Tattoos

I have long been fascinated with tattoos. In 1991 I finally got my first one. As you can see from the picture below, I've developed quite a little scene across my back since then.

Before I got my first tattoo, a friend of mine who had some great tattoos gave me this advice which I now pass on to you:

Pick the first tattoo carefully. You will either have only one in which case it needs to be special, or you will get several and you'll want them to look like they belong together.

I started with Pegasus on my bicep...and went back a few weeks later to put some clouds behind it because it looked a little bare without a background. First tattoo lessons - I love color and depth.

My artist showed me Neptune that he has on his leg and I asked him to adapt it as Zeus for my back to go with Prometheus. I continued the Greek mythology theme for Apollo and the centaur, but strayed a bit from the theme to what you see today.

Here are some previous iterations and closeups of the work

The intial work was all done by Sugar Bear at Emporium of Design in Denver.
The start - Pegasus & some clouds to make him stand out.	My back as late as 1999.
By 2002 it had expanded to the lower back.	The dragons were added in 2003 to bring together the two sides of the design.
In 2006 I started going to Tim Lehi at BlackHeartBlackHeart in San Francisco	Tim added some depth and brought the whole thing together.

And some of the reasons for the imagery:

• Pegasus - is the symbol of my alma mater - University of Central Florida
• Prometheus - I just like the story
• Apollo - I grew up in Florida during the space race. The visual pun is Apollo and the Apollo spacecraft
• three Bears - I have called myself a bear almost as long as the term has been applied to gay men. The obvious bear on my lower back is a later addition, but Ursa Major & Ursa Minor on the upper back were added early because I wanted two bears that weren't immediately obvious
• Centaur - a nod to both a favorite part of "Fantasia" and my days at the Eagle in Washington DC
• the mountains - a reminder of living in Denver
• the motorcycle - I've been riding since I was 21, so there had to be motorcycle

This page, and all contents, are Copyright (C) 2007 by Steve Heyl, San Diego, CA, USA.

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