The second of my transformer based polynesian styles, I keep getting a few folks asking why I'm doing these in the tattoo studio I work in, well here's my reason - Folks come in with a polynesian design they've seen on someone else, they ask for a straight copy, I dont like doing this so I started to tell them to do some homework and come back with one thats got designs on it that are appropriate to them but they pull a long face and act like its too much hassle (for a design thats going to be on them for life!) I looked into the designs myself and every mark and pattern mean something to someone from that culture, be it about their family, where they live, what they do etc and here we are copying this stuff and we dont even know what it means so the next lad who asked for it I said 'can I design one based on something about you?' he replied that he'd have a star wars one if it could be designed. So I did, he liked it and here we are now, doing designs that aren't just random patterns that mean nothing to us but a lot to another culture, designs that altho they are based on our junk culture actually have more relevance than if we had copied some polynesian guys arm!
That is very cool, I like that you decided to do these, and the reason makes total sense to me. I may actually do something similar in a Celtic version using different characters. I've already done the two symbols in knot work. **grins**
Well, if you would like to see what I'll be starting with, have a look at my Celtic Autobot [link] and Celtic Decepticon [link] symbols. I wouldn't mind reading what you think of them.
All the extra patterns remind me of this epic Sentinel Prime poster > [link]