Customizing the Body (PDF file) - Print My Tattoo

170 Epilogue 2008
nents of a full-body suit. All sleeves begin at a “shoulder cap” and
extend with varying degrees of relatively solid coverage down the
arm. “Short sleeves” go to the mid bicep, “half sleeves” go to the
elbow, “three-quarter sleeves” go to mid forearm, and “full
sleeves” go to the wrist. While a well-executed sleeve will appear
to be a single design concept, sleeves are often constructed fairly
piecemeal with discrete designs building around one another, all
of which are subsequently “tied in” with a background motif of
some sort (most commonly “wind bars” and/or waves patterned
after traditional Japanese designs).
The other major canvases of the body are “rib panels,” “chest
caps,” and legs. A matched set of legs is called “pants.” Rib panels
often feature complimentary single designs covering the tattooee’s
right and left sides from the hips to the base of the pectoral muscles.
Chest caps typically are symmetrical, built around a central
design, and ultimately connected to the backpiece. Legs tend
either to reflect and support the design of the backpiece or function
as slightly larger-scale sleeves. Legs also tend to go from the
hips either to the knee, mid calf, or ankle. Each of these pieces of
tattoo “canvas” generates a different level of status within the
community of serious collectors, depending on how solid the coverage
is and/or how painful the area is to get tattooed.
This description of a tattoo collection and how it is conventionally
acquired reflects some of the most common methods by
which people get tattooed in America. As earlier chapters of this
book make clear, men often start with tattoos on the upper arm,
and women often start with small tattoos in intimate places like
the buttocks, hips, or breasts. Placement of early tattoos can
affect how a person chooses to build his or her collection should
she or he decide to make the requisite financial, physical, and
temporal commitment. The one assured means of not having
early tattoos interfere with the design of a suit is fairly common
among Japanese collectors and is starting to become more
common among American and European collectors. This approach
involves commissioning an entire suit as the first (and
often only) tattoo the collector acquires.
The aesthetic advantage of beginning with an entire suit is
readily apparent. The collector can be relatively assured that each
section of the body will work with the others and the continuity of
the complete tattoo will benefit from having the same person