Illustrated Anatomy: Second Edition

The subject of our second installment of Illustrated Anatomy is… ME!

See, when you have a good friend who happens to be a very talented tattoo artist, things can get awesome pretty quickly.

Recently my pal Blue came into town to visit with me and my wife, Kelly. Blue is a fabulous artist. He’s also a hell of a tattoo artist. AND he served as reverend and married Kelly and I (that’s a different story though).

During his visit he touched up and added to a few a Kelly’s tattoos (several of which he had done in the first place). He told me that I had better have a design ready because I was going to get a new tattoo.

Normally, I hem and haw about the art that I’m going to get permanently put onto my body – getting the design and placement juuuuuust right and then sitting back and thinking about it for 10 years (such was the case with my first tattoo.) But this time I went for it. I wanted my love for art and science permanently on display, so I sat down with my sketchbook and drew and drew and drew.

After a week of false starts, wrong turns and designs that were over-the-top detailed, or just too damned much for my arm to contain, I settled back on simplicity. In the end, an icon or symbol worked better than trying to tell a whole story through one smallish tattoo (that’s the illustrators dilemma: “How do I get the story across?”) I’m always right there to engage with anyone who wants to know what the hell is happening on my upper arm. That’s really where the storytelling happens. That connection. And I’m really happy with how it all turned out.