Have you ever seen them combined?
I have a best friend named Skye. These are two of her seven tattoos, with more to come. However, I thought it was interesting that although not a huge video game fan herself, two of the designs she chose to permanently mark her body with are from popular video games.
The first is the star from Mario. These cute little tokens, when attained in many of the Mario games including Super Mario Bros. series and the Mario Kart series, provide the player with temporary invincibility. This saves the user from harmful projectiles and enemnies while also increasing the player's speed greatly. Certain great dangers however, such as lava, and falling, the player is still suceptible to making him/her not completely invulnerable.
The second design here, but in reality Skye's first tattoo, is a winged mixtape design. It is not as obvious as the close-up shot of her ankle tat, but you can still clearly see the design on her hip in the photo. Skye has always been a music junkie, and has been a sucker for mixed tapes/CDs for as long as she can remember. It is pretty simple to understand why she chose a cassette tape design with wings over a compact disc. It doesn't make for as cute of a tattoo, and cassettes are more symbolic of the personalized music mix.
After settling on this, she took her idea to the tattoo parlor. When asked to draw it up, the artist's easiest mental reference for a design was from the popular video game, Guitar Hero. If you don't know what I'm talking about, think about what you see on the loading screen after choosing a song. It's a fact or random statement about life as a performing musician along with a moving graphic which in many cases is the winged cassette tape. He drew this design for her, and she was pleased with it.
Personally, I love all of her tattoos. But my question is: have video games become such an integral part of our culture that it is now commonly acceptable for designs relating to them to be tattoo ideas? I know tattoos commonly come from religion, art, ethnic heritage, music, and even movies & comics. But the thought that something from a video game can be adapted in a way that one willingly tattoos the design on their body forever is an interesting thought, maybe even debate. Can a tattoo idea taken from a game ever be taken seriously? Do you feel that one can find personal meaning and significance in a design adapted from a video game?
I get the star... but not the other one: what does she say about it? have you asked? I get the reference, but you're right: not very artistic..
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