Welcome back to our We Love Tattoos series! Check out the link to see part one, and to see part 3 and 4 in the future (hiiii future!). In this part, if you couldn’t tell from the (sub)title, Josh is going to talk about his tattoos!

Tattoo #1: Hammer (August 2017)

Artist: Michela Dilernia, currently at My Little Needle Tattoos in Plymouth, MI

We both really love impact: showing up, making things better. We tend to get bored if nothing’s happening and there’s nothing for us to do.

In the past, we’ve done what are called “Core Values Exercises” to help people and teams figure out how to describe themselves in a few words that represent their core defining characteristics. “Impact” is one of Josh’s, and the symbol for him for that is a big ol’ hammer, so…that was his first tattoo.

I loved the whole experience, it didn’t hurt too bad, and I loved how it turned out. Big patches of black, straight lines, my artist was great. Some touch-up inside the black was needed after the first session, but I loved it.

Tattoos #2 and #3: Armband and Sans (October 2020)

Artist: Shaun Friday, at Ministry Ink in Lansing, MI

My first plan was to only have black and grey tattoos because I really like the look of old tattoos – black tattoos settle almost immediately into a less intense black, and they look more like an intrinsic part of a person’s body. “Venerable” is also a core value…

I really liked armbands (I blame the hot arms of CS:GO players), and I knew I wanted one. I also very much wanted a tattoo of Sans from the game Undertale. Sans, as it turns out, is a real nice guy – unless you push him too far, and then he surprisingly and skillfully murders you to death.

Here are the completed tattoos: Sans winking, the armband from the inside, which has a geometric slanted opening. Also, us smiling goofily, and Laine with her Harley Quinn hair!

I decided to get both of these tattoos at the same time because I had a backlog of tattoos that I wanted, and since they were both small, Shaun was cool with doing both in one sitting.

Tattoo #5 (yes, we know it skips numbers, more on that in a minute!): V is for Vendetta (January 2021)

Artist: Adam at Psychotic Ink in Clearwater Beach, FL

We went to Florida and found a tattoo shop near the beach, and decided to roll the dice and see how it went. Laine got a beautiful tattoo, and I decided to get a tattoo on one of my favorite ideas (and movies). It might be my most beautiful tattoo, and it was also the most colorful up to that point. Thus completed my swap to “whoa, colorful tattoos are amazing.”

Tattoo #6: Sans – Bad Time (January 2021)

Artist: Shaun Friday again!

Sans on the wrist was really cool, happy, and represented me well – but I really liked the idea of Bad Time Sans, which is the aforementioned “skillfully murdering you to death” Sans (here’s a link to a playthrough in the game after you’ve chosen to play as a super awful person, several times in a row – lots of Undertale spoilers there). Both iterations of Sans really reflect how I see myself, so, I got this Sans tattoo as well. I had to think harder than the previous tattoos about where I wanted it, but ultimately I’m really glad I chose this position (which is on my chest). It shows up when my shirt moves sometimes, and I’m really happy with that.

(This is what a tattoo looks like fresh: pretty inflamed, a little swollen. It heals up nicely later.)

Tattoos: Mechs!

I really really love Battletech. So much. I played as a kid, and I loved so much about it. I now have 3 tattoos of the various mechs from Battletech.

Tattoo #4: Battlemaster (December 2020)

I love the Battlemaster (“venerable” again) the most, and I got this as a half blueprint/half full color:

Artist: Kayla Grosso, also at Ministry Ink in Lansing, MI (this tattoo made it onto Kayla’s Instagram page!)

Tattoo #7: Atlas (February and March 2021)

Then, I wanted an Atlas, and decided (after much debate with the artist) that my ribs was a good place for it, because…lots of free real estate. The ribs are widely considered to be the MOST painful place to get a tattoo, and while we talked about other places, less painful places, I really wanted this to be a tattoo large enough to have the right amount of details. More room for more detail means a better looking tattoo.

Artist: Adam Crane, also at Ministry Ink (and the owner!) in Lansing, MI

One of the cool things about an artist is they can take original art and turn it into an awesome tattoo, blending elements that you love to make something altogether original. They also fit it to your body, which means moving pieces around, changing orientation, and making sure it wraps the body properly.

This was a super painful tattoo. The first session, lines, shading, and some color, and I was really hurting. I have a pretty good pain tolerance, and in fact Adam told me that I might have been his best rib tattoo client ever because I dealt with it so well – but this hurt worse than any physical hurt I remember, including breaking a leg. I love Bactine: the fancy pain-numbing stuff that tattoo artists can put on tattoos, it helps so much, at least temporarily.

The second session was fill-in color, and really illustrated one of the cool things about tattoos: they are a million different pieces of art, continually being added to while the artist works. Line work is great. Greys and shading are great. Color is great. As a human canvas, we get to see it all done.

Well…we get to see it all done assuming you can see the tattoo while it’s being done. We’ve both found that watching the tattoo being done helps with pain tolerance, because it’s fascinating and distracting and easier to mentally prep for it to hurt in a particular place. We learned with Bad Time Sans that not being able to see makes it hurt a lot worse, so for the rib tattoo we tried putting up/holding a mirror – but it hurt so much that Josh actually couldn’t watch for a while.

That day I learned, doing anything to distract yourself, including counting, breathing exercises, and distracting myself with different textures, all measurably help with the pain. More pro tips on that when we do that post!

I do plan to get more added to this tattoo, like a background, but…recovery first.

Tattoo #8: Headhunter (March 2021)

Artist: Shaun Friday, one more time!

When I was a kid, I had fun making custom mechs in the Battletech game. One of my favorites was a modified Axman with a heavier body (60 tons), carrying a mace with triple strength myomer. It carried some lasers too, for range and to warm up the myomers, but basically it was a close-in melee brawler. I called it the Headhunter and with the right pilot it could smash the top off of a mech a whole weight class above it.

After Laine’s great tattoo of Shaun’s original art (spoiler alert!), I had the idea to have Shawn draw up this mech in his style, and the result is awesome:

Up Next?

I have no idea what my next tattoo will be. I have a good mech theme going, and I’m considering wrapping the Atlas scene around my torso (ow), but for now, my plan is to recover and think deep thoughts about life, what parts of my soul I want to share with the world, and what feelings I may need to process next.