Deciding where to get a tattoo is just as important as deciding what tattoo design to get. After all, a tattoo is a beautiful, permanent artistic statement on your body, and where you get it says as much about the tattoo as the tattoo design and the tattoo symbolism itself. After all, your tattoo placement determines who will see your tattoo, when it is visible and the atmosphere when your tattoo is on view.

A great majority of tattoo galleries across the world devote a good majority of their selection to pictures inspired by the animal kingdom. Whether worn as a visual witness to animal rights and protection or as a personal testimony of religious or spiritual convictions and beliefs, animal tattoo designs are being worn by humanity all across the globe. Indeed, animals have been viewed by some religions with such respect that all of their followers refuse to eat meat or other animal products. Others revere certain creatures (like cows in India) and offer them special protection and/or homage. Still others avoid particular animals because of undesirable capabilities or. Throughout the ages, mankind has come to respect certain living things for their strengths and capabilities. This is attested to by the number of popular proverbs, clichs and metaphors that extol (or admonish against) certain animals characteristics. A few would include:

Just a few decades ago, it was considered extreme to have more than two piercings in each woman's ear. Then came the guys, with one hole in the right or left lobe, depending. It was quickly followed by nose and navel piercings. But what's the scoop on the real history of piercing - the ancient history?

No one has been able to pin point an exact date for the emergence of body piercing ...

Scarification, also known as African scarification or branding scarification, is an ancient art that dates back as far as 60,000 B.C., when it was practiced by the Australian Aborigines. It is a long standing and significant practice that many indigenous people have associated with both cultural consciousness and community-building.
Based on its name, it isn't hard to gather that the proce ...

Many people who are fans of body modification are turning to a relatively new (to us anyway) practice known as implants. No, not breast implants, although they do serve as a form of body modification as does all plastic surgery. For the purpose of this article, the art of implants is a surgical process where foreign objects are placed beneath the skin to create designs and protuberances. This ...

Celtic Tattoo Designs:
An Old Path With New Traditions

"The tree remains, but not the hand that planted it."
Old Celtic Proverb

A lot of people confuse the word Celtic with the word Irish, but in fact, the two terms are quite different. It's kind of like those SAT questions we faced in high school: If some Irish are Celt ...

Irish Tattoo Designs:
Body Art Inspired By the Emerald Isle

"34 million residents of the United States claim Irish ancestry, a number nearly nine times greater than the population of Ireland itself."
US Census Bureau

The country of Ireland has been an inspiration to the arts, music and legends of the entire world. It captivates the imagination and leads us into a ...

Maori Tattoo Designs:
In Your Face

Nestled on the tiny island (okay, not so tiny) of New Zealand, the Maori tribe has provided us with the beautiful (but entirely painful) body art of facial tattoos. In fact, as a tribute to their amazingly unique tribal tattoo designs, the art of tribal facial tattoos is also interchangeably known as Maori tattoo designs.

Of course, ...

Mehndi:
The Ancient Art of Henna Tattoos

Men and women alike are turning out in droves to discover the ephemeral beauty of mehndi, an ancient way of decorating the body with powders derived from the henna plant. Henna creates a reddish-auburn dye that, aside from its uses as a medium for body art, has also been used through the ages to accentuate and increase the color of redhea ...

Phoenix Tattoo Designs:
Into the Flames & Out of the Ashes

"Change is the constant, the signal for rebirth, the egg of the phoenix."
(Christina Baldwin)

The legend of the phoenix has captivated men across time and borders, and has been appearing in literature and "common knowledge" since the 8th century B.C. Wrapped up in lore of fire, flames, ashes, and rebirth, ...