Tattoo design help.

November 30, 2005 7:22 PM

Help me redesign my new tattoo.

I came up with this design because I wanted something with five parts, geometric, that gently suggests progress and balance.

My artist warns me that with the fine lines and right angles, the tattoo will not look so perfectly geometrical should my body change at all over the course of my lifetime. I'm guessing it will. Any other ideas for maybe something a bit more fluid/forgiving? Definitely do not want kanji or any particular culture's symbol for balance/progress.

posted by ferociouskitty to society & culture (11 comments total)

What comes to my mind first is to simply replace the dark blocks with half-moon shapes, where the flat sides lay against the horizontal center axis.
posted by odinsdream at 7:41 PM on November 30, 2005

Progress and balance! The geek option.


posted by wannalol at 7:55 PM on November 30, 2005

Maybe you could pick out five stages of the moon phases, with the full moon in the center, and waxing/waning cresents in the end spots.

You could also get rid of the thin white lines in the white quadrants of the boxes (i.e. don't outline the squares). The negative space should imply your shape without the them.

Alternatively, you could stick with your original (lovely) design. Time eventually degrades the original sharpness of most tattoos anyways; and hey, that's the "progress" of life to which you allude, right?
posted by neda at 8:39 PM on November 30, 2005

Where on your body is this going? How big will it be?
posted by blag at 8:59 PM on November 30, 2005

I think neda's idea of an intentionally-evolving design is cool; however, I wouldn't know how to design one with such a process in mind. It's got me thinking, though.

I was reminded of the Crab Canon, but now that I think of it, it's less progressive than outright cyclical.

However...

In my mind, it would be ridicu-awesome to tattoo a simple few bars of music. If your skin changes much, you could always add leger lines and call the melody "transposed!" Alternatively, I'm now thinking of chords. Take a piece of music you really like, and work its chord progression into the design somehow. Maybe that violates the spirit of your idea of "progress," but it seems neat to me.

My, what an untidy post. In my defense, it's late here.
posted by electric_counterpoint at 9:21 PM on November 30, 2005

I've always liked the greek key. May be a jumping-off point.
posted by lorrer at 9:30 PM on November 30, 2005

I've always liked the greek key. May be a jumping-off point.

It's like some sort of SuperSwastika? Awesome!

I was going to recommend a circle morphing/dividing into five distinct smaller blobs, until I realized it might stray too near to the GLAAD logo, which may or may not be ferociouskitty's cup o' tea.
posted by Danelope at 10:01 PM on November 30, 2005

Maybe circles within circles, like a rippling pond effect, would be cool and somewhat on topic...although if you got it done in red, it'd look like a bullseye.

My immediate thought when I looked at your design was "hourglasses"...they might have slightly more forgiving angles and definitely indicate progress. This could be seen as another "geek option"...or not. Whatever.
posted by johnsmith415 at 10:36 PM on November 30, 2005

blag: Where on your body is this going? How big will it be?

Should have mentioned that - inside of my right wrist, about 2-3 inches long. So it's quite limited in that sense.
(BTW, thanks for the responses so far - y'all've got me sketching like mad!)
posted by ferociouskitty at 4:31 AM on December 1, 2005

Just modify the design you've got to have fewer right angles. Maybe circles or rounded rectangles instead of squares? Gentle curves instead of straight lines to divide them?

If it's already curved, then more curving down the road won't matter so much.
posted by nebulawindphone at 9:26 AM on December 1, 2005

I like the moon phases, an a similar option would be five yin/yang symbols, the one in the middle being balance and the others progressive shifts of yin to yang.
posted by ewkpates at 10:14 AM on December 1, 2005