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do tattoos change size?

 
r ransom
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Okay, it was a silly conversation.  

Someone said, just use your hand to judge how bit the thing is.  

And someone else piped up and said, just measure your hand and remember how big each knuckle is.

And the third person said "let's get tattoos on our hand with measurements on them, then we will always know how big 2.5cm is"  (because it's metric here, alas)

A silly conversation and I'm not much for the idea of getting a tattoo.  But it got me wondering.  Would it work?  Or do they change size and shape as people age?  Especially on the hand?  

Would one inch today be an inch and a quarter when I'm having a bloated day and three quarters of an inch of fridays?  

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Douglas Alpenstock
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Well I don't have tattoos, I have scars.

But it's worth considering that butterfly tattoos sort of turn back into caterpillars as time goes by. That's as far as I'll go.
 
Carla Burke
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They can and do change size & shape with the skin they are on, including hands. A scar near one can pull the skin and change the tattoo shape, too. And colors fade and loose their distinction. I often think I'd like to get a tiny 1 - 2 inch ruler on one finger on my left hand - then I look closer and see how badly twisted and bent with arthritis my fingers have become, in the last five years, and change my mind, pronto.

"The only thing...more expensive than education is ignorance."~Ben Franklin. "We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light." ~ Plato

 
Jill Dyer
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Something I've always wondered, but more in connection with body art.
Seems to me that what we are measuring on our bodies is the underlying bones, which aren't going to change, and the flesh on our hands is just that, very little subcutaneous fat. So once a measurement is established it shouldn't change much.   Tape measures are a relatively "new" invention, and measuring using various body parts has been used down the ages (e.g. the cubit, using the forearm)  I use hand measure all the time when I'm knitting and can't be bothered going to find the tape.
We need input from someone who is tattooed!

Life's too short, eat dessert first! [Source of quote unknown]
You have to be warped to weave [ditto!]

 
Douglas Alpenstock
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I vaguely recall some legal cases regarding deceased persons and their body art, and family complexities. Should the art be buried with them or preserved for posterity?

If you tattoo your hide with fine art, do you want it skinned and preserved and displayed in a gallery when you kick the proverbial bucket?
 
greg mosser
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ink spreads out over time in the skin, you definitely wouldn’t be able to clearly measure really small sizes (thinking tenths of a cm/ 1/4 inch or smaller) over longer terms, but the relative location doesn’t change except when the skin changes- either stretching, injury/illness, etc. i know a couple people who have measurements they use frequently tattooed on fingers or finger + hand. hands generally don’t change size much.
 
r ransom
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I learned new things.  Thank you.

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Jerry Btsmith
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r ransom wrote:Okay, it was a silly conversation.  

Someone said, just use your hand to judge how bit the thing is.  

And someone else piped up and said, just measure your hand and remember how big each knuckle is.

And the third person said "let's get tattoos on our hand with measurements on them, then we will always know how big 2.5cm is"  (because it's metric here, alas)

A silly conversation and I'm not much for the idea of getting a tattoo.  But it got me wondering.  Would it work?  Or do they change size and shape as people age?  Especially on the hand?  

Would one inch today be an inch and a quarter when I'm having a bloated day and three quarters of an inch of fridays?  



This made me laugh and feel oddly nostalgic, like the kind of silly brainstorming that happens when people are trying to solve a problem and accidentally drift into creativity. There’s something charming about how quickly a simple idea spirals into “let