“Pretty” or “funny” has only one layer.

“Meaningful” can have many, many layers.

Permanent ink in the skin is worthy of something that has more than one layer.

Our definitions of pretty or funny are more changable than our definitions of what is meaningful. Heck, I used to think My Little Pony was pretty. Luckily I could give my pony t-shirt away when my definitions of “pretty” changed. I want my tats to be pretty, but they need to be more than *just* that.

Lovely. The shading is gorgeous.

+1.

Another thing you can do is to test-drive the tat you are considering. When I was considering my wrist tat, I bought some tattoo paper and made my own temporary tattoos. The reason *I* was doing it was that I wanted to test drive different sizes and placements of the design till I knew EXACTLY how I wanted it to be….. but one could just as easily wear temps for a few weeks just to get an idea of what kind of reactions and responses you get from others.

Come on, rats are cool! I have two of them. (real pet rats, not tattooed rats!) 🙂 They are very intelligent and affectionate, like dogs.

Old thread, but….

I have an inner-wrist tattoo that is oriented right-side-up to me when I have my palm in front of my face. Like you, this tat is for me to look at as opposed to a decoration for others to see. If I do want to show it to someone else, and have it be right side up to them, I can just hold my hand up “stop” style.

It seems to be counter to what most people do, though. When I went in to get inked, the artist automatically placed the stencil “upside down” and I had to ask him to turn it around. 🙂

I have a prominant tat on the inside of my left wrist. My workplace is of the “no visible body art” club. I have a leather cuff bracelet (bada** yet still elegant, LOL) that I wore to the interview and for the first few weeks on the job till I proved my worth. Then I stopped wearing the cuff, and no one has said anything so far about the tat.