This is the story of Mougee’s newest star: The Dragon Tattoo
by Dr. Mougee
It all started at dinner at my brother’s house. His twenty-something son came home, and I noticed a small, homemade tattoo on his lower bicep. It was a religious symbol (the specific symbol isn’t relevant), but let’s just say it represented a religion that neither he nor our family belongs to. His father was… not pleased.
Completely dumbfounded, I asked the obvious question: what the fuck?
He grinned and said he thought it would be funny. This wasn’t entirely shocking coming from this particular young man, but I still found myself at a loss for words.
After a lot of head-scratching, a few outbursts from other family members, and everyone collectively wondering what he had been thinking, I came up with a solution. I’ve always wanted a tattoo of my own artwork, but between my inability to decide on a design, a healthy fear of needles, and an outright aversion to seeing my own blood, I’d never actually gone through with it.
Then it hit me. A win-win.
I’d put a piece of my artwork—as a tattoo—on my nephew, covering up his less-than-successful joke. He agreed.
We tossed around ideas: dogs, tigers, the usual suspects, and eventually landed on one of my favorite things to draw—a dragon. I did some sketches, we went back and forth a bunch of times, and finally settled on a design we both liked.
Next stop: the tattoo parlor. A very capable tattoo artist took over, and seven hours later (it took awhile, the tattoo was big, and my nephew is even bigger), it was finished. It looked amazing. He loved it. I loved it.
There was just one small catch. The tattoo artist felt strongly that placing the dragon on the lower arm to cover the original symbol would be a mistake. It looked much better higher up on the arm. He was right, so we took his advice.
Naturally, we couldn’t wait to show the family. My brother took one look and said, “The fucking symbol is still there!”
Yes. There was that. But come on—didn’t the dragon look incredible?
Let’s just say our enthusiasm for the finished piece was not universally shared. Still, it was awesome.
A couple of months later, I was trying to come up with a fun design for the next Mougee Star, and it hit me.
The Dragon Tattoo.
And that’s how it came to be.
