wayne on June 29, 2008
Why, oh why would someone get a tattoo on their toes? It seems I'm getting asked that a bit since my latest tattoo was lovingly placed upon my skin. This is the story of how my toes became tattooed.
A friend of my family is a tattoo artist, and we have asked him to come over on Friday's to do tattoo's. I get tattooed, the neighbors get tattooed, I've had strangers over to get tattooed. Friday night is tattoo night around here, and it can turn into a big party that lasts until late in the night.
The latest addition to my skin art is a tattoo across each of my toes. Why would I do this? There's actually a story behind these toes and the art work on them.
The Dream That Started It
It all started with a dream I had one night. A regular run-of-the-mill dream, not a lucid dream.
I dreamt I was looking at another guys arm and admiring the artwork he had on it. It covered the entire length of his arm, but was still quite airy and vacant in many places.
As I looked as this guys arm, I realized that he had only three major sections to his entire sleeve. On the shoulder, a piece of toast that looked particularly angry, and running with stick legs and arms waving. Near his elbow, another rendition of the same piece of toast. Near his hand, a third one. Behind the toast were simply shaded areas that extended down the entire length of his arm. The whole point of the tattoo seemed to be three pieces of angry toast.
The Night I Tattooed My Toes
If you have had the pleasure to get a tattoo, you might have found them to be addictive. Of course this will vary from person to person, but I am quite addicted to getting them. I enjoy the feeling and the rush of adrenaline that comes from having your skin pierced thousands of times in a short amount of time. That's a post for another day perhaps though, on with the toes.
I had harassed my girlfriend for weeks about this dream by telling her I was going to get some images of angry toast somewhere on my body. She simply looked at me, every time, and lovingly said "You're a f**king idiot", and meant it.
I smiled at her and said "I know my love, but it's angry toast!".
She called me an idiot again and we went on with our day. This continued for a few weeks, and then one night, something happened.
I was simply itching to get some work done a few 'tattoo nights' ago, but I didn't want to get my arms done again. I've been working on them for a while now and I wanted a different feeling, and something completely unique. I pondered it a bit.
I started talking with Jeff, our artist, about the dream I had and asked him to draw a sketch of the angry toast I saw in my dreams. After a few iterations, he finally got it right. It looked like the toast of my dreams. :)
I showed it to my girlfriend.
"How I love that man of mine...you're a f**king idiot." was all I got.
I tried my best to think of someplace I could put a piece of angry toast, and couldn't think of any. I didn't want a stand-alone piece of angry toast somewhere, I wanted it integrated in with the other work I have done already. But there wasn't any place that seemed to work well.
I pondered it some more and began to scan my body, looking for some place I could put this piece of angry toast.
I pondered my feet. On the top of my foot?
No.
I thought about getting smiley faces on my knees, similar to what Ozzy Osbourne has, but more Seventies "have a nice day" style. Perhaps a piece of toast there?
No.
As I wondered where I could put some angry toast on my body, my mind began to play with the words 'angry toast'. Slowly, I came to the words 'angry toes'.
Toes....hmm. I could simply swash a tattoo across my toes!
Eureka! That's it! I'll put a tattoo across my toes!
After some pen work and few design ideas, we came up with what you see above. You'll notice my pinky toe lines are not that straight. I'm a big twitcher and hugely ticklish on my feet, so thankfully the artist was understanding enough and dealt with my twitchy feet while laying in some ink across my toes.
We've gone over it twice so far. The photo is after the second session, and we'll probably do one more just for good measure.
I have yet to see another quite like it, and I'm very happy with the way it turned out. It hurt like a son-of-a-bitch the first time, but the second update was much more bearable. Still very painful though. The pinky still gave me some grief too.
And that, my friends, is more than you ever wanted to know about my toes and the tattoo laid upon them.