TUMBELONG: September 2011

Thursday, September 15, 2011

Chinese ideograms tattoos: common mistakes

Chinese characters have a complex beauty as well as individual meanings. People who get Chinese tattoos are often drawn to this. Unfortunately, the flip-side is that there are a lot of pitfalls for the unwary. I have personally seen such elementary mistakes as a tattoo with the Chinese Symbol being tattooed reversed or defaced.The vivid samples of such mistakes of Chinese Symbol tattoos as below :

Missing strokes and defacing Symbols . The majority of tattoo artists in western countries know nothing about Chinese, not to mention how to write them correctly. Missing strokes are common mistakes and thus making the tattoos meaningless, and the poor penmanship defaces the Chinese characters and makes them look ugly. Wearing meaningless Chinese symbol tattoos is embarrassing. The following photos are the examples of missing strokes and degaced chinese symbols, the red characters besides the circle are the correct one.
Chinese Symbols Being Tattooed Backwards. A much more common mistake is that the Chinese characters are flipped horizontally or vertically and thus is a mirror image of what it should be. I think this might be the problem when people use temporary tattoos or work from those because after a while they might get confused as to which side is the correct one. To have a Chinese symbol tattooed on you backwards is also embarrassing. The pictures below show you how a Chinese character being tattooed backwards. the red characters are correct one.
Mistranslation. Chinese characters are complex and can easily be mean something other than intended. Get the wrong one and your new Chinese symbol tattoo will be a permanent source of embarrassment to you! A lady has told me her Chinese symbol tattoos experiences:/p> After deciding have a Chinese writing tattoo, She went to Chinese restaurant and pull over a Chinese waiter and asked him to write out the word "free" in Chinese characters for her, free has two meaning in English dictionary, the first one is free of charge and the second meaning is freedom which was the lady wanted, the waiter wrote down the first meaning in Chinese for the lady. The lady ended up with the sign "free of charge" on her skin and it was end up with spending US$900 to remove the tattoos.
Do not know the meaning. I have come across many western people who do not know the meaning of their Chinese writing tattoos. Tattoo is a way of self expression. If anyone curiously ask you the meaning of your tattoos, answering them either do not know or make up the meaning is quite awkward.

Source: http://www.chinese-tattoos-designs.com

Friday, September 9, 2011

Pin Up Girl Tatoos - Design Ideas Samples Gallery

Pinup girl tattoos are hot and that is not just referring to the physical beauty of the girl in the tattoo. No I mean they are a hot tattoo theme to get done these days as they are definetly comming back in style in a big way.

Very often pinup girl tattoo will go along with other symbols also. Probably the most classic is the old sailor pinup girl tattoo with an anchor. Other common add ons are good luck tattoo like dice, cards, horseshoe and etc.

Pinup girl tattoos have a pretty long history in the field of tattoos. Pin up girls as a word or phrases has come to mean a girl that is so beautiful that you would want to pin up or post her image on the wall. So naturally pinup girl tattoos are all tattoos of super hot girls. Now historically what was thought of as "Hot" and what might be "hot" today has changed. What I mean to say is a traditional pinup girl tattoo is not going to be wearing a thong and low rise jeans with a bucket cap on or anything that modern. In fact pin up girls have had such a long history in our society that many of the more traditional designs were a lot less risky in today's terms then they once were.

Pin Up Girl Tatoos Designs Collections

Female tattoos are as varied and unique as the individuality of all tattooed girls. Some of the ladies like show off their pin up girl tattoos.

Pin Up Girl Tatoos

In the 1940s, the term 'pin-up' was coined to refer to women who were attractive and beautiful, the kind of women men would want to pin to their wall. Traditionally, most pin-up girl designs are commercial-looking and somewhat mass-produced. A the time, the Pop Art movement was underway and women like Marilyn Monroe were famous for their sexuality.

The pin-up girls are poised in seductive, alluring, or coy positions. They are usually scantily clad, often showing their mid-drifts, legs, and cleavage. Backs, shoulders, and butts were also featured.

Sometimes the women were comical and funny, with humorous expressions on their faces, while other times they were innocent and sweet looking, with wide-eyes and a trusting expression.

It is important to note that most pin-up art was drawings and paintings, rather than photographs. Although there were real-life pin-up models, most were the creation of artists.

In the body modification community, tattoos of pin-up girls have been common since the art first became popular. Pin-ups are part of the original Old School tattoo design, perhaps the first modern tattoo style trend, dating back to the 1950s.

Original vintage pin-up tattoos featured girls in a variety of sexy positions, clad in anything from swim suits to sailor outfits to bath towels. Today, pin-up tattoos usually harken back to the first era, copying the Old School design or morphing it into the popular New School style.

The designs are still iconic, sexy women in alluring positions who are usually clad in next to nothing. The themes of pin-ups, however, has evolved and continues to evolve.

Original pin-ups were favored by sailors, so they often sported hula girl costumes, navy uniforms, patriotic outfits, or clothing inspired by a girlfriend or loved one, like a cowgirl or nurse.

Modern pin-ups often venture into more bizarre areas. Zombie pin-ups have become quite common. These undead pin-up girls usually still look like the old ones, but are colored green, are covered in blood, or might even be rotting and decaying. Zombies have become a very important pop-culture symbol, which connects to the Pop Art birthplace of the pin-up girl.

Other pin-up variations include styles from other cultures, like geishas or Native Americans, and even from another world, like aliens, vampires, or robots. An important aspect of pin-up girl tattoos, whether from the 1950s or from today, is the style the woman is drawn in.

She is usually 2-dimensional and is often colorful. Pin-up girls are typically outlined in black ink with flat representation. Sometimes, though, the designs can be black and white or involve shading and intricate detailing. Usually, pin-up girl tattoos are not realistic, even when the girl is designed to look like an actual person.

Some popular larger motif tattoos feature pin-up girls. Lady Luck, the embodiment of good fortune, is usually illustrated as a pin-up who wears symbols of gamboling and games of chance, like dice, playing cards, and poker chips. She is sometimes called Miss Fortune, too.

Man's Ruin, another popular tattoo design, usually features a pin-up style demon woman who is enticing men to their destruction, seducing them and tempting them. Of course, pin-up style tattoos, considered part of the retro trend in tattooing, have become popular with more than just sailors and those serving in the military.

People who are interested in the history of tattoo, the origins of the art form, or those who have studied art and are drawn to aspects of the Pop Art movement might be interested in pin-up girl tattoo, either in the Old School or New School style.

Unlike in the 1940s and 1950s when pin-up girls first became tattoo designs, more and more women are choosing the style for their own body artwork. Women today seem more freely able to appreciate the female form and revel in their own sexuality and erotic natures.