Wow; between the prison comments, scratcher remarks, “bad 70s flash” comments, and flat-out “I don’t like *****” I’m pretty unpopular around here.

Without getting personal, the artists that did my work are far from scratchers; the choices in design and placement were mine and the rough, unfinished look is intentional. Whether I’ve been in prison or not is irrelevant. I do appreciate every opinion 🙂

Why are the words butterfly and face listed as tags for this thread? There’s no butterfly tattoo or facial ink anywhere in it.

Left chest…

“This is the weapon my grandfather made. My father replaced the handle and I replaced the blade.”

It has a double meaning to me. The first is a literal weapon; knife, axe, sword, etc.
The second meaning is deeper and is of the sorts that my grandfather and my father gave me most of my experiences and lessons in life, but the ultimate choice in my destiny is my own.

My daughter is getting interested in tattoos now as well.

Left forearm, inside…

I’ve thought about it. Not sure if I want to; if I leave them as the are, each individual tattoo stands out and retains all of its meaning. If I turn them into sleeves, their individuality would be lost (even if it’s just slightly) and they’d be just sleeves. On top of that, if I want sleeves, then I need to plan accordingly and not get ink just to use as “filler”. That’s what has prevented me from getting them filled in all the way; I want my ink to mean something, and not just have ink there to fill space.