Yes, it's correct. But it's weird.

Recently I've found this strange Kanji/Hanzi tattoo on tattooshunt.com:

chinese / japanese writing tattoo
Kanji/Hanzi tattoo which means bottle/vase???

I don't get it. This Kanji/Hanzi (which, by the way, is properly written) means jug/vase/jar/bottle - and so on... Unlike most ideograms, this one has no secondary meaning; it simply means recipient for liquids and nothing more. So, why would anyone get such a tattoo on his body?

My tattoo-designs: the latin aphorism Carpe Diem

Hello, everyone! Since I've written a lot about butterfly-tattoos in the last 2-3 months, today I'd like to present you one of my favourite tattoo-designs. In this tattoo-design I have combined some tribal elements with the famous latin aphorism "Carpe Diem" - Seize the day (read more on this theme here and here. In the middle of the tattoo is depicted a butterfly - a symbol of both beauty and ephemerality of life (for more information on the symbolism of Butterflies read this post)

carpe diem tattoo / tribal tattoo / butterfly tattoo

Butterfly tattoos: How big should they be?

Butterfly tattoos are a good choice for a first tattoo because the design doesn't need to be big to be striking. A small butterfly tattoo (life sized or smaller) on an ankle or shoulder can be a pretty and graceful accent to your natural beauty. These tattoos vary in sizes depending upon the body part you want to get it tattooed (usually, the butterfly-tattoos placed on the nape or behind the years are the smallest, those placed on the wrist/ankle/abdomen are medium-sized tattoos, while the lower back/upper back butterfly tattoos are usually larger, more stylised butterfly images).

Big butterfly design. Unless you want a lower-back tattoo, it's better to avoid a big butterfly tattoo. Butterflies are usually small, delicate, and beautiful creatures and trying to blow them up into mega insects doesn't always work. If you really want a huge butterfly tattoo you should consider a swarm of butterflies instead one giant butterfly.

Small butterfly design. Sometimes we can see some tiny butterfly tattoos that look more like mosquito-tattoos than beautiful butterflies. A butterfly tattoo should be large enough to highlight the brilliant design of the butterfly's wings; going to small is definitely a good way to ruin your tattoo.

Conclusion: lean towards a smaller sized butterfly as opposed to something big, but don't make it tiny! Play around with different small sizes and you should see the correct size "pop out" at you when the proportion is correct, and the detail is present.

blue butterfly tattoo design

Related posts:
Butterfly tattoo: location, size, design and colors
Butterfly tattoo
Butterfly tattoos meanings:

My recommendations: the polish artists Sebastian and Milena Żmijewski

If you are looking for inspiration for a biomechanical / 3D tattoo I recommend you to visit this website: www.bloodyart.pl (don't worry, is translated in English). The sites belongs to Sebastian and Milena Żmijewski, two Polish brothers who run together their own business: a tattoo studio called “Bloody Art” in Gdansk, Poland. If you decide to visit Gdansk (which, by the way, is one most beautiful cities of Poland) and you want to get a really stunning tattoo you can pay them a visit.

Sebastian Żmijewski is an amazing artist with more than 20 years of experience in tattoo art. A versatile artist and capable of almost everything, his pieces of work include any type of tattoos. Sebastian favourites are portraits and photo realistic challenges and he is a god when it comes to black & grey and covers-up.

Milena Żmijewski is also an artist, with painting, drawing and graphics experience as well as make-up and interior design knowledge. She had been learning tattooing techniques from her brother since 2011 and she is an important component of his projects. Milena does some of the most detailed paintings which Sebastian carefully depicts into skin afterwards.

Below you can see several examples of Sebastian and Milena’s stunning tattoos. I've selected only a few images from their huge collection. For more images, visit the original photo-gallery at this address: http://www.bloodyart.pl/#tattoo

Full back biomechanical corset tattoo
A biomechanical corset tattoo


Fore-arm tattoo: mounted medieval knights
Forearm tattoo: mounted medieval knights


Cyborg tattoo on the lateral side of the body
Biomechanical tattoo covering the lateral side of the body


Biomechanical gun tattoo
Biomechanical tattoo: a gun loaded with monsters-bullets


Full-back tattoo: a medieval ship
Back-tattoo: a medieval ship


Biomechanical tattoo on the chest, shoulder and upper arm
Biomechanical tattoo covering a man's chest, shoulder and upper arm


