
Five years ago, I had a terrible idea: I wanted a BioShock tattoo. Obsessively.
Look, you have to understand, I was [age redacted]. Very impressionable. And sure, the BioShock games are competent shooters, certainly headier and more introspective than what youâd typically get with the genre. But theyâre thematically messy, to put it politely, prone to myopic reductions of Philosophy 101âcertainly not the sort of thing you want etched on your body forever.
In the years since, Iâve come to my senses. (I now have a tattoo of the transistor from Transistor instead, among many others.) But the lesson stands: Itâs extremely easy to get a dumb tattoo. And itâs way more difficult to remove it. Youâre better off justâŠgetting it right the first time. If youâve been mulling the idea of getting a gaming-themed tattoo, hereâcourtesy of tattoo artists who actually know their shitâis everything you need to know before taking the plunge.
Research the artist
âResearch is of the utmost importance,â Crys, an artist with Fleur Noire, a tattoo studio with locations in New York and Los Angeles, told Kotaku. âFinding a fellow game-enthusiast artist can enhance the experience of getting a tattoo.â
Exhibit A is Crys herself, who doesnât just ink people IRL; sheâs also created in-game tattoos for The Sims. If youâre looking for a gaming-themed piece, an artist like herâone who plays and understands video gamesâis a good artist to start with. But not every tattooer has such a knowledge base, and finding the perfect fit isnât as simple as punching âbest tattoo artistâ into your nearest search engine.

First, unless youâre down to travel (in this economy?), youâre better off finding a studio via map services, like Yelp or Google Maps, with filters activated for the highest-rated places turned on. Cobble together a few that sound enticing, then peruse their Instagram page. (If youâre not signed up for Instagram, at the very least make a burner. Youâll need it.)
Yes, every remotely reputable shop these days has an Instagram account, feeds for which are populated by an array of work from artists who post up at the shop. Scroll through the feed and youâll quickly get a sense of whose style you like and how skilled they are. Find an artist whose work speaks to you and either send them a direct message or reach out to the shop theyâre currently working with. Ask for a consultationâan appointment where youâll meet with the artist to go over ideas for a design, its size, its placement on your body, and anything else you need to know.
Bonus points if the artist knows your favorite games
Itâs not essential, of course, but itâs a boon if the artist youâre working with has at least some familiarity with the game youâre getting etched onto your skin from now until the end of time. Designing a good piece isnât purely a matter of knowing the characters or the narrative or the creative direction of a given game; itâs also about understanding a game on a gut level.
âThe intangible feelings given by experiencing a video game would be tough to understand for someone whoâs never played it,â Dylan Oliver, an artist with Torontoâs Golden Iron Tattoo Studio, told Kotaku. âNot every artist is going to have played every game, but having an artist who is willing to go the extra mile to research about the subject is ideal.â

A deep knowledge of popular games can also prevent an artist from making seemingly minor yet legitimately crucial errors. Shannon Ritchie, an artist at Red Rocket Tattoo in New York City, cited Link, the longtime protagonist in Nintendoâs The Legend of Zelda series, as an example. Aside from the occasional misfire, Link is left-handed. Always has been. He wields his weapon, the Master Sword, in his left hand. The same is true for his version of the Triforce, the golden three-triangle symbol thatâs served as a logo for the series since the â80s.
âYou canât just swap that detail out,â Ritchie said.
Set aside enough money
If youâre hoping for quality work, youâre looking at a couple hundred bucks, minimum, for a smaller tattoo. A larger pieceâsay, something that runs the span of your forearmâcould run up to a thousand. Sleeves, which typically require multiple sessions, can be several grand.

Once youâve settled on a design, artists will quote you a price range. The ultimate cost is dependent on a number of factors, including the artistâs time and the amount of ink used for the piece. Be sure to set aside enough money plus a 20 percent tip (at least), calculated per the high-end of the quote. And above all, make sure to pay in cash. Though many shops will accept card payments, theyâll tack on credit card surcharges of 8 or 10 percentânot a terrible markup for everyday expenses but a pretty big ding when youâre talking about a triple- or quadruple-figure item.
Know the limits
âSkin isnât paper, or a digital display, and a lot of digital content doesnât exactly transfer,â Ritchie said. âWith any medium changeover you want to know what works within the parameters of each field. Tattoo art isnât a digital medium and shouldnât be approached as such.â
Most artists will mock up potential artwork in a graphic design program before turning it into a tattoo. Pixel art may look amazing in an artistâs rendering, but unless youâre working with a highly specialized artistâlike the globe-trotting Youthless, whoâs known for vividly colored retro-inspired piecesâit doesnât always carry over well to skin. The same goes for other common styles of art, whether itâs intricately detailed landscapes or spitting-image photorealistic faces.

