Prank Tattoo Lettering: The Artists Riot

The mysterious eastern culture has always been attractive to westerners. Nowadays many young people think it is pretty cool and fashionable to have a hieroglyphic tattoo. They do not feel like bothering to find out good patterns and getting inside the culture, but just come to a tattoo shop, and ask for a tattoo which would say “love”, “truth” or whatever. I think I can understand the anger of tattoo artists. I personally would hate to tattoo “honor” in Japanese on someone who doesn’t give a $#!T about it. So here’s what can happen when you just try to follow fashion:

The Bronze medal goes to Joanne Raine, a teenage girl paid $160 to have her boyfriend’s nickname “Roo” tattooed on her stomach in Chinese, but got “Supermarket” instead. I bet, she had a bad time once she knew the truth.

Silver goes to Lee Becks. He says he wanted to have a tattoo which would look great. So he had one for $180 and was quite proud of it until he found out it said: “At the end of the day this is an ugly boy”. Very ironical isn’t it?

And the gold goes not to a victim but to an artist. Andy Sakai, an award-winning tattoo artist, was tired of seeing sacred Japanese words, symbols of his heritage, inked on random white people. So he used their blissful ignorance to make an everlasting statement. Any time a customer came to Sakai’s home studio wanting Japanese tattooed on them, he modified it into a profane word or phrase.

Prank Tattoo Lettering: The Artists Riot Pitt junior Brandon Smith wanted a tattoo that proclaimed his manliness, so he decided to get the Chinese characters for “strength” and “honor” on his chest. After 20 minutes under the needle of local tattoo artist Andy Sakai, he emerged with the symbol for “small penis” embedded in his flesh.

Kerri Baker, a Carlow College freshman, paid $50 to have the symbols for “beautiful goddess” etched above her belly button, but when she went into Szechuan Express Asian Noodle Shop sporting a bare midriff, the giggling employees explained to her that the tattoo really said, “Insert General Tso’s Chicken Here!” “I don’t even like General Tso’s!” Baker sobbed. “I’m a vegetarian!”

Sakai was imprisoned. But you know what, this is NOT the end of the story. He had his inmates as prank targets. Using a tattoo gun fashioned out of a sharpened paper clip, dental floss, and a ballpoint pen taped to a plastic spork, the disgruntled prisoner has drawn Black Panther Party symbols on white supremacists, written CRIPS 4 EVA on rival gang members, and left dozens of hardened criminals with butterflies, fairies, and unicorns permanently etched in their skin.

Prank Tattoo Lettering: The Artists Riot ‘I wanted a stack of skulls on my back,’ said murderer Jimmy Drake, “and that Asian prick gave me a giant Winnie the Pooh!”

Many prisoners ask for spider webs on their elbows to signify time spent in jail. Sakai’s webs have hidden messages in them such as, “F*ck Cops,” “I Swallow,” and “Salad Tosser.”

“Prison isn’t so bad,” Sakai said. “It gives me time to sit and seriously contemplate my next diabolically evil plan!”

So here is an advice for you: once you have decided to have a hieroglyphical tattoo, use some online services to have the word/phrase you’ve chosen for it translated for you properly. Or at least make friends with some Chinese or Japanese non-fun-loving guys. And please, make sure that artists name is NOT Andy Sakai…

Some Facts of Mysterious Tattoo Symbols Meanings

Today tattoo is a special decoration that emphasizes individuality and style. It is worthwhile in contrast to jewelry. There are loads of tattoo symbols meanings and some of them originate many centuries ago. Various ways of body decoration inspired by numerous tribes’ wisdom cause a great interest. One of such tattoos is ambigram.

Some Facts of Mysterious Tattoo Symbols Meanings Term ambigram comes from the word «revelation». If taking into account that its synonym is «apocalypse», the sense of secret a mystery heavy with meaning appears. And as it is known the passion to secrets understanding is inherent to all the humanity.

