I’ve been holding on to a design for a tattoo nearly four years now. I had never really been interested in getting a tattoo at that point. The biggest reason being that while I had an interest in tattoos, I never had anything in mind that I’d want to have on me for the rest of my life.

The path to change was travelled quickly once meeting my wife. Within a month of being together, she was pregnant. Shortly after we were married, a few months later, I started thinking about getting a tattoo in honor of my daughter. I browsed around the ‘net with only the word ‘elf’ in mind. Pretty quickly, I came accross a piece of art that really struck me for a reason that I can’t quite put my finger on.

It was Amy Brown’s Dragon Sword. I tucked away the image and started making changes to it over the next year. I didn’t want the girl to be a fairy so I removed the wings and the rest of the background as it just seemed it would be too much for what I wanted to get done. I also removed the trailing brown cloth that hung from the arm sleeves as I didn’t really care for them. I also removed the dragon head from the sword. I put it away in hopes to one day be able to get it.

A week and a half ago, Bridget & I were finally able to afford gifts for one another stemming back from Xmas. One of the gifts that she gave me was an $80 certificate redeemable for tattoo work at Alan’s Cool Ink, where we had our joint tattoos done. I dug out the design and tried to remember where I had gotten the art from. After a few days of searching, “Amy Brown” suddenly popped into my head. I was able to find it easily after that. I decided that I actually wanted the dragon’s head on the sword as it went with my intended meaning of the tattoo. I also wanted it in a different location so I found a larger version of the image and redid all of the editing on it.

Only in the last week or so had I decided that I wanted to write something other than my daughter’s name at the bottom with some kind of banner. With editing, I had tried to make the woman in the piece look more like an elf. I started researching phrases in Elvish and found one for “I Love You” which read “Amin Mela Lle.” I did more research and found out how to write this in Quenyan Elvish, a language from Tolkien’s world.

I printed out a mockup from Photoshop with everything except the banner at the bottom and took it over to Maverick Fisher, who had already done my last tattoo. Unfortunately, Maverick was already booked within the next 30 minutes but he was able to pencil me in for 5:30 that evening.

I came back at about 5:00 and Maverick had just gotten his dinner. He came out and told me he needed to eat and I assured him that I wasn’t worried about it. I was thirty minutes early as it was. We got started shortly after 5:30 and the start of the outline was underway a few minutes before 6:00. After about an hour and forty-five minutes, it was done. Maverick was really into the piece and that showed in the result.

The meaning behind the tattoo is one of the eternal devotion I have for providing my daughter love and protection whenever she may desire it or need it. In the tattoo, she is the woman and I am the sword.

I am very very happy with it and Maverick was as well. He took some snaps and the tattoo will not only be immortalized on my leg but in his book.

Now to find a design for a tattoo honoring Keira!

Tags: tattoos

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 12th, 2006 at 7:28 pm and is filed under Stories.