A Duel on Christian's Arms

Christian is one of the rare Tattoosday subjects with whom I got greedy.

My normal modus operandi is to ask people for an offering of one of their multiple tattoos. I let them choose and I am happy to capture one piece and move on.

But in the course of photographing Christian's choice, I saw his other two tattoos, and requested to include them in the post, as well.

Christian is a filmmaker and the two tattoos he offered as a set were drawings from the storyboard of his film, "The Duel":


Positioned as such, Calico Joe Jackson (on the right) and Remington Turk Dakota (on the left) occupy different arms. In their natural state, the two creations of Christian's imagination, they have their backs to one another, pistols drawn, in classic duel-readiness positions. Below is a still from "The Duel," produced by Elwood Gentry Productions.


As his creations, he proudly wears them on his sleeves to commemorate his first major creative undertaking. See the trailer from the film here.

Above Calico Joe Jackson, on his right bicep, there is a familiar sight, an image from one of the first commercial films made, Georges Méliès' 1902 classic A Trip to the Moon (Le Voyage dans la Lune):




It's a famous shot, with a bullet lodged in the eye socket of an anthropomorphically-surprised moon.

This film as inspired generations of film-makers and Christian loves the fact that such an early cinematic effort was steeped in science fiction and special effects.


Finally, I had to take a photo of the third tattoo:


That is the logo of Hunter S. Thompson, who invented the concept of Gonzo Journalism. As a huge fan of the book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (see my BillyBlog post here), as well as Dr. Thompson's other writings, I greatly appreciated Christian's nod to the late great Hunter S.


All of these pieces were tattooed by the amazing Bert Krak at Top Shelf Tattooing.

A hearty thanks to Christian for sharing his work with us here on Tattoosday!

Tattoosday Boxcars: A Leonine Tattoo and Wearing One's Heart on One's Sleeve

I met Jeff and Jeanie in Penn Station as they were about to board an Amtrak train out of the city.

I've been trying to come up with clever terms for different inkspotting phenomenon, basically creating my own lexicon.

I'll call Jeff and Jeanie "boxcars". Meaning, I approached the two of them and gambled, asking them both to participate, and they came through. Like rolling two sixes on the dice (also known as boxcars). I would even venture to call them "blind boxcars", because I could only make out fragments of their ink, but they still shared.

Jeff went first, displaying this leonine figure on his left bicep:


It's a nod to his astrological sign, Leo, and was also selected for its nod to Jean Cocteau's La Belle et la Bête (Beauty and the Beast).

Jeanie shared her tattoo below:


This piece literally has her wearing her heart on her sleeve and is inspired by Mexican art. The tattoo was completed by a friend of Jeanine's named John Flack.

I would have obtained more detail, but the couple had to board their train.

Thank you to Jeanine and Jeff for sharing their tattoos with us here on Tattoosday!