The tattoo news of this week tragically features the death of two tattoo legends, a beautiful tribute and Machine Gun Kelly getting a makeover – and it’s not what you might think!

Sadly this week saw the passing of the legendary Lyle Tuttle who was one of the pioneers of modern tattooing. He has died at the age 87. The cause of his death has not yet been confirmed, however in light of this sad news Kerrang wrote a piece about the icon and his work over the years. Lyle got his first tattoo at 14 for $3.50 and he started tattooing in 1949, opening up his own shop shortly after. Some famous faces Lyle tattooed include Cher and Janis Joplin!

https://www.kerrang.com/the-news/lyle-tuttle-pioneering-tattoo-artist-dead-at-87/

Another sad announcement follows this with the news that Miami Ink star Yoji Harada has passed away at 46. Yoji was originally born in Toyko, Japan before moving to Chicago in 1998. The cause of his death is not yet known to the public, but his fellow cast mates from Miami Ink have been sending their condolences on social media since the news broke. Throughout Harada’s career fans of the show saw him grow from an apprentice at the studio being mentored by Ami James to a full-time tattoo artist. He was also in a band called ‘Big Deal’ and up until his death he was still tattooing and playing music in Florida.

https://www.inkedmag.com/original-news/yojiharada-restinpeace

Following on from that, The Daily Mail shared a story about two Grenfell Tower survivors who tragically lost their unborn baby in the horrific blaze back in 2017. To forever share their love for their little boy, Logan, his parents Marcio Gomes and Andreia Perestrelo decided to get tattoos of his hands and feet. The couple are amazing and the tattoos are a lovely tribute to him. To see the tattoos for yourself check out the article here:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-6855461/Grenfell-survivors-reveal-heartbreaking-tattoos-memory-unborn-son-died.html

In more light news this week, rapper Machine Gun Kelly revealed a video of him when he went through an extreme make-under for the Netflix film ‘The Dirt’ by getting his tattoos covered up to play Motley Crue’s Tommy Lee. Don’t worry, though – the tattoos aren’t gone forever. But he shared a video on the long process he had to go through before they filmed to cover up his colour ink for the whole four months that the filming took! We take our hat off to you MGK, that’s some serious dedication! Want to watch footage of this makeover for yourself? The link below has a video of the amazing transformation.

https://www.capitalfm.com/artists/machine-gun-kelly/tattoo-removal-the-dirt-cover-up-make-up/

In the final piece of news this week, a tattoo shop in Arkansas is donating all revenue from their paw tattoos to a pitbull rescue centre. For just $25, you can get yourself a paw print tattoo at The Empire of Ink tattoo shop, and all proceeds will then go to helping save the lives of pitbulls (this doesn’t include the singer). To find out further about the designs on offer or the company offering them the TheThings.Com has more information:

https://www.thethings.com/tattoo-donate-pit-bull-rescue/

That’s all for this weeks tattoo news. Hopefully next week is a more cheerful one!