Anyone here get a gaming related tattoo?

Just curious if anyone here has either found great meaning in a game or great impulsiveness in themselves and got something permanent. I had some nasty scars on my arm and got them covered with a Metal Gear Solid piece, but its not the best art. Now that I have found more capable artists I've rekindled the idea of representing my only hobby, would love to see any work fellow duders have had done.

I'm too ashamed of my appetite for gaming to carry it in plain view.

Not yet, but I got a rhombus frame with a simple moon, mountain and some trees inside on my forearm. Eventually I will add more of these frames on the arm with a geometric background, and in those frames I am going to put things that have been important to me these first 31 years of my life. There will at least be one or two from books, one for sure regarding music, and I might just have to get the Giant Bomb Bomb or Luchadeer in there. And a few of them will be video game related. Something Fallout (one of the first "adult" games I remember playing, as a demo of Fallout was on a demo disc we got), Hollow Knight (one of the better experiences I have had the past years, and the artwork is so good) and probably the Akatosh-symbol used in Morrowind. Morrowind was the first game I fell so in love that I tried to learn coding and modelling, I made a few small and big mods just for myself. I probably have spent several hundreds of hours on Morrowind... and I have never actually beaten the main story.

So the short answer is no, not yet. But I am going to get several when I got the cash for it.

As a person on the introverted and "sensitive" side, I find personal meaning in a lot of things. And a lot of games has affected me in a profound way. And so getting something permanent on my skin to keep that memory closer is a great thing. I am sure a lot of people will look down at such a tattoo, so I just wanted to mention that. If it has a meaning to you then it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks.

@jaqen_hghar: Very well said. I have not been the happiest or most outgoing person in life, but have found a great place now and have started a family, but theres tremendous meaning to be found in games, like how when i couldn't eat or sleep during a time of loss, Metal Gear (alongside Metal Gear Scanlon I must add) helped distract me enough to get through it. or when I lost my massive home and moved into a basement apartment, it was The Witcher 3 that gave me solace. Ive been playing some of the more important games to me (fallout 3 and morrowind included!) on a hunt for some more subltle art that I would know that others might not, even flirted with the idea of a "pinup" style classic tattoo but Ciri (clothed and armed to the teeth).

Not yet, but I've been interested in getting something Okami related in a very long time now. Just want it to be right, so haven't acted on it yet.

@meltac: man I dont even like Okami but that is the perfect tattoo game, that art is breathtaking. when you do find the right artist throw it up on here!

@gtb08: It really is amazing artistically, but it also has a very special place in my heart. It probably is in my top three of my favorite games ever. Played through it on the PS2 twice when I was probably 11-12 years old and then played through the whole thing again on the PS3 when I was going through a tough time.

I really, really like the cover for the PS4 version, so I could imagine that I would probably get something inspired by that, but I've been looking at so much artwork from the game through the years.

Now that I think of it, I actually thought about getting a headcrab the other day. If I had more guts and was bald I would totally get that thing on my head.

Just this simple little guy for the moment.

I have a Sic Parvis Magna tattoo from Uncharted, but it’s a little more meaningful and personal to me than just “because of Uncharted”

Yes. On my left wrist is the BioShock chain tattoo. BioShock helped get me through a difficult time in my life, and talking to Ken Levine about BioShock Infinite at PAX East a few years ago really drove home the meaning of the game.

Let me say this: if there is a work of art that has had a profound impact on your life and you want to express that through a tattoo, and someone judges you because it's "just" a video game tattoo, you have explicit permission to tell them to fuck right off.

No. I don’t have any.

I can’t for the life of me comprehend what I’d find so much a part of me to tattoo it onto my body, especially considering children’s birthdates and religious tattoo aren’t my thing.

I joke that if I were to get a tattoo, it’d just say tattoo or some bullshit. I think “Dillon, You Son of a Bitch!” with a bro-shake would be funny, too.

Oh, Ryan Davis’ Binary Mom is brilliant as hell. I’d have maybe done that if I came up with it myself.

@nutter: my motivations for each piece has been getting through something traumatic, so in that sense im glad you dont have any need for ink! Each tattoo I have (which range from mythology to cartoons to gaming to comics as far as topic goes) represents the time I got it moreso than the content it draws from. Of course I do love me some Metal Gear and Batman, but even if i no longer care for batman in 20 years I will still surely be glad I didnt kill myself or abandon my children. Plus, if you're covered in tattoos its harder for people to tell you can't even bench press the empty bar!

Metal Gear piece is not the best quality work but covered up some unsightly scars, and the Yggdrasil tattoo was inspired by but not really from God of War. As long as a long sleeve button up can cover it your body is a canvas! Regret is for people who have their shit together I guess cause I wouldn't take it back.

Yeah, I've got a simple one from Majora's Mask on my right collarbone, and I'm in progress with an artist for a sleeve on my left arm that's all gaming related. So far I've got Journey, Transistor, Gone Home, Life is Strange and Hitman (which doubles as a GB tribute) all represented. We're moving on to Hotline Miami next, and there's still a lot of free space so I'm looking through my gaming history to find more.

