Live in Peace

By Jordan Ginsberg • Feb 11th, 2009 • Category: ModBlog


This truly excellent piece was done by Mark Gibson of Monki Do Studio in Belper, Derbyshire, England. And no, Heretic138, those aren’t Nazi swastikas in the background.

See more in “Mark Gibson Tattoo Mini Portfolio“ (Tattoo Artist Portfolios)

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Jordan Ginsberg is the former managing editor and head writer for BME.
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32 Responses »

  1. blaze on February 11th, 2009 at 6:43 pm:

    that’s freaking awesome :D

  2. Bee* on February 11th, 2009 at 6:45 pm:

    My jaw actually dropped when I seen this, haha. Amazing work.

  3. zymotic on February 11th, 2009 at 6:47 pm:

    Wow, I was very surprised when I saw that this wasn’t Swazi Freakshop. Excellent job.

  4. zencat on February 11th, 2009 at 6:57 pm:

    wow. belper is just around the corner from me, will go check ‘em out :D

  5. GreenHead on February 11th, 2009 at 6:59 pm:

    #3 Thats exactly what i thought when i first saw it. Beautiful piece still though!

  6. sharkbait on February 11th, 2009 at 7:08 pm:

    Same as #2 Great work!

  7. Jessorz on February 11th, 2009 at 7:13 pm:

    i love all the depth in this piece. amazing!

  8. The sky conspires to swallow me. on February 11th, 2009 at 7:34 pm:

    Haha, I agree with 3.

  9. katy prost on February 11th, 2009 at 7:53 pm:

    I was like… “Oh ya another big surprise from the S. Freakshop”.. but I was mistaken!

  10. jeremy on February 11th, 2009 at 7:57 pm:

    Dear lord. This is completely sick, I love every pattern and detail. This is what all back pieces aspire to be!

  11. Poppy on February 11th, 2009 at 8:25 pm:

    same here, totally thought it was swastica freakshop,
    anyway, its amazing,

  12. tony on February 11th, 2009 at 8:30 pm:

    the face of the dragon is so fresh. so many people try to take something traditional like that and ‘make it new’ but never execute something so great like this.

  13. Squig on February 11th, 2009 at 8:51 pm:

    wow.. truly amazing! so jealous right now

  14. Random. on February 11th, 2009 at 10:23 pm:

    Called out!

  15. HereKittyKitty on February 11th, 2009 at 10:30 pm:

    Absolutely fucking awesome! I can’t stop looking at this..
    Damn, that’s sweet work!

  16. Will on February 12th, 2009 at 2:09 am:

    Perfect. Just perfect. I’m jealous. This is my screensaver for the rest of the week.

  17. jessFACE on February 12th, 2009 at 2:42 am:

    Holy shit this is amazing!
    Im on my mobile and it still looks increadible!

    #3 that was my first guess as well

  18. Jon P on February 12th, 2009 at 3:22 am:

    Awesome tatt, and it doesn’t look ANYTHING like Marc’s work at ALL, we’ve seen enough of it to know that!

  19. Almaxaquotal on February 12th, 2009 at 5:22 am:

    Wow this is stunning. Quite a simple image but so brilliantly executed - the best tattoos IMO!

    And ffs branch out people… Swastika Freakshop are NOT the only tattooists in the world creating quality and original work O_o

  20. assid23 on February 12th, 2009 at 7:18 am:

    amazing work:o)

  21. phrawzty on February 12th, 2009 at 8:01 am:

    Swastikas ? All i saw were plus-symbols ( + ) until it was pointed out… :P

  22. Will on February 12th, 2009 at 8:50 am:

    #21. Those plus symbols look to me like interlinked Byzantine crosses - I’ve seen that design on old Greek and Russian icons. If that was a deliberate choice it’s a very clever use of a historic design.

  23. aivi on February 12th, 2009 at 10:03 am:

    I like that the tattoo contains the usual japanese-style imagery of a samurai and a dragon, but the style is anything but traditional. Excellent.

  24. coreyb on February 12th, 2009 at 10:17 am:

    love it… amazing detail but the + signs on the arm dont do it for me. Im all for patterns but they look so flat and straight instead of following a curve of fold in the fabric, but thats just me. AMazing piece all in all

  25. la on February 12th, 2009 at 4:24 pm:

    it is amazing!!!
    i like ony few tattoes, but this is really cool!

  26. Amy on February 13th, 2009 at 3:33 pm:

    So they’re getting a visit when I go back home. That’s some amazing detail.

  27. Tiny on February 13th, 2009 at 5:12 pm:

    I see no swastikas?

  28. Tiny on February 13th, 2009 at 5:13 pm:

    oh, I see. had to really struggle to find them, looks like plus signs!

  29. Hereic138 on February 13th, 2009 at 9:27 pm:

    absolutely wonderful work!!

    i only see “plus signs” here, hehehe…

  30. BME: Tattoo, Piercing and Body Modification News » ModBlog » This Week in BME on February 14th, 2009 at 3:56 pm:

    [...] - Samurai + serpent + swastikas = one hell of a back-piece. [...]

  31. Bama_Boy on February 20th, 2009 at 3:13 pm:

    fucking incredible

  32. Pi Pyo Pi on February 23rd, 2009 at 8:00 pm:

    This is amazing

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