This Russian teenager is turning heads in his hometown of Krasnoyarsk for looking like a walking, talking X-Ray. The entire right side of his face is covered with a skull tattoo, complete with gaping eye sockets, blackened nose, and perfectly traced bones and teeth. He’s even colored his right eyeball black for a hollow effect!

Nikita Lesnoy was fascinated by tattoos as a child, ever since he saw one made by his father. As he grew older he began to research the subject more, eventually getting his first tattoo at age 15. And now at 18 years, half of his face is inked with a skull. He works at a tattoo parlour himself, so his bizarre face hasn’t affected his career.

“Nobody worries about my look too much in my line of work, because I also have my dream job working in a tattoo studio,” he said. But he admitted that people on the streets are often shocked by his appearance. Nearly everyone gapes at him, some in admiration, others in disgust. Read More »

Thanks to a new service called ‘Save My Ink’, your tattoos can now last forever. Launched by American tattoo artist Charles Hamm, the bizarre service involves slicing inked skin off dead people and preserving it through a bunch of chemical processes.

Hamm, 60, said he got the idea for Save My Ink – a.k.a National Association for the Preservation of Skin Art (NAPSA) – when he realised how much time and money people put into their tattoos. “You would never burn a Picasso or any piece of art you invested in and had a passion for,” he explained. “Your tattoo is also art with a unique story, just on a different canvas. It’s just like a house, wedding ring, or any other cherished possession.”

“I have over 150 hours of tattoo work on me, and I have almost covered my entire upper-body, excluding my neck and face,” Hamm said. “When I was getting more tattoo work completed on my back piece, a 10,000 dollar investment, I began considering all of the money I had put into my tattoos. I had also read an article in which Johnny Depp stated his intent to have his tattoos preserved, and it all inspired me to begin fully developing Save My Ink.”

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Last year, an eccentric Welshman celebrated his 60th birthday by having 60 baked beans tattooed on his bald head! It sounds strange, but it was for a good cause.

Barry Kirk has loved baked beans all his life. So much so that in 1986, he spent 100 hours in a bathtub filled with beans, and earned a world record for it. Since then, Kirk has always associated himself with baked beans, earning himself the nickname ‘Captain Beany’. “Having the bean tattoos is just another step in my lifelong love of the baked bean,” Kirk said with a smile. “Now everywhere I go, people can see that I am full of beans – with the tattoos on my head.”

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If you think about it, logos are works of art too – they’re clever, well designed and come in a variety of colors. But are they appealing enough to tattoo on to your body? Well, for 23-year-old Indian tattoo artist Jason George, they are. The self-confessed ‘human billboard’, sports hundreds of tattooed logos of international companies that have impacted his life in some way.

“I know it seems insane but these tattoos are my way of giving thanks to the brands that have made an impact on my life,” said Jason, a college-dropout and founder of 21 Tattoo Studio in Mumbai. The logos inked all over his body include those of his favorite TV channel, mobile phone networks, fast food chains, and social networking sites. “All the logos that you will find on my body have a special place in my heart. They are related to my life in some way and I have memories and stories attached to these brands.”

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A young father from Texas is making headlines for getting a tattoo of his son’s face, on the left side of his face! 20-year-old Christien Sechrist said that the inking was a way of paying tribute to his toddler son, whom he had almost lost. And in spite of all the negative comments, he says he doesn’t regret it and wouldn’t hesitate to do it again.

Christien’s picture first appeared on Imgur last week, from where it was picked up by the media. It shows the tattoo, featuring a black-and-grey portrait of his son Perseus, taking up almost the entire left side of his face. According to news reports, he got the tattoo done last July, after he had almost lost his son.

Not everyone is happy with his decision of getting the tattoo, though. He had posted a message on Facebook shortly after getting inked, thanking the artist: “Thanks Cody Gibbs for doing awesome work on me. Looks just like my son.” Within minutes, he started to receive negative comments from friends.

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A British Man recently spent six hours getting a tattoo of Jesus worth £250 ($370) at a tattoo shop in Luton, England and simply walked out without paying. The artist who inked him said that the man claimed to have paid another member of staff, and then slipped away during the confusion. But here’s the real shocker – not only did he avoid paying for his Jesus tattoo, he actually stole an additional £1,000 from the store!

