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Got an itch for ink, but no ideas? Find one online

It happens like clockwork every payday weekend — the tattoo parlors in military towns fill up with troops who have a few hundred dollars in their pocket and the itch for new ink.

The one thing many of them are missing? An idea of what they want as their next tattoo.

Trouble is, the selection isn’t always so hot at the local tattoo shop. With four walls and a few ratty binders’ worth of tattoo flash to choose from, there’s always the risk that you might end up with artwork that many others before you have already had inked on their bodies.

So unless you’ve got a budding artist in your barracks who you can bribe with a few cold ones to whip up a custom design for you on demand, a quick Web search could make all the difference between ending up with something standard or something truly epic.

Two of the best sources online for tattoo designs are TattooJohnny.com and TattooFinder.com, which sell tattoo designs, typically for prices under $20.

On Tattoofinder.com, for example, you can either search for specific designs, or browse nearly 100 categories, ranging from angels and armbands to warriors and wolves. In the “military tattoos” category alone, there were 104 options, from old-school “Death Before Dishonor” daggers ($12.95) to a “tribal missile” ($13.95) perfect for the ink-addicted aviation ordnanceman.

Tattoofinder.com is a division of Flash2xs.com, a company that sells tattoo flash sets to tattoo parlors — so when you buy a piece of art from Tattoofinder.com, you’re getting the same type of design that you’d find on the wall at a tattoo shop. The difference is you’ve got more than 14,000 to choose from.

You can browse by tattoo category on TattooJohnny.com as well, but that site also lets you search for a particular artist from more than 100 if you’re a fan of a particular person’s work. A search for military tattoos on TattooJohnny.com yielded 208 designs, among them a version of the Air Force logo ($13.86), the classic Marine drill instructor bulldog ($12.77), and a tribal that incorporates the yellow ribbon ($13.86).

Many Web sites offer drawings and photographs of tattoos, but Tattoofinder.com and TattooJohnny.com also provide line-drawing stencils for the tattoo artist to use. The drawing tells the tattoo artist what your ink should look like, and the stencil ensures that the artist accurately translates it onto your skin.

Rob Colenso Jr., Lifelines editor for Military Times, has 10 tattoos and can’t decide which idea will become No. 11. Send him an e-mail to show off your latest ink.

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