Symbols, like the Halo from Halo, the transistor from Transistor, or the Triforce from Legend of Zelda, tend to be pretty safe bets, Ritchie said. You can mess with them a bit, maybe reimagining one as a silhouette or doing it up in a different color palette. However you approach it, symbols are by and large the easiest art to transpose from a video game to a human.
âââYou also probably shouldnât get a tattoo of a character [who] looks cool and hyped-up but hasnât debuted yet or fulfilled their story arc,â Ritchie said.
Cloud, the devastatingly pretty main character from Final Fantasy VII Remake, might seem tattoo-worthy right now, in the cold light of the first gameâs riveting cliffhanger. And sure, most gamers are aware of Cloudâs story arc from the original source material, released in 1997. But Square Enix has proven itâs not afraid to take some serious creative liberties with this reimagination. Itâs anyoneâs guess as to where Cloudâs story goesâor how much of an asshole he could become. Youâre better off waiting until the Remake series concludes in, like, 2046 or whatever.
Keep it simple
âIt can be very difficult for any artist you find to come up with a design for you if you end up with too many elements [or] incoherent thoughts,â Crys said.
âIâve had people wanting to get elements from Kingdom Hearts, Mario, Zelda, and PokĂ©mon into one medium-sized piece,â Oliver said.
If youâre dead set on a crossover event, Oliver suggests choosing visually congruent games. For instance, The Witcher would mesh more smoothly with The Elder Scrolls (both are role-playing games heavy on gothic, high-fantasy motifs) than Mario (fairly sure Yoshi is the only Mario character whoâd fit seamlessly into The Witcherâs morally brutal canon).

To be fair, mashing up charactersâas if youâre Masahiro Sakurai and your forearm is your brainstorming whiteboardâisnât strictly verboten in all cases. Itâs just a matter of finding an artist who deeply knows gaming culture (if you know the rules, you can break âem, and all that jazz). Ritchie, for instance, cited a hypothetical design of Mortal Kombatâs Sub-Zero fighting Zeldaâs Link underneath a banner that reads, âPraise the Sun.â Itâs a silly-sounding idea. Itâs also awesomeâand if the artist knows their stuff, theyâd be able to execute it effectively.
Plus, itâs the sort of piece youâll never see anywhere else. âSince tattoo artists donât deal with licensing, we can get away with things like that,â Ritchie said.
When in doubt: Catch âem all
Both Oliver and Ritchie said that PokĂ©mon is a blast to design work for and a practically bottomless well for inspiration. The numbers donât lie: There are nearly 900 creatures across eight generations of mainline RPGs (three of which have seen full-scale remakes), countless spin-off games into various genres, a card game, a seemingly endless TV series, and more cross-promotional marketing than basically any other franchise on earth. Thereâs a good chance any artist will have at least some familiarity with the franchise.

âItâs also fun to see how different generations of fans hold different feelings towards the games,â said Oliver, who started playing during the days of PokĂ©mon Red and Blue, and cites the Original 151 as his faves. âBut recently, I was talking to one of my clients who started with [PokĂ©mon Black and White], and he preferred those ones.â
And if you do fuck upâŠ
Itâs rare, but it happens: If youâre not careful, you can end up with a tattoo you absolutely, unreservedly want off your body. And since ink is applied under the outermost layer of your skin, the removal process is a doozy; in some cases, you need half a dozen (or more) sessions of laser treatment. I assume you do not need me to tell you the painful effect lasers have on human skin.
If you have an embarrassing video game tattoo, Kotaku wants to hear about it! Please email anotis@kotaku.com with any horror stories (bonus points for photographic evidence).
Thereâs always the option of a coverup; talented artists can take an existing tattoo and come up with a design incorporating the old one into it, making the whole thing seem like an intentional piece. You could also get a blackoutâbasically, a solid-black spot covering up the area around the initial tattoo with a singular splotch of ink. âObviously, this is a very bold choice, and is most often done by people who are already heavily tattooed,â Oliver said.
At the very least, Ritchie recommends getting a session or two of laser removal. Thatâll make any cover-ups or blackouts easier. âYou would not be able to cover up a very dark tattoo with a much lighter one without significant lightening beforehand,â Oliver added.
Even with a total blackout, if you donât get a session of laser removal beforehand, the older tattoo could still be visible through the ink of the new one. This happened to me. You can feel the outline of an ill-advised pair of dice poking through a blackout on my shoulder; on a sunny day, you can even see the old piece. Whoops!
My two cents, as a fairly inked-up individual, may sound crass, but itâs true: At the end of the day, it doesnât matter.
Thatâs not to say a tattoo canât have meaning or canât significantly improve your life. On the contrary! Itâs more this: Getting a tattoo isnât nearly as scary or life-altering as you think. It wonât derail your career. It wonât force you to redo your wardrobe. Plus, youâd also be surprised at how frequently you forget ink is even on your body; I cannot even begin to count how many times Iâve been complimented (or, fiiine, insulted) on a tattoo and audibly responded with something along the lines of, âOh, right, that one! I totally forgot I got that.â
The point is, if youâre on the edge, thereâs clearly a part of you that wants one. And if thereâs any hesitation, youâre more likely to forget about a bad tattoo than you are to hate one. So I say go for it! As long as you donât try to get anything from BioShock, youâll be fine.
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