According to Red INC owner Joanne Baum, the man already had the words ‘Only God can judge me’ tattooed on the other hand. “The irony is that he clearly decided to embrace Christianity and the major ethos is ‘Thou shalt not steal,’” Baum said. “He planned the theft from us and he completely planned not to pay for the tattoo. To have someone sit there for six hours talking about their life intimately and then do this is unbelievable. He was there chatting about his wife and daughter, it is not acceptable.”

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When 29-year-old Didier Jacquemin set out to get the tattoo of his dreams, little did he know that it would turn out to be a huge disaster. While the image he desired was a beautiful forest scenery complete with birds in flight, the tattoo he ultimately got was the stuff of nightmares!

Didier, a resident of Liege, Belgium, said that he found the original pattern on the internet and immediately fell in love with it. So he printed the image and took it to a local tattoo parlor on January 15, asking for a replica. The artist agreed to do the artistic tattoo, but ultimately delivered something that seems drawn by a 4-year-old.

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While most proud parents hang up their kids’ art on their refrigerators, this Canadian dad has found a permanent way of celebrating his son’s work – by turning them into tattoos!

Keith Anderson, from Peterborough, Ontario, has been tattooing his son Kai’s drawings and doodles on his arms, ever since Kai was four years old. Now that Kai is 11, Keith has one tattoo to show for each year – parts of which were inked by Kai himself.

“Each one of these tattoos on my right arm my son has drawn over the years,” the proud father said in an interview with photographer Chance Faulkner. “The first tattoo is from when he was four; he is now 11. We add once a year from his drawing.”

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A Los Angeles artist is on a mission to cover her entire body with tattoos. She’s offering herself up as a human billboard by tattooing people’s names and designs all over her body, for as low as $10.

Illma Gore, 22, said that the initiative is a part of her ‘absurd and beautiful’ project called A Hundred Tiny Stories. She was actually trying to raise $6,000 through a Kickstarter campaign, in order to cover the cost of 60 hours worth of tattooing. She actually managed to raise a whopping $11,000, until the campaign got suspended.

“It’s art,” she explained. “It will annoy people or make them happy or make them smile. Either way, that’s what art’s supposed to do.”

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Attending a Tat2noiseact concert might just be the most bizarre experience of your life. The Belgian rock band is known for performing experimental music while simultaneously inking themselves, creating a freakishly surreal atmosphere that you won’t soon forget.

Their act starts with random screaming by lead singer Phil, while the band performs in the background. Then the members begin tattooing themselves or each other, and the screams get louder and more incomprehensible. As the performance reaches a crescendo, all you get to hear is the buzzing noise of tattoo guns, amplified by the sound systems they are plugged in to. At this point, everyone will seem to be in a sort of trance. There is nothing commercial about this unique performance, and you’ve got to have a taste for the bizarre to be able to relax and enjoy it.

“There is nothing conventional in our practice,” a band member proudly proclaimed. “Everything is spontaneous, accidental, according to our mood. This is the exact opposite of what happens in tattoo parlors. There are no rules, nothing is planned. No one would walk into a parlor and say – you can do anything, even dance.”

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Vin Los, a 24-year-old model from Montreal, wants to be the most famous man in the world. That sounds like an ambitious goal, but I’d say he’s taking way to seriously. Vin has actually tattooed the word ‘fame’ right across his forehead along with another 23 words  designed to make him stand out. The man’s face, neck and torso are haphazardly covered in an assortment of tattooed words and phrases.

If you’re able to ignore the tattoos, you’d notice that Vin is actually quite a handsome man with a perfectly chiseled body. Which is why I believe the tattoos are doing the opposite of what he intends – they’re actually taking away from his natural good looks. The fact that he’s covered his body with so many weird words like ‘lick’, ‘scream my name’ and ‘guilty’ is so unbelievable, that people actually thought the tattoos were fake.

So Vin recently created a video to prove that his tattoos were indeed real. In the footage, he is seen rubbing makeup off of his body using a wet rag, revealing the real tattoos underneath. His own name is revealed on his stomach in huge letters, along with words like ‘sex bomb’, ‘iconic’, ‘Tokyo’ and ‘New York’ on other parts of his body. He also has hair tattooed on his chest and stomach.

