Bad straightedge tattoos volume one: text

I have a confession to make. I secretly love bad straightedge tattoos (maybe because I am straightedge? probably because they are just goofy). I actually secretly love all bad tattoos, that's why I do this blog. But I have a special soft spot in my heart for three x's that are stick-and-poked into someone's ankle. Many people get them, many people regret them later, but they are still awesome. These abominations, however, are not so awesome. Behold: the bad straightedge tattoos, volume one.


Bad font, bad linework, bad coloring, bad placement, just a generally bad idea.


Ditto! Only worse.


Why did he decide to put the text in a pool of water? I don't understand!


And finally- starship troopers straight edge dude. I have to admit this is actually pretty awesome, because I too love science fiction and not drinking. I hope this guy had a sense of humor about what he was doing, because that instantly turns this questionable tattoo into a hilarious and rad one.

If you have any regrettable edge tattoos (or any other kind of regrettable tattoo, for that matter) feel free to email me: alice@vivalavinyl.org.

When bad tattoos come full circle and become awesome

I bring you the most amazing collection of terrible tattoos that you could ever imagine. This fine young gentleman has agreed to let me post his awful tattoos and stories for your reading pleasure. Behold, the best bad tattoos in the world. They are so bad they are now officially AWESOME. I will let him explain in his own words:

My friend came down from Toronto to visit for a week or two. My roommate Tyson came home one night with about 3 friends, 2 cases of beer, a bottle of whiskey, a bottle of vodka, a tattoo machine, needles and ink. We all start drinking and hanging out and having a really good time, then one of his friends suggests we get the gun out and start setting it up.

Not a single person before this had ever held a tattoo gun.

We get the thing running, set the needles in place, put on gloves etc etc and begin to tattoo each other. (different needles, gloves, etc for each person, not totally sanitary but not extremely dirty) after about hour 3 of tattooing the absolute most ridiculous shit on each other we end up falling asleep. Wake up the next morning and most people had no recollection of what had happened and will forever be reminded about the night they forgot they got tattooed.

Here are mine:


I think in the corner there we have a straightedge pyramid with an eye, like on the dollar bill?


The guy with the muscle arms at the top was supposed to be a CUPCAKE, by the way. There is also a cat with butterfly eyes and a mustache dreaming of... something?

But wait... there's more!!!


I had just gotten to a friends house kind of late at night, she was watching an episode of that Housewives of Orange County and i walked in on the part of the show where one of their daughters had told the parents she had gotten a tattoo. They started flipping out wanting to know WHAT and WHERE it was. She finally shows them this butterfly about the size of a dime on her foot.

So... i asked "i wonder how pissed they would've been if she wouldve came home with a bunch of random bugs all over her feet?".




Getting tattoos based on an awful reality tv show is possibly the worst idea in the world, especially if they are weird stickerbook bugs on your FEET, but this is just so funny and bad that I think it's pure genius.

This guy is my new hero.

07/24/07 never forget

Yesterday was a very special day for me. My right sleeve is finished, after two years of working on it! My tattoo artist is Myles Karr, his website is gloriousdeep.com and he is amazing. We figured out that it has been about 50 hours of work overall. I love that it is so busy and crowded, it's like the awesome old fantasy/ biker tattoos I've been posting, but rad.

Anyway, here are some crappy cellphone pictures that I took this morning, and then some old pictures of the half sleeve. I'll try and get some better ones soon.

Here's one with my whole sleeve so you can get the general idea of how awesome the whole thing is together.


Close up of the protector demon


This is my favorite part of the tattoo-- where all the sections come together. The blue and yellow guy is flayed human skin turned into a cape.


Shiny closeup of the birds. The one you can see has intestines in it's mouth. The other one has a heart in it's mouth.


and old pictures of the top half of the sleeve (some with the dragon, some unfinished & without):
one
two
three
four

I really need to take pictures of the whole arm piece by piece so the whole thing is documented correctly, but I need a friend with an awesome camera to help out with that, so it might be a while!

Anyway, sorry for the break from awful tattoos, I will get right on to posting some terrible ones for you shortly.

xo
Alice

Free For All Friday

I found a bunch of amazing tattoos today but none that really fit into any good theme. I'm about to rush out of work and go to a wedding this weekend, and my brain is kind of frazzled from some intense video footage I've been working on, so I'm just going to post the pictures and let you guys decide where they fit yourselves.

Have an awesome weekend!

xo

Geeks and Nerds and Dorks, oh my!

The sad thing about most of the tattoos in this blog is that they could be so awesome if the tattooer and tattooee (is that even a word?!) just had a little more sense. Or skill. Or both. Nerd tattoos definitely fit into this category. I am all about awesome tributes to dorky things and there are so many amazing nerdy tattoos out there (see the last entry of "good as in bad" tattoos for proof). However, it's very easy to miss the mark. And unfortunately the following people missed it by a mile.

This tattoo comes with an explanation (because seriously, there is no way anyone would get it, even if they do recognize fractals). It looks like blobs from outer space that are bleeding out into the skin.
"This is a piece of the Mandelbrot Set, the most recognizable (and first?) fractal. It uses the quadratic recurrence equation: Zn+1 = ((Zn)(Zn))+C"


Here are a couple people who decided that, instead of illustrating their nerdiness by getting an awesome tattoo of something they really love, they would just get the word. Because tattoos of words always look cooler than pictures, right? Wrong. Especially when they're done this badly.



And finally, here are a couple tattoos that aren't done badly, and aren't even horrible ideas, they're just placed and sized horribly. Both of them would be pretty cool if they were smaller and on an arm or a leg, but taking up that much prime space with something so simple and blocky just makes me cringe.

Also, it was pointed out to me that having LVL UP and a half-full EXP bar makes zero sense. The bar should be totally full or totally empty.




And finally, here's one that I found that I actually like. I think it's a cute combination of traditional tattoo design and nerdy content.

Bad as in Good

After all this trash talking, I thought I'd give you guys a break and prove that tattoos can indeed be totally awesome and rad and amazing. Sometimes "bad" is slang for "good", so this category is "Bad as in Good" and is here to give your eyes a rest every once in a while.

Penguin looks like Penguin and not overly zombified. This is a hard line to walk, but they got it!


This tattoo blew my mind the first time I saw it. I want it. I am so jealous.



Alex Ross Superman. This is so amazing.


sdf,jhsdfkjhsdkfhskj this dude! It's so cool that I am speechless.