' fake tattoos at a Meat Sisters show in 1993. Scribbled by Ezra, photo by Maggie Robertson.

I’m not sure, but I think the first person who I knew who got a tattoo was a guy named Mike Fitzgerald. This was probably around 1990 or so (I would have been about 16). It was of a crescent man-in-the-moon face in a circle with squiggly black sun rays radiating from it (or did the circle and rays come later?). I remember talking to him about the pain, how the guy messed it up but was going to fix it later, how much it cost, etc. In retrospect, it sounds like he had a pretty typical first tattoo experience. I was fascinated by Mike’s tattoo, and really wanted one, too, but at the time I couldn’t imagine spending $50 or whatever on ANYTHING, let alone something that I was worried I would regret for the rest of my life.

Pretty soon I went to college and became thoroughly entrenched in the punk scene in St. Louis (and beyond), and it seemed like everyone was getting inked, whether it was at a “parlor”, at a party with a homemade “gun” made out of a Walkman motor, or scratched out in a dorm room with a needle dipped in ink from a Bic pen. Even in the middle of all of that, I still couldn’t decide on anything that would be worth committing to or spending money on. At least that’s what I told people; I think I was mostly just scared to do it.

Drawing fake tattoos, on the other hand, was much easier! They could be huge, scary, cool, and/or completely stupid, and even if you drew them with a Sharpie, they’d eventually be gone! You could have a new one every time you played a show!

I can think of half a dozen instances off the top of my head of my friends and I going out in public with crudely scrawled marker tattoos. Pictured here is me “singing” with my band at the time, The Meat Sisters, at a DIY punk show in Springfield, MO in some unused office space, in summer of 1993. The fake tattoo on my arm is a chunky circle-A anarchy symbol flanked by two skulls with mohawks, accompanied by the text “HARD CORE”. On my leg is the burning wheel logo of Krishnacore band Shelter, with the message “KRISHNA RULES”. Both were supposed to be ironic: the skulls, mohawks, anarchy symbols, etc., being total punk clichés, and “religious punk” being a bit of an oxymoron, at least as far as I was concerned.

I still think the “hard core” design, which I originally drew for the label of the B-side of the Meat Sisters 7″ EP “Undermining America’s Traditional Values” (Synergy Records), would make a kick-ass tattoo… But I’m still not hard core enough to get it.