Hi everyone,
I really love a lot of the day of the dead stuff I’ve seen, particularly the semi-real girls. Stuff like this:
I’m quite anti-religious and when first coming across a lot of the images they seemed to be almost “sinister” and they kind of looked anti-religious to me. Religious people often get praying hands or mary or jesus tattooed on them and I guess I assumed this was a response to that from the not so religious. I immediately started coming up with visions of getting a tattoo something like this:
except with a more realistic image of a girl praying:
I mean, it seemed sort of anti-religious to me. Not as obvious as other images perhaps, but it still seems pretty ‘dark’ and not at all like typical religious imagery.
Anyways, after doing more research on it I now know that the day of the dead type stuff is actually religious. It’s a day when people get together and pray for the souls of loved ones who have passed away. It would seem these seemingly “sinister” looking images are actually much more likely to be found on religious people.
My problem is I really like the images still and so I’m wondering if there’s anything I can do to move it away from the religious context. The last thing I would want is for people to interpret me as being heavily catholic or something because I have a religious tattoo. Obviously it would have different meaning to me but still, the less ambiguous the better.
The only things I have come up with so far are to maybe remove the decoration from the girls face and only have the skull and skeleton hands, none of the other “patterns” around the face that seem to be part and parcel of the day of the dead ceremony. And then to try and add something else in that helps get the message across. What this could be I’m not sure… I’m not real keen on having a devil or a snake incorporated and text such as “your faith is dead” is probably starting to get a little too offensive for my liking.
so yeh, basically after your opinions of a girl praying to god but you see her skull and bones through her skin. do you see this as being religious/connected to day of the dead and if so what else can I do to move away from any religious connections.
cheers
I really love the dia de los muertos tattoos. My question to you is why would you want to remove the facial decorations from the girl; they kinda add to the look and otherwise it would just be another tattoo of a girl’s face. Most people don’t recognize these tattoos as being deeply religious because they don’t really know or understand the purpose behind the festivies or even know of the dia de los muertos. It doesn’t really have to represent something religious unless that is what you want it to represent. Other than offering that bit of advice to you, I can’t really think of a way to make it “less religious”.
I would keep the “skull effect”, just remove some of the pattern stuff. More like this
or this
and my reasoning is pretty much just hoping it would be less likely to be immediately identified as day of the dead.
I agree that most people don’t see the imagery as being religious, I know I didn’t at first, but now that I know the religious connection it’s really annoying me haha. Kind of like getting something written in a foreign language and then you discover it’s actually grammatically incorrect. Sure, it might look cool and no one really knows what it means, but deep down it’d always bother you and eventually someone will notice :p
I still think it’s an awesome style and the rough sketches I have in my head seem like they would be really cool. It’s just that my motive for getting this is actually my dislike for religion haha so I really need to somehow find a way to remove any confusion and bring out more of its true meaning.
Who cares about the religious implications? Have your artist throw an upside down cross in there somewhere. Maybe have the praying hands holding one.
People get unicorns and dragons tattooed on them and don’t believe in them. You can just as easily get a day of the dead girl without believing in the religious aspect.
well I do for a start :p i guess it would bother me less if I knew people would interpret it as antireligious, even if it’s not. so just after opinions really, like do you look at this image and think the person is religious/isn’t religious/can’t tell one way or the other?
thanks for the cross suggestion though, ideas like that are what I’m after, any others? I thought maybe having strings attached to the girl coming from above like a puppet type thing but dunno how it would work.
There’s a huge difference between being an agnostic, an atheist, and a satanist. If the true meaning of the images is so important to you, you might want to get a little clearer on the difference.
You’re not getting away from the religious nature of the imagery. How you may interpret it is not how an entire culture interprets it. Its imagery revolving around a religious holiday, a national holiday based in prayer and honoring the dead. If you are truly anti-religion this is not a theme for you.
I’m an atheist and yes I’m aware there’s a big difference between those terms, I probably should have made my stance a little clearer in the OP. Why I am is largely irrelevant and I’m sure we can all agree there is more than enough debate on the subject elsewhere.
And obviously a tattoo doesn’t HAVE to be atheistic, but it certainly can’t be religious, given my beliefs. As it seems day of the dead imagery does have a religious nature I’m just wondering how I can remove/negate/attack this religious element in some sort of way. I think there’s a lot to be said for subtlety and was just curious if anyone had any ideas without the use of pretty strong anti-religious quotes or cliched devil imagery. Perhaps this would have been a much better OP :p
I mean if worst comes to worst I can either add some script or just scrap the idea entirely. Just trying to explore some other paths first.
thanks for your reply, this is the sort of response I was really interested in hearing. I agree with you that making a day of the dead image not religious is pretty tough, so I guess my aim is to get something that’s not exactly day of the dead. Do you think the image I posted earlier:
is still very much day of the dead? What about zombie/rotting flesh stuff? I was thinking one possibility may be to move away from having a girls face with a skull painted on top and instead focus on being able to see her actual skull through her skin, something like this:
but have her praying as well. do you think that’s a little less day of the dead and more likely to be interpreted as atheistic?
thanks for the replies so far
I don’t think it is possible to make any kind of Day of the Dead tattoo seem atheistic. Atheism, as you know, denies the existence of both heaven and hell so no matter how evil these creatures look or no matter what they’re doing, I just don’t think you can draw any anti-religious connotations from that. I also don’t think too many people would equate these images with a religious theme despite their meaning, so I wouldn’t jump to scrap the idea just b/c of their true meaning.
How about an image of Jesus, Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny playing poker? 😉 j/k
Dude, you really only have two choices if you are concious about your religious stance:
a) Scrap the idea and any variations on that idea, or
b) Scrap atheism
Or you could always just go for it and spend the rest of your life looking like a fool when people ask you about the religious significance of your tattoo. But hey, it could be worse, like getting a nazi swastika just because it kinda looks nice.
@
I would also strongly advise against davidjednats sugg. of an upside down cross.. for those whom actually do their research will find: ‘From the Catholic tradition that Simon Peter was crucified upside down, It is believed that Peter requested this form of crucifixion as he felt he was unworthy to be crucified in the same manner that Christ died (upright).’
If you don’t mind the style, try possibly going for a dia del los muertos design from an artist such as joe capobianco or ciavarro.. (a bit more cartoonish), however it wouldnt stand out as a more full on religious ‘dia’ meaning, as most of the other more realisitc ones would.
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