New Tattoo for Chris

You may have heard by now that I got a new tattoo this last September.  I have been wanting to do something for the kids for quite a while now, but wasn't sure what.  I traveled to Austin, Texas for a special event to promote Gears of War during the Austin City Limits Music Festival.  XBox had setup a special VIP area for the various musicians and other people deemed important.  I was there to show the game just before it was about to launch (in fact I went from Austin straight to New York to officially launch the game at midnight on September 19th).  There was also a bunch of booze (brought some home because there was so much), a lady who brought some really good cupcakes, and a tattoo artist to tattoo the musicians.  

This was setup to run for 3 straight days, on the first day the tattoo artist came over to talk about the game as he was a fan.  He happened to have "Ella" tattoo'd on his neck, so we chatted a bit about our daughters.  I mentioned wanting to do something for the kids, so he offered to do it while we were there if I was interested.  I thought about it for a day, then decided to go for it.  We spent the second day drawing up some different ideas until we came up with one that I really liked and went ahead and did it that afternoon.

It was really cool because most of the stuff that he was doing there was really small, would only take him 20-30 minutes.  But he really went the extra mile for me and spent just over 2 hours tattooing me, all for free which is even better.  I was able to hook him up with an early copy of the game to enjoy before anyone else.  I was scheduled to do an interview with a local entertainment site, so we went ahead and did while I was being tattoo'd which certainly made for an interesting chat, you can check it out here - http://amfmstudios.com/magazine/2011/09/gears-of-war-3-releases-worldwide-sept-20th/.

There are a few different elements in the tattoo, the kids names of course.  The red circle gear is actually a symbol from Gears of War.  That is in there because moving the family out here to Seattle instead of Sweden has worked out really well, definitely the right decision, so that is there to constantly remind me of that.  Then the flowers, font choice, etc., are all classic American inspired which just speaks to my pride of being an American.  I have always wanted a classic American tattoo, so it just seemed to fit.  I am still really happy with the whole thing, don't regret it one bit, although I did surprise Sarah quite a bit.  I gave her about an hours heads up that I was going to do it.  Just taking advantage of opportunities.