Best Tattoo For You

Angel tattoo galleries are important if you are considering an angel tattoo, but you also need to consider exactly what an angel figure is.  They’re more than sweet, innocent figures that you find in Renaissance paintings.  An angel tattoo can be any creature that has a pair of wings (often those of a bird).  An angel tattoo can be clothed, naked, sultry, androgynous or even an animal with wings.  The good news is that it doesn’t matter what your race or religious background are to appreciate this art form.

Universal Symbol

Angels appear in most of the major religions of the world.  They are mentioned in Hinduism, the Koran, Christianity and Judaism.  Wings are usually attributed to the invisible spiritual realms.  Much art form all over the world featured winged men or winged people of some sort.  Depending on how you were raised, angels might mean what anything dead turns into.  Or, you might look as angels as their own spiritual species which just happen to look human on occasion.  Since they act as messengers and intercessors in so many religions, many New Age and Pagan belief systems include or incorporate a belief of angels, too.  A Time magazine poll in the 1990′s found that more people believe in angels than they do God.

Animal Angels

In the cable reality show Miami Ink, a large percentage of those followed getting their first tattoos were of deceased pets.  Sometimes people alter the pet’s appearance slightly by adding wings and maybe a halo.  This is a way of saying the beloved pet has passed on, but is never far from the bereaved owner’s thoughts.  These angel tattoos are usually socially acceptable for most any Western culture.  They are also a loving memorial to a much missed family member.

Guardian Angels

Most cultures have traditions of an invisible spirit watching over us to protect us, especially children.  Christians and Pagans especially believe in guardian angels, where a particular angel’s job is to protect you, yet does not interfere with your power of free will.  Some people choose a guardian angel tattoo to remind themselves of their angel, or to commemorate being saved from a desperate situation.  Some like to have an angel tattoo as a reminder to the actual guardian angel that “Hey!  Yo, Angel! Over here!  I’m the one to be watched over!”

There are a few other reasons that folks might need an angel tattoo gallery to choose an angel tattoo:

1. Living in L.A.
2. Fans of ‘Charlie’s Angels’ TV show!
3. To make a nude woman on your arm seem more acceptable by adding wings!

Go for it!

Having a tattoo on your body makes a statement – it tells the world something about yourself.  Some people have many designs each with different symbolic meanings and associations with different people in their life.  A swallow tattoo is one such design, albeit often controversial in nature.

The swallow tattoo is often creates controversy and confusion, especially for those people who have them as their tattoo design but do not truly understand the true meaning of it.  To shed light on why this should be so, here are some of the known facts about the swallow tattoo and why its history makes it so remarkable.

The Symbolism of the Swallow Tattoo Gallery

1. The swallow tattoo was originally favoured by sailors who travelled the seven seas, often suffering great hardship in their journeys.  It represents their experience in nautical skills.

2. The swallow tattoo represents the image of the bluebird or what we may call the “swallow” that were usually placed on the chest of the sailors and (according to one legend), a sailor with one swallow on his chest represents the five thousand miles that he has travelled.  A sailor with two bluebirds has journeyed across the sea for ten thousand miles.  Since travelling these great distances was very challenging and dangerous during those early times, one or more swallow tattoos automatically represents a sailor that is very experienced when it comes to sailing or anything to do with nautical skills.

3.  Why choose the bluebird and their swallow tattoo?  Well, legend has it that these birds would carry these sailors’ souls to heaven should they drown.  They are a symbol of hope and freedom.

4. The swallow also represents friendship, affection for friends and family, love and care.

5. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the swallow represents loyalty, the loyalty of a person returning to them no matter what obstacles might be placed in their path.

People love fairies!  Disney can’t have them all!  People of all ages and genders are choosing a fairy tattoo.  However, not all of them are innocent and sweet.

To choose the perfect fairy tattoo, you have to know a little about fairies. Below are some fairy facts that you can use to make your fairy tattoo unique:

1. Good Fairies

There’s quite a choice of fairies who represent goodness and light.

2. Áine

Áine is a fairy queen and is the goddess of healing, with the powers of The Spark of Life, vitality, prosperity, protection, and fertility.  She has blond, curly hair, with long white robes.

3. Wood Sprites

Wood Sprites are fairy elementals live in the oak, hawthorn, and ash trees. They protect the woods, trees, and creatures that live in forests. These fairies would make a nice tattoo for a person who loves nature.

4. Butterfly Fairies

These are sweet fairies that have wings like butterflies. They are very shy and hide whenever they see a human.

5. Candelas

These fairies glow with a kind of inner light and can only be spotted just after sunset. They would make a nice tattoo with a sunset in the background.

6. Bad Fairies

If you want a fairy tattoo that flies straight from the wild side, these fairies may be for you!

7. The Banshee

This Celtic beauty is where many believe some fairies stories were derived from. She has long golden hair and a piercing cry.  Her appearance was often said to foretell the death of a somebody in the family.

