WTF is this?

Yet another edition of the game WTF is this?

Is that spooge on the eyebrow?

Suns II

This tattoo is a distant cousin of the last tattoo on this post. It definitely joins the top-10 worst tattoos I've seen so far. I realize both are probably coverups, but when is a huge black, scarred blob better than a scratchy, faded, regrettable tattoo? I think never.


And this one is just generally bad. If it was a wizard at least it would get bonus points for cool idea, but a surly sun-dude is just kind of confusing.

Tattoosday #1: Introducing Tattoosday

Hello BillyBlog readers!

Behold a new feature that may or may not be a regular feature here....I'm calling it "Tattoosday". And I'm not saying I coined the phrase, others have done so elsewhere.

Here's the goal.....every Tuesday I'll post a tattoo or two, along with some or a lot of back story.

The exercise is interesting on many fronts....I hope the casual reader will find it brain-tingling and entertaining. Similarly, I hope to have fun producing the weekly post dedicated to body art. But not just any body art. I aim to photograph, with the permission of the inked, of course, tattoos that I find cool, and give a little story behind them.

I hope to meet some interesting people, perhaps boost a little readership, and ultimately entertain the readers.

However, I have to start out with a little bit of cheating. The first tat belongs to a co-worker, Sephora Uddin (the one that gave me the CBGB book for my birthday).

Here it is:


What is it?

A Hindu om symbol.

Is this her first tattoo?

Nah. It's her third of five. Her first is a lotus blossom on lower back. Her second is an angel on her shoulder. Her third is a Hindu swastika on the back of her neck.



Her fifth, and latest, but probably not her last, is on her second toe (the one next to the "big" toe, or hallux) on her left foot, three lines representing the Aquarius symbol.

For the record, I have only seen this one and the swastika.

When and where did you get it?


New York Hardcore Tattoos, October 2005

Why?

"The aum or om symbol is sacred in Hinduism and Buddhism, and I find it comforting. It reminds me that I am aspiring to wisdom even if I don't succeed."

So, there you have it. The inaugural tattoo on Tattoosday here at BillyBlog. It should be interesting to see what else I can come up with from strangers, or if I have to revert to friends to help me in this project.

Sorry!

I'm super busy at work now, so this blog will suffer for the next few weeks. Please bear with me.

I haven't known where to post this, so I've been hanging on to it for a while. It seems appropriate for this post. Just sit down, relax, and please be patient.



P.S. feel free to email me bad tattoo pictures and save me some of the legwork!


***** EDIT
I got a few comments saying it's a good tattoo. Please note the label for this post is "good execution, bad idea". I will agree that pretty much any tattoo that is executed well isn't truly going to be an AWFUL tattoo, but you have to agree that getting a chair tattooed on you is a little over the top!!!

Text tattoos

I am sure there are WAYYY more bad text/ script tattoos out there, but I didn't try to find any of these. They just dropped in my lap as I was searching for other things. One of these days I am going to specifically look for bad text tattoos and I am sure I will find a million of them.

UnfuckwithablE
the funniest part is the capital E at the end. And also the font, which is exactly what I would have chosen when I was 14 and still thought I was goth.


I think the word "SOUTHPAW" is flying out of the guy's skin, but why he would get this tattooed on him I don't know. It's a venue/club in NYC... does it mean anything else? The fact that it has flaps of skin tattooed around it is what puts it into this blog.


I have no idea what this means (the photo is named "iwillnotbedenied.jpg" so I assume that's what it is), but if they're going to have letters coming up out of the smoke, shouldn't they look like smoke and not block characters?


Goth meets Graffiti meets Detroit. I really don't know why I find this so funny.


sdkfhsdkfhsdkjfhsdkjfhsdkjfhsdkh!!!!! WHY?????


The best part about this (besides the worst bubble lettering ever) is that it is in quotes. He's not REALLY a bad boy.

Some more bad portraits

When I first saw this tattoo, I thought the artist was going for a watercolor french impressionist painting style, but then I saw the terrible lettering under the tattoos and realized it's probably the work of a really bad artist.


This was pointed out to me by one of my readers. Thanks, Steph!


This is the worst Betty Page I have seen. The triangle boobs are a little disturbing, but no big deal. The mushface is terrible but I'd like to think that when the tattoo heals it will look better. What is inexcusable, however, is the arms and hands. Especially the right arm. She looks like a T-Rex on one side. Plus she has major camel toe in the armpit area.


And finally... this isn't so much incompetent as ridiculous. The moon baby is kinda cute, but the sun has the biggest nose in the universe and shark teeth. At least the script is done really well.

The worst tattoo I have ever seen

Words cannot describe how terrible this is. What were they thinking?!

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

WTF is this

This is a lucky horseshoe, a banner, and _______
swiss cheese? a sponge? I have no idea. What do you think?


I think this tattoo is of an spray paint can but I have no idea what else is going on.

Oh, The Horror!

Horror tattoos, in one form or another...

First, the amazing back pieces:





And second, the bad guys.

The shine on this one makes it hard to see, but to me it looks like a big blob of cow manure with teeth and horns attached to it.


Look at the shading in the hat. It's sooo scratched and uneven. And the skin is supposed to look messed up, but not like there are a million triangles glued to his face.

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

More Zombie Jesus

I found some more Zombie Jesuses (Jesii? Jesusi?) for you guys. It really wasn't very hard. I guess part of the whole allure of Jesus is that he's a zombie, right? Filling in the eyes really would help to make him look more alive and less like he wants to eat brains, though.







these Jesuses have eyes but they're really not any better.

Trippy Tree

I'm announcing a new category: "WTF is this?" A couple of my past posts should have been in this category (skull bong, for example), but this one definitely fits.
The .jpg is named "trippy tree tattoo", and I can make out the tree trunk, but what are the other blobs around it? A weird smiley face with shark teeth? Sauron's eye? A head of some kind over on the left? What's the green thing sticking out on the right?
Any insight from you guys would be appreciated.

Amazing Back Pieces

I have a confession to make. The more I do research for this blog, the more I am falling in love with terrible biker metal tattoos. I want a million of them. Every time I see a huge back piece with demons or dragons on it I get jealous.

I like to think that this guy started with the demon tramp stamp at the bottom and then worked his way up. My favorite part is the skeletons. They're super sweet.


This lady has pretty much every tattoo cliche imaginable, all in one spot! The squishy-headed crosseyed wizard is my favorite part. You can see he's trying to figure out how he got lumped in with all the other random tattoos and isn't too happy about it.


I should start a zombiejesus category. I am pretty sure I can find a bunch more where this one came from. He really wants brains. Braaaaains.


And, for the grand finale. Words cannot express my sorrow for this dude.

Angels

I realize this is a sensitive post to make, as many people get angel tattoos as memorials, and so making fun of them is a pretty awful thing to do. However, I just can't help posting these.

This angel looks like she's melting and someone took sandpaper to the lines. And does it look like her legs are way too short, or is it just me?


This dude is fine until you get to the crotch area. Where is his junk and why is he grabbing at nothing?


Why is there shading outside the lines? Is that a boob hanging out or a tumor? Why is the foot so long? WHAT is going on with the right arm and hand holding her hair back? Why is the right hand so stumpy?


And then there's this one. I can't really understand what is going on. there's an angel on a podium hiding her head. There's some smiling something above her. There's some kind of sun and a bunch of lightningbolts. And some kind of weird floating head to the left. It looks like my high school doodles, frankly.


And finally, a couple horrendous NSFW angels with really, really bad faces:
one here
and one here