Ambigram style is a special way of words and names images which go beyond the scope of ordinariness. The word or phrase here can be read in more than two directions or two words can be mixed into one picture. The image is made so that different words are read on the same picture from different angles of view. Such tattoo symbols meanings can show our life illusory quality: the desirable is open to our look only when we find the right position from which we can see it. Due to these letters everyone can express love and hate, life and death, suffering and joy ideas and other feelings that can be contained in human’s soul.

Another enigmatic image in this art is Kokopelly tattoo. Kokopelly is the god of abundance of ancient Indian tribes who lived in the South-West. He sent not only plentiful harvest to villages but the life welfare in whole. People asked him to make their wishes and hopes come true. He was also the patron of young families. The legend tells that he went from one village to another one bringing season changes with him. He always had his flute and many stories with him. Today there are many variants of Kokopelly representation. Every tribe portrayed him in different ways. But the general feature was romantic image of the lonely traveler that plays the flute.

Maori nation that lived in New Zealand tattoo art is a sacral ceremony. Their way of tattoo application is differs from others by the existence of a special method of skin incision. Tattoo is carved on the skin with the help of chisel instead of needle puncturation. The predominant idea in Maori tattoo is clear spiral line that covers face, buttocks and legs of Maori men. Women made tattoos on their lips, chins and sometimes on their necks and backs. It is only left to wonder how can modern Maori make such difficult figures taking into consideration that they still use wood charcoal peace or a special stick for tattoo cutting.

What Everybody Should Know About The Celtic Tattoo Art?

The Celtic tattoo art in spite of its todayâ€™s popularity represents the same mystery as theÂ skiff one does because of its origin misidentification.

There is a great deal of Celtic tattoo graphic elements, things from life and fairy-tales. If comparing ancient Celtic cosmogony with its natural basic and its loads of animal motifs many questions and serious discords are rising. The thing is not in alien details, but in its predominance change. A so called â€œwickerâ€ was famous all over Eurasia from the ancient times. Celtic tattoos always kept aloof due to its special â€œarborealâ€ preferences, which were developed in its unique ornaments (knots and wickerwork).

But, to consider the evolution of Celtic tattoos letâ€™s return to the subject of the Celts. Who were they? When did they live and where?

The Celts are the ancient tribes that lived in the beginning of the first millennium BC in Rhine, Siena and Loire basins and later occupied the territories of modern France, North Italy, North and West Spain, the British Isles, Czech Republic and Hungary and Bulgaria in part. The Romans called them the Gauls. The Celts mingled with indigenous tribes. In the 2nd century BC the Romans forced out the Celts from the north of Italy. Soon Caesar captured Gaul. By the middle of the 1st century BC the Celts had been conquered by the Romans and were romanized.

The Gaul and Britain conquest of Caesarâ€™s legions struck a crushing blow to the Celtic world. Hence it appears a question â€“ where do the animals in plant wickerwork come from as the Romans propagated Greek realism in art? It may be connected with the fact that a conquered part of Britain was under the control of the hired Sarmats. The inhabitants of the steppe regions Sarmats and the martial Celts mixed. The second version is that there were many Germanic and Scandinavian tribes that lived at that territory. So Scandinavian Vikings took in local customs and in a period of time added their own to the Celtic tattoos.

Further the Celtic tattoo art got a new style name â€“ Celt-roman. Slavic tribes together with Rus christening got their past modernized motifs called Byzantine style. In contrast to Indian motifs Celtic tattoos canâ€™t be considered as similar and invariable.

The popularity of Celtic images in tattoos has experienced regeneration recently. As the ancient Celts were famed by its skillful metal masters, complicated jewelry and weapon traceries their modern descendant saved the ancient symbolism in clothes, jewelry and, certainly, tattoos.

The majority of Celtic design variants were taken from the antique Irish manuscript “The Book of Kells”, which is kept at the College of the Holy Trinity in Dublin. The designs copied from stones come also from that Celtic period.

Celtic nodes usually have neither the beginning nor the end. This symbolizes the endless death and birth cycle. Celtic animal images follow the same principle though its lines can stop in head, paw and tail areas. Some nodes can be finished with spirals and zoomorphic elements.