As I have more cash I look forward to more work with Scott he has a lot of great ideas for the fill in colors, etc.

Visual Addiction
Tattoo & Body Piercing

30 W. High St.
Carlisle, PA

(717) 243-9799

One idea was a beckoning cat on the inner arms (Maneki Neko) a little info from Wikipedia:

The Maneki Neko (招き猫, literally “Beckoning Cat“; also known as Welcoming Cat, Lucky Cat, Money Cat or Fortune Cat) is a common Japanese sculpture, often made of porcelain or ceramic, which is believed to give good luck to the owner. The sculpture depicts a cat beckoning with an upright paw, and is usually displayed in stores, restaurants, pachinko parlors, and other businesses. A raised right paw supposedly attracts money, while a raised left paw attracts customers.

One cat each arm on the water side a standard tricolor cat (white with random black and orange patches) on the fire side a black cat meant to ward off evil.

The other arm will be laced in fire/lava/smoke representing turmoil and violence. I’m not exactly sure how the other arm will be performed with fire/lava/smoke perhaps wind bars in black/gray (if possible) something that I think will be pretty unique and original as I do not see a lot of irezumi that displays fire/lava/smoke in large quantities for an arm sleeve. but I’ll leave the execution of this to the artist.

I had in mind two creatures that interest me and have there own metaphors to my life. A dragon for turmoil and violence and an ore fish for peace and calm.

Entwined with the fire will be a dragon. Dragon’s in eastern mythology can represent a myriad of things a white dragon being knowledge one dragon that interest me for this arm is a dragon in Chinese mythology named Yazi, lifted from Wikipedia:

The seventh son is called yazi (睚眥 pinyin yázī), which likes to kill, and is found on swords and knives.

Although not considered evil or malicious I think Yazi represents turmoil and violence well considering that whenever I was involved in violence it was never for evil intent. Another idea was to use Suanni who looks like a lion and like smoke. After reading into it I think Yazi better suits the tattoo also being a classical long dragon that will better entwine up the arm then a lion-esque dragon that could only set at the top near the shoulder.

On the other arm would entwine an oar fish. Very rarely seen they are the longest bony fish currently known. Here’s more on them from Wikipedia:

Oarfish are large, greatly elongated, pelagic Lampriform fish comprising the small family Regalecidae. Found in all temperate to tropical oceans yet rarely seen, the oarfish family contains four species in two genera. One of these, the king of herrings (Regalecus glesne), is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the longest bony fish alive, at up to 11 meters in length.

Again going back to the ocean theme I think that this rare deep sea fish represents peace and calm pretty well, at least to me.

Those are the primary elements of the design I hope for them to be unique and give insight to the symbolism behind my tattoo.

Just for your information a little about the word irezumi, Lifted from Wikipedia:

The Japanese word irezumi (入れ墨, 入墨, 文身, 剳青, 黥 or 刺青) refers to the insertion of ink under the skin to leave a permanent, usually decorative mark, in other words, tattooing.

The word can be written in several ways, each with slightly different connotations. The most common way of writing irezumi is with the Chinese characters 入れ墨 or 入墨, literally meaning to “insert ink.”

Although currently I intend to start with sleeve tattoo’s extending to my upper chest, I hope to some day extend the tattoo to my entire body as some Japanese tattoo’s do.

That’s a brief introduction to irezumi.

The symbolism is my fascination with contrast, opposites, yin and yang. And it is with this theme that I wish to continue my tattoo’s on my arm. I’ve been speaking to friends and family for a few years over my idea of getting full sleeve tattoo’s similar to the Japanese art of Irezumi but due to various circumstances (money, lack of time, or initiative) I’ve always let my tattoo ideas slide. My lovely wife Tami as a gift has helped me again get on track with my tattoo dreams by setting up an appointment with a parlor that she has had some of her work performed at. So my new tattoo adventure begins and I couldn’t be more excited.