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Jay Freestyle, a South African tattoo artist based in Amsterdam, creates incredible, ethereal tattoos. And here’s the surprising bit – he works without a plan. It’s impossible to tell by looking at his work, but the 29-year-old inks freehand, making it all up as he goes. He works with only one motto: “Give me a piece of your skin and I’ll give you a piece of my soul.”

It doesn’t matter how many ideas you have in your head about your tattoo before you visit Jay. Once you speak to him and realize what he can do, you’re just going to turn around and say ‘Go for it, I trust you blindly’. So far, he has never disappointed a single client.

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Don’t let the bed bugs bite, is what we’ve always been told. But Matt Camper, an urban entomologist at Colorado State University, is doing the exact opposite. He’s gone and created a unique ‘bedbug tattoo gun’ – made of a jar, some wire mesh and thousands of hungry bed bugs. You simply invert the jar onto your skin, let the bed bugs bite, and later admire the pink, temporary tattoo they leave behind.

Camper’s unique invention will be featured on an upcoming edition of ‘Outrageous Acts of Science’ on the Science Channel. There’s a rabbit pattern on the top of the jar, through which the bugs are allowed to access human flesh. According to wildlife expert Ellie Harrison, it takes two hours for the tattoo to really show up on the skin. “Two hours after the bed bugs have fed, the inflammatory response really kicks in and immune cells will flood into the tissues from the blood, producing redness and swelling and heat,” she says on the TV show.

“Bed bugs feed exclusively on blood,” she said. “They find us via two sources. Firstly, they detect our body head, and secondly, they detect our carbon dioxide emissions. And they don’t need to be that close, they can be 10 feet away and still find food.”

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When 18-year-old Stian Ytterdahl’s friends dared him to get a tattoo, they gave him only two options to choose from – Barbie on his buttocks or a McDonald’s receipt on his arm. They’re both terrible, but I suppose you can’t blame Stian for choosing the latter.

“Some of my mates thought I had been a bit too active on the ladies front recently and wanted to punish me,” he said. “When we were in the restaurant on Monday, they said I had to tattoo a Barbie doll on my bum, or the receipt on my arm.” Incidentally, this is the teenager’s first tattoo ever, covering most of his lower right arm. There’s a large McDonalds logo at the top, followed by a list of items he ordered off the menu – a cheeseburger and four added toppings.

Stian, from Lørenskog in Southwest Norway, also said that his parents were not at all pleased with the turn of events. “I got an email from my dad that wasn’t entirely positive, saying: ‘What on earth have you done?! Do you think you are coming home with that!? Your mother has had a break down.’” Stian’s parents got to know about the tattoo from a report in the local newspaper and they were devastated.

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When Pastor Zack Zehnder flippantly offered free tattoos to his congregation, little did he expect people to actually take him up on it. During a recent sermon about acceptance at the Cross Mount Dora church in Mount Dora, Florida, the pastor had said: “If anybody would like to go out and get a tattoo of the logo of the cross that we have for this church we will find money and pay for that.” I suppose he didn’t realize exactly how popular tattoos are – at least a dozen church members have already inked themselves with the church cross logo.

Jeremie Turner, one of the congregation members who got inked, said: “We definitely took him up on his offer because if he’s going to hand out free tattoos, he’s got a crowd of people that’s going to accept them.” When pastor Zack realized what was happening, he graciously stuck to his word and personally paid for the tattoos at Bill Gold’s Tattoo Shop. “If I wasn’t so dang sarcastic in my sermons, I don’t know that we would be here,” he said, while overseeing a church member getting inked at the shop. “But we got some crazy people that have said they wanted to do it so I kinda gotta, I made the promise. I kinda gotta back it up.”

It’s nice to see  pastor Zack standing by his promise, instead of making excuses to try and get out of the deal. He even hopes that the new tattoos will serve as conversation starters and get more people interested in the church. “People’s perception of church has probably never been as negative as it is today and so if we can do something to kind of flip that script and interact with them and do something in a unique and creative way, we’re going to do that,” he said.

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