They've all got meaning to me and I'm more than happy to work with my artist to cement them as a part of me.

@bladeofcreation: I don’t have any videogame tattoos (I have a lot of tattoos) but I couldn’t agree more with what you said. All tattoos are dumb to someone and if anyone thinks it’s dumb to get a video game tattoo but doesn’t realise that it’s just as dumb to get literally anything else then that’s stupid.

I have met many people who sneer at videogame tattoos but are fine with tattoos in general, which makes no sense to me.

@gtb08: Yo, shout out to that tattoo artist for making sure Snake is practicing good trigger discipline!

@pompouspizza: I still sometimes feel the need to explain to people, at least non-gamers, that BioShock helped me get through a deployment. The truth is that the people I NEED to explain this to aren't worth my time anyways and the people I WANT to explain it to aren't going to judge me to begin with. If that makes sense.

@bladeofcreation: Yes! Witcher 3 came out when I was deployed, had one of those gamecase things with the built in screen, my ps4 was SCREAMING in the heat haha, never really worked properly after that, but in a time of great loneliness and exhaustion I had what was in my opinion the best RPG ever made to keep my thoughts in check. So thats the next game I'm working on a piece for, currently replaying and taking screenshots of anything cool looking for my artist to look at

@gtb08: My wife and I were just talking about tattoos by the pool. I know folks with life event tattoos like that, or service tattoos. Sometimes the person hates their own tattoo, talks about getting it removed, but it’s representitive of something meaningful...

And yeah, we’ve been relatively trauma free, so there’s that to be thankful for. All the same, as much as I don’t see a need for myself at this time; mark, celebrate, mourn, remember however you see fit. It’s no one else’s business how you remember your life.

I have a tattoo of the Steam logo across my shoulder blade.

I was always into the idea of a gaming tattoo but never had a specific game that really hit home with me like people usually have with Mario and Zelda and all that. What I did have was some very fond memories of watching my brothers play CS 1.6 / Source. I also had the bad mark on my record from the time I logged into my dads email so I could hijack his dormant account and play some Valve games. When I built my first gaming PC the Orange box had just released and I put an ungodly amount of time into TF2 (and still play other stuff with people I met on there). A girl I met in highschool was also into video games and I got her setup with a steam account and PC and that was our easiest way to spend time together for a while. Finally, to really make sure I didn't regret the tattoo later on, I asked Valve to help me out with proposing to that girl and they did. :)

The icing on the cake was we moved out to Seattle later and I worked there briefly on a contract basis, it was the first job I was able to secure in Seattle and made the whole move possible at the time. I had planned to apply back later on but I became a stay at home dad instead.

Mainly though I've always just liked the look of that logo.

I've always been tempted to get a Russian themed tattoo that includes some Tetris blocks. I'm way too much of a wimp to actually get a tattoo, though. I'd be terrified.

Nothing gaming related, but I have a Japanese pine branch running up my arm and onto my shoulder blade, which has two small Japanese birds on it. Have an appointment in August to get a forearm wrap that has the solar system/orbits as a focus. Don't know if I'd ever get anything from a video game as I haven't had anything strike me that deeply to inspire a tattoo. You never know though!

@gtb08: Really like these! The tree one is my favorite, but I am biased as I also have branches and birds on my skin.

I don't have a gaming one yet, but I've been working on a Dark Tower sleeve for the past year. As I've gotten it I've come to realize that I have 4 limbs, and 4 things that I absolutely love. Like, my 4 pillars of entertainment, and in the future I plan on getting a sleeve for each one; 1 book, 1 movie, 1 game and 1 TV show. The Dark Tower, Ghostbusters, Metal Gear Solid and Dragon Ball Z.

@duecenage: that is fantastic work, looks like it could be lifted right out of a graphic novel. sick idea too with the 4 pillars, ghostbusters and metal gear sleeves in particular pique my interest if you use the same artist. let us see that metal gear if you ever get it!

I have a very, very basic Triforce on one arm because Zelda's been part of my life since I was 10. Those games also helped me through some rough times as a kid, and the 'power, wisdom, courage' association is a good reminder that sometimes you just need to take a deep breath and keep going.

I also like it because it's simple enough that most people don't really know what it is, but still looks acceptable as a tattoo just as a result of being a nice piece of geometry.

@gtb08: Yeah, she's been an amazing artist. From the moment she show me the rough sketch for the upper arm, I was blown away. It all looks like epic cover art for comics. No plans on using the same artist though as I do want each one to still feel unique from each other. Also, I'm going to take a couple of years off, the downside to doing 10 sessions in 12 months is that 2 out of every 4-5 weeks suuuuuucks and I want to return to some normalcy for a bit(plus get caught up more on debts) There is a guy whose lines I really like that might work for something Metal Gear Solid based, they're very wispy.

Nope, but I saw someone with a Nintendo Boo character tattoo.

I have a few (Dark Souls bonfire, Snake from MGS and Link)

@gtb08: I had such an idea, but I thought, suddenly there will be new games that will like even more, and then what? I decided to leave this venture.

A close mate of mine has a Gears of War COG behind his each/lower neck.

He is also fairly heavily tatted anyway.

I am sans tattoos.