Send Me Your Badger Artwork

Back in high school, my goal in life was to become a tattoo artist. I bought a whole kit of tattoo equipment (including an autoclave to keep things sterile, of course), and I practiced on grapefruit for a long time. I did eventually tattoo a terrible tribal thing onto my calf when I was 16, and I gave some not-so-great kanji symbols to my friends.

I gave up on the tattoo artist idea a long time ago, but I've still been collecting body art whenever it's affordable. I know that tattoos are an extravagant waste of money to some people, and a regret waiting to happen for others, but it's something that makes me feel good about myself--putting artwork onto my body for everyone to see--and I rarely spend money on myself otherwise.

Not all of my tattoos have stories behind them, but my next one certainly will. I've been especially frugal for all the years since starting Bread and Badger, and I'm finally feeling like the business is successful enough that I can afford to celebrate it with a tattoo. I've made my appointment with a local artist (Lew at Atlas Tattoo) for late June, so I have plenty of time to get my artwork ideas worked out.

A lot of my Twitter followers wanted to share their tattoo artwork ideas with me, so I'd love to see what you guys have got! There are no guarantees that I will actually get your artwork as my tattoo, but I'd love some inspiration.

I'm planning to get a badger (naturally) on my forearm, opposite my purple and blue knitting tattoo. I'm thinking it should be a semi-traditional style with bold black outlines to complement the yarn design. Since honey badgers are my favorite, I'd like to get one of those, possibly fighting with a snake. I mean, it should be pretty badass, right? And they're impervious to viper's poisonous bites, so it would be symbolic of my little business succeeding in this tough economy.

If you want to sketch out some ideas for me, send them this way! I'll post your drawings on the blog here, and let you know what I think. I'm totally open to suggestions (Lew thought I should have the badger and snake in cartoony wrestlers outfits, maybe even as luchadores). It's going to be fun, and colorful, and completely empowering!

[The badger drawings shown are from the Wikipedia page about honey badgers (ratels).]