SFX has been searching for the coolest SF and fantasy tattoos, and we've have a fair few pieces of skin art masterpieces sent to us in the past few weeks. Tomorrow we'll be announcing the winner, who'll receive two great DVDs – LA Ink The Complete Series One featuring the infamous Kat Von D, and Miami Ink Series Five (courtesy of Revelation Films). But here, for your delight and delectation, is a handy one-stop glance at all the entries, with one new one at the top for your consideration.
Above: Stephen Adey, Penzance: "Glad you are still running this. I had this done a few weeks ago and it went a bit scabby whilst you were putting the first few pictures up. It is sort of a homage to The Creature from the Black Lagoon and Ray Harryhausen's Kraken from Clash of the Titans. I love it. Hope you like it too."
Above From Ashley Beeching in Kent: "As many are aware, 2000AD is the galaxy's greatest comic. To celebrate the brilliance of 2000AD and in particular its most famous character, Judge Dredd, I had this Judge Fear tattoo engraved on my fleshy parts!”
Above From Peter Wilson in Essex: "My reason behind it was to show off one of my two great passions in life, Doctor Who. I have 'The Louder The Better' on the other arm which is for my other passion – music. It is always good when a fellow fan recognises the point of the tattoo.”
Above Bill: “These are the two tattoos on my lower right leg. One is the Seal of Rassilon from Doctor Who and is two-inches in diameter. The other is the TARDIS with a sideways clock face in the background and is about 6 inches in diameter. The only goo when I took a drawing of the police box in to the tattoo artist she looked at it and said ‘Cool, that's the TARDIS – I love Doctor Who.’ I figured if she could refer to it by name she was the perfect person to do my tattoo. She told me her favorite Doctor was Peter Davison and a few months later I got an autograph from him for her in Chicago so she said she'd give me a discount on the next one.”
Above Xena Duncan: “Not really a crazy, elaborate tattoo piece, but I think it's that little bit quirky and different. Partly because I wanted something drawn up by myself, hence the… interesting… proportions. It shows Death and Delirium from the incredible Sandman Comics. I decided that it would appropriately ironic, as I'm known for my own special brand of crazy and Death follows us all in some form (and she looooves us. Apparently.)”
Above Sue: "Hi SFX. Here's my Silver Surfer tattoo, it's on my upper arm. I had it done many years ago at Saints, Notting Hill. I love it hope you do too.”
Above Kell Harker, Canada: "If you recognise my tattoo, that means there's a high probability you've also - just like me - sold your soul for a second season of Firefly. My ink is a little homage to Browncoats everywhere."
Above Kev: "After looking at covers of comics and graphic novels for almost five years I decided to go to the source, (London Film And Comic Con ’07) and get some original artwork done for a tattoo. I told comic artist Andie Tong my idea and this is the finished product. That day I also subscribed to SFX, so two life-long things in one day.”
Above Stuart Pinkney: “Here's my crop circle' tattoo that I got during my first year at uni about ten years ago.” SFX actually emailed Stuart back, saying, “Has anybody ever pointed out it looks just like the symbol from the TV show Threshold?” (Though, if he had it done ten years ago, we realised it was unlikely it was actually a homage to the show.) Stuart replied: “No. But you're right, they've used the same crop circle! I got there first though.”
Above Dan Davidson: “My flame tattoo is inspired by my Marvel hero The Human Torch... Next step is becoming him. Flame on!”
Above Jamie Warr: “This is my Superman symbol tattoo. I got it on my right upper arm in memory of my dear life-long friend James Redington, who was the world’s biggest Superman fan before he passed away suddenly a few years back. It brings back lots of good memories of him every time I look at it.”
Above Dave Phillips: “Kinda speaks for itself.”
Above Mark Waddoups, Rugby: “Ever since I was a child, I’ve loved Star Wars. I remember watching them every Christmas on TV, mesmerised by spaceships, robots, weird alien races and the Force. Finding something I liked that I thought would work as a tattoo I found hard. The Millennium Falcon…? Darth Vader…? I couldn't decide, until I thought about the logos of the Rebel Alliance and The New Republic. They represent the good and the bad respectively, and so decided to have both as everybody has a little of both in them. Some people see them as just cool symbol tattoos; I get asked, ‘What do they mean?’ Some people don't get it, but they’re for me no one else.”
Above Jez Thorpe: "Here's a picture of my latest tattoo, which I had done on my birthday this year (in April). It was a present from my wife - something a bit more memorable than a DVD or a book! As you can see, it's a stylised Cthulhu. It's my own artwork, and I'm pretty sure that no one else will have one like this! I've been wanting to have a Cthulhu for a long time, but never really got around to it, so this year I decided it was about time. Not that I'm obsessed or anything, but as a writer, most of my recent work has had a Lovecraftian theme. I'm also trying to start my own Cthulhu cult - mainly to avoid paying council tax. Anyway, I hope you like it. I'm hoping to get it coloured soon, too.”
Above Emma, Sheffield: “I got this tattoo on my shoulder as my 18th birthday present from my sister. I designed it myself, and I do still like it, but it's a bit blurry after eight years. There's usually a bit of confusion about what the dragons are actually doing, and hilarity ensues when I have to explain to people that they're fighting rather than doing anything else. My fiance hates it, but I like scaring him by threatening to get another dragon tattooed on my hip.”
Above Greg Bird, Peterborough: "I’ve sent you a pic of my World Of Warcraft tattoo. I got this tattoo done in January of this year. As a fan of WOW I wanted the Horde logo (really cool and tribal) but when I went into the tattoo parlor he had some very nice stone gargoyle art on the wall, so I asked if he could make the logo look as if made of stone – this was the result.”
Above Iain Brownlie, Westbury: "Here's my pix of a couple of Dr Who tattoos I had done a couple of years ago, one on one shoulder and one on the other.”
Above Robert Read: "It's commander Cody from Star Wars: Attack of the Clones. Had it for just over two years now, took about two-and-a-half hours to do.”
It doesn’t have to stop here! We'll keep on printing your inky designs if you keep sending them. Email your pics of your tattoo to us at [email protected] , and if there’s a story behind why you got yours done, we'd love to hear that too. Just stick "Tattoo" in your email subject title so we can spot them easily amongst all the emails from deposed African princes offering us get rich quick deals that clog up our mail box.
