Death Metal Tattoos: part 2

I wish I knew what this was, I really do. It looks like a totem pole of demons? With some kind of weird scarred-out blob in the middle. Is it a tribal-mutant batman logo? AND DO YOU SEE THE SCRATCHED UP FETUS ON HIS ELBOW? I mean really, how could you miss that? I don't even know what the stuff on his forearm is. If anyone can help decipher this, please let me know! I was staring at this guy for ages trying to figure it out.



I wish I knew what was on his back, too. You can see a bit of it poking out. I bet it's incredible.

Death Metal Tattoos: part 1

I went to the Maryland Deathfest this past weekend and OH BOY did I see so many amazing metal tattoos! One million distorted zombies! Ten thousand blurry black and white messes of somethingorother! A good handful of band logos! I have a LOT to share with you guys, but let me start with this gem (perhaps the best of the bunch):



THAT GIRL IS TRUE. EVIL. I love the fancy flourishes added to each word, it really rubs in the brutality of her tattoo.

Tune in soon for more!

It's a dog going through a divorce

This is another tattoo in my favorite category ever: friends convincing other friends to get ridiculous nonsensical tattoos. Hilarious and awesome. And awful.

This was the first tattoo for this poor/rad soul. Description from the friend whose idea and drawing it was is below.





"i dont really remember what led up to the idea of swift getting a 20 second drawing i did of 'a dog going through a divorce' as a tattoo, but it was certainly assisted by it being 3am and a fair amount of alcohol on his part.. he woke up that next day and said "you know what? fuck it. lets do it." so less than an hour later i was paying someone $60 to permanently put it on swifts arm. dudes got sad depressed moppy divorced hair, hes unshaven and mopey, and hes got a little suitcase and dufflebag. he just needs to crash on your couch for a week or two. you know what happens when you call a tattoo shop and tell them you "want to get a cartoon dog getting a divorce", they dont believe youre serious. like 3 places didnt believe us."

scary-guy-1.jpg

I think the title says it all, really. This is a truly scary guy.

More amazing back pieces

What happened to this angel's feet? Don't they look just like stumps? Also why is one angel stomping the other one's head? I think I see some horns on the bottom angel there, so maybe it's Lucifer being shown what's up.
Let me show you a wonderful trio of ridiculous back tattoos:


Now I know that this photo was taken mid-scabby-stage so I won't be *too* harsh about the quality of the tattooing here, because it's really hard to tell. HOWEVER, it's impossible to tell what's going on! I do see some flaming dice, and a '3', but what are the weird globby things on each shoulder? They look like rotting lettuce.


Okay, now this one just confuses me. I am under the assumption that it's not finished. The triangle thing on the left is one of the worst tattoos I've seen, but seems like a pretty explainable bad tattoo to get. The Japanese guy on the right is not actually that bad, and obviously isn't done yet. What REALLY baffles me though, is what is on the bottom. It looks like a scratched on sunbathing girl at the beach! IT CAN'T BE SO! sdlkfjslfjs! Amazing.

Cats with no ears

I just took in two of the cutest cats ever, and so I have had cats on the brain lately. Because of this, I thought I'd do some searching for bad cat tattoos. I am SURE there are worse ones out here, but this is what I found- three cat tattoos without any ears. Why would you ever draw a cat without ears? It just makes them look like weird aliens!


This looks like a Lisa Frank drawing without the pizazz.


This is the most half-assed tattoo I have possibly ever seen. Why are the eyes sideways? Why are the whiskers blue? Where are the ears? So many unanswered questions!


This is a mix of the lady's five cats and some human (the right eye). Why the human has a lazy eye, I don't know. I also think the cat is actually the bark of a tree.


And finally, while not technically terrible, this butterfly-cat holding a flower and inexplicably wearing pants makes me laugh.

Bad chest tattoos

I think there is a trend of getting bad chest tattoos with bloody writing. Please tell me this isn't so, and it's just these three unfortunate dudes.


"All Hope Is Gone" -- not a very good thing to get when you're young (I cropped his face out of the photo, he looks like he is 17). Also what's the logo on the right? I assume these are bad lyrics of some sort.


"Blood Is Forever" -- I guess this is a way of celebrating family, but there is surely a much better way to do it. Also the bloody cracked Batman logo is an a+ addition there, buddy.


"Pull The Trigger Bitch" -- sdkjfhsdk I can seriously not think of a worse thing to get tattooed on your chest for all time. Do you think he will ever have sex with anyone ever again? I guess he'll just have to keep his shirt on indefinitely!

A PSA against home tattooing

I've posted some awesomely ridiculously terrible and rad stick-n-poke tattoos here in the past, and I will again. I have a soft spot for bad tattoos that friends do to each other. This one, however, is pretty inexcusable, and shows how home tattooing is generally a really really really really bad idea.



ow ow ow ow ow ow ow. This makes me hurt all over just looking at it. So scratchy!!!! I can't even imagine what it must look like healed. I think my favorite part is that he only has one eyeball.

More Zombies

Please excuse me for posting about my own tattoos so much this week, but I can't help myself! I'll post some legitimately terrible tattoos soon, don't worry!