Biomechanical tattoo on the leg
Biomechanical tattoo on the leg


Biomech tattoo on the leg: alien invasion
3D tattoo on the calf


3D tattoos: dark-art biomechanical tattoos
Biomechanical tattoos: alien infestation
Cyborg Tattoos photos
Biomechanical tattoos

My tattoo-designs: the chinese Five Elements

Hello, everyone! In this post I'd like to present you one of my tattoo-designs which combines tribal elements with some ancient symbols used in the Taoist cosmology (namely, the Yin-Yang symbol and the Wu Xing ideograms).

wo-xing tattoo design; yin-yang tattoo design; chinese ideograms tattoo design
Wu Xing tattoo. Ideograms meaning: the chinese Five Elements: Wood (木, mù), Fire (火, huǒ), Earth (土, tǔ), Metal (金, jīn), Water (水, shuǐ). For more Kanji/Hanzi-tattoo-designs visit my website, seiza.ro.

In Chinese philosophy, the concept of yin-yang is used to describe how opposite or contrary forces are interconnected and interdependent in the natural world; and, how they give rise to each other as they interrelate to one another. Many natural dualities (such as light and dark, high and low, hot and cold, fire and water, life and death, male and female, sun and moon, and so on) are thought of as physical manifestations of the yin-yang concept.

Yin and yang can be thought of as complementary (instead of opposing) forces interacting to form a dynamic system in which the whole is greater than the parts. Everything has both yin and yang aspects, (for instance shadow cannot exist without light). Either of the two major aspects may manifest more strongly in a particular object, depending on the criterion of the observation.

The Wu Xing, (五行 wŭ xíng) also known as the Five Elements, Five Phases, the Five Agents, the Five Movements, Five Processes, and the Five Steps/Stages, is a fivefold conceptual scheme that many traditional Chinese fields used to explain a wide array of phenomena, from cosmic cycles to the interaction between internal organs, and from the succession of political regimes to the properties of medicinal drugs. The "Five Phases" are Wood (木 mù), Fire (火 huǒ), Earth (土 tǔ), Metal (金 jīn), and Water (水 shuǐ). This order of presentation is known as the "mutual generation" (xiangsheng 相生) sequence. In the order of "mutual conquest" (xiangsheng 相勝) or "mutual overcoming" (xiangke 相剋), they are Wood, Earth, Water, Fire, and Metal.

wo-xing tattoo; yin-yang tattoo; chinese ideograms tattoo
My tattoo-design turned into a real tattoo.

If you use any of my tattoo-designs as a model / inspiration / starting-point for a tattoo you might consider sending me some photos of the tattoo once it's complete. Thank you in advance.

My Recommendations: the japanese artist Chooo-San

If you are looking for inspiration for a 3D tattoo or if you are searching for a crazy makeup for the Halloween-party, you you should check out this websites: http://chooosan.flavors.me/#57d/tumblr
http://www.hikarucho.com/archive (this one is in japanese, but it's quite intuitive, so you'll still be able to navigate it).

Chooo-San is a young Japanese artist who makes strange and surreal ephemeral creations with body painting. The result is both puzzling and intriguing: the eyes and mouths, or batteries that arise on the faces and bodies, transforming them into monsters thanks to acrylic paint.

Below are several of his artworks, which I realy like:


The right to choose a partner is represented by a face that shows what appears to be two men kissing.



This arm zip appears so authentic that we can almost feel the texture of those little metal teeth.



A girl with detachable head.



A man living inside someone's body.



X-ray illusion of someone lifting up his skin as you would lift up your shirt






Here the artwork highlights the right to live without sexual violence by showing a face emerging from a cracked shell, representing the emotional scars



My tattoo-designs: I have no money, but I have dreams

Hello, everyone! In this post I'd like to present you one of my tattoo-designs: 金はないけど夢はある (reading: kane wa nai kedo yume wa aru) - is a japanese expression which means "I have no money, but I have dreams". In the first picture below you can see the original tattoo-design; in the second image you can see how it looks as a back-tattoo.



The original tattoo-design. For more Kanji-tattoo-designs visit my website, seiza.ro.

If you use any of my tattoo-designs as a model / inspiration / starting-point for a tattoo you might consider sending me some photos of the tattoo once it's complete. Thank you in advance.