8. Aeval

A sexier fairy tattoo choice!  The raven-haired, black winged fairy Aeval is the judge of a man’s sexual servitude to his wife. She would often lead men from their work and into the forest to her kingdom to be judged.

9. Boggart

These are angry little house fairies that look a lot like gnomes. They are usually covered in dirt and love to make a mess. Boggarts would make a great tattoo for someone who is a mischief-maker.

10. Ankou

Ankou is the fairy grim reaper. He is dark and wears a black robe pulled over his head. He collects the souls of the dead in a cart pulled by a headless horse.

11. Anthropophagi

Anthropophagi are fairy creatures that eat human flesh. They have no head, their eyes sit on their shoulders, and there mouth is in the middle of their chests.  They are found in the works of William Shakespeare. These would make a very dark fairy tattoo.

So, quite a choice, isn’t there?  The next step will be to find some images (try Google Images) of your chosen fairy (good or bad) and take them along to your tattoo artist.  Good luck!

I’m guessing that when somebody says the word, “Tattoo”, the very first image that springs into your head is that of a heart or a heart shaped object.  Am I right?  Heart tattoo patterns have been popular for ages.  I can see a Popeye-type of figure with huge forearms and a red heart (complete with ribbon) with his girlfriend’s name written right across it!  Do you remember when Bart Simpson (despite his parents’ protests) went out and got a heart tattoo with the word, “Mother” on it?  If you remember the episode, it didn’t quite work out for poor Bart as he was dragged from the tattoo parlor before the tattoo was finished, leaving the word, “Moth” inked on!

Declaring Your Love

The heart shape is often associated with romantic love (even though the heart shape is not the shape of an actual human heart – luckily for us!).  One of the reasons heart tattoos are so popular is that they can often act as much of a “I’m taken” brand as a wedding ring.  Also, you can’t loose a heart tattoo as you can a wedding ring.  Getting a heart tattoo with your beloved’s first name on it is considered a romantic gesture, because it implies commitment. (That, and you’re willing to put up with any kind of pain in order to declare your love for So and So).

A Portable Memory

Some people associate the heart shape with any kind of love – familial, platonic, whatever – and not just for romantic love.  As a way of grief, they can choose to get a heart tattoo with the name and birth and death dates of their dear departed.  This kind of tattoo is considered to be socially acceptable in many countries and societies, especially if it is on an arm or over the person’s own heart so a shirt will cover it up.  This can help in the grief process.

The Heart Shape Itself

Heart tattoo patterns have always been popular and always will.  Why?  Well, they’re very easy for the tattoo artist to draw.  Often, it takes no more than one sitting to have a heart design inked.  Obviously, this also depends on the size and complexity of the heart tattoo, but generally speaking it is not a difficult design to have done.  Bonus side-effects include saving yourself time, money and pain!  Many consider a heart tattoo pattern to be calming, relaxing and non-threatening (unlike, say, a skull and crossbones!).  On the other hand, maybe you like that ambiguity and so a skull in the shape of a heart might be just what YOU are looking for (many people like a Yin Yang Skull design, for example).  Hey, let your imagination run riot!

The most important decision you can make when choosing a tattoo is the design.  You should spend a lot of time considering whether your chosen design is what you really want.  Why get a tattoo that you might ultimately hate?  On the other hand, you may like your tattoo, say a ying yang skull tattoo (or yin yang skull tattoo), but you might dislike the reaction that it gets from friends and family.  Think wisely before having the image of a skull tattoo inked – many people have pre-conceived ideas and you may regret your decision.  On the other hand, a ying yang tattoo is one of the most popular designs amongst young people America today.  Many folks are very interested in Eastern spirituality and the ying yang symbol represents balance and harmony.  Adding this ‘background’ to a skull, therefore, makes an interesting twist and a focal point of conversation.

The Meaning of a Ying Yang Skull Tattoo

When it comes to understanding the meaning of a skull tattoo, one must first understand the traditional symbolism of the skull in art and imagery. A skull was NOT original conceived as a symbol of fear or danger. Instead, it was representative of great change. While it is possible for change to be a bad thing, change is also often a good thing. As such, change should be welcome. In ancient society, death was often associated with change because death was symbolic of changing over to the afterlife. Since the skull was associated with death it became associated with change. Hence, the symbol of the skull was associated with an antiquated (but benign) notion of great change. Unfortunately, the bulk of the population has no idea about the history of the image of the skull in antiquity and associates it with its more modern symbolism: horror films.

Today, we often associate the skull with cheap thrills and B movie horror flicks.  In this way, it loses much of its traditional meaning and symbolism.  It may be that a ying yang skull tattoo will not provoke the intended imagery in the eye of the beholder!  Your spouse/friend may dismiss it because of its association with Halloween, ghost stories or cheap horror movies.  Only YOU can make the final decision about whether to go ahead and have the tattoo ‘inked’.  There are two sides to this coin and the image of a skull tattoo needs putting into perspective.  Why not ask around amongst friends and family – what do they associate with the skull image?  If the image doesn’t invoke what you thought it would, what would be the point in having one?