You guys should all know by now that I am fascinated by flash tattoos and tattoos that come from the same drawing but look different. The tattoo I got on Friday was part of a Friday the 13th special, where you could get any flash zombie on a sheet for $40. I chose the classic coming-out-of-the-grave-zombie, and it turns out three of my friends went for the same thing. One of my friends and I got sxe zombies, my other two friends got the zombie as he was on the sheet. Here are all four zombies for comparison (done by three different artists, see if you can spot the two that were done by the same person).

sxe god free zombie

So I finally did it. I finally got brainwashed by my bad tattoo blog and got a bad tattoo. AND I LOVE IT!



He is a straight edge god free zombie, in honor of Friday the 13th. I love him because he's just like all the rad old metal zombies that I looooooove and simultaneously make fun of on here. Done by Alex at Three Kings in Brooklyn, NY (who is an amazing tattoo artist, please do not for one second think that I am saying his work is bad!).

More amazing wizards (dragon edition)

I'm seriously obsessed with wizard tattoos. Sorry if you guys are getting sick of them! Here are a bunch with their dragon buddies.


It looks like he's about to pitch all the magic onto his hand that's holding the orb, whereupon it will smash into one million pieces and doom the dragon to an eternity underground without his friends or family.


This dude is NOT HAPPY about the dragon's fiery flames. Not one bit.


Since when are wizards 100x bigger than dragons? I like the lightning bolts though.


"Alright, I want a dungeon. A deep, dark, scary dungeon, with a DRAGON and a huge SPIDER, and a lizard, and cobwebs, and an EVIL PLOTTING WIZARD with another dragon on his shoulder, and a CUTE BLUEBIRD and a HEART with a banner with my girlfriend's name on it and a bunch of FLAMES on the other side and some smoke all around everything. Okay?"

My Friend Zak (when bad tattoos come full circle and become awesome, part II)

My friend Zak is quite possibly the coolest dude ever. He has great taste in music. He's super nice and friendly. He has a black belt in karate. He likes space and d&d and being awesome. And he is willing to share his ridiculous stick-n-poke tattoos with us.

In the same vein as this dude, Zak and his friends like to get tipsy and tattoo each other. And ridiculousness ensues.

I'm going to post his tattoos in installments, because they are just that amazing, so here is the first, of many.



Here's the story behind it, if I'm remembering correctly... he decided to get a wolf tattoo, because wolves are RAD (p.s. I have a bunch of amazing tribal wolf tattoos to share with you guys). However, no one could tattoo a wolf, so he just went with the word "WOLF!". Then, apparently, there's a Chinese saying "horse, horse, tiger, bear" which brings good luck, I think? So he went with writing those next to "WOLF!" to round out the tattoo. But the words kept getting progressively crappier as he went on, so you can barely read the last one.

This might be one of the worst tattoos I have ever seen, but it is also one of the best.

If you have a silly stick-n-poke tattoo, or have a friend who does, by all means EMAIL ME!

Wizards with triangle things on their hats

You guys probably know by now how much I love bad tattoos that are all from the same book/ piece of flash/ google search. I especially feel this way about wizard tattoos. I collect photos of wizard tattoos and then try to match them up. It's amazing how many are alike! This is the largest collection of matching wizards I have so far. Enjoy.

This one has a sketch next to it, but it can't be the original.


I love how they are all the same, but have their own little personalities...


... like "mild" written over the nipple, for example.






And finally one in color! I can't decide if the color makes this bad tattoo more or less awesome. There's something about the classic black and white wizard that I really love, but I think anything magical really deserves to be in color.


I'm sure there are many more wizards-with-triangle-things-on-their-hats out there, I just have to find them. If you know of anyone with one of these, or know where they might come from, please let me know!

Bikes (part 2)

whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy???????????????



There are so many better things you could put on your chest! Symmetrical, flattering, awesome things! Why why why why why why would you put a line drawing of a BIKE on your BOOBS? It makes her left boob look 10x bigger and droopier than the right because the left wheel is so much bigger.

sdjkskjfhsdfjs

At least it's well done. And I hope it's just the first outline and that she went and got it colored in later. And maybe put some stuff behind it to even the whole thing out.

p.s. my friend has a blog about funny emails he gets at work, if you're bored you should check it out.

Adult Baby Jesus

Laura sent me this ridiculous and awesome Jesus tattoo. As you guys might know, I am kind of obsessed with Zombie Jesus tattoos. This one isn't Zombie Jesus, it's Adult Baby Jesus. I looked around for similar tattoos and could find NOTHING. This tattoo is in a category of it's own!

your early morning crap: presidental tattoo

It's a little late to be early morning crap, but I wanted to stick with a theme. Here's a tattoo to commemorate this historic date. A god awful tattoo of our 40th president, Ronald Reagan.

If you have an awful tattoo, feel free to contact alice@vivalavinyl.org and she'll try to get to it.

your early morning crap: frat dolphin

This dolphin is member of a fraternity and obviously is into some major kush here. Wicked tribal, brah. He spends his day in his shitty recliner likely watching Old School with his other dolphin brahs. They all have tribal tattoos and love beer bongs.

This falls under the "it's so ridiculous it's awesome" category. Let's just call the AKH part awful, but the dolphin kinda awesome. I give you, your early morning crap...


If you have an awful tattoo, feel free to contact alice@vivalavinyl.org and she'll try to get to it.

your early morning crap: lion!

Roar... this sucks!



If you have an awful tattoo, feel free to contact alice@vivalavinyl.org and she'll try to get to it.

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.

your early morning crap: wizard!

I know how much Alice just loves wizard tattoos. Here's one to get your day going.


If you have an awful tattoo, feel free to contact alice@vivalavinyl.org and she'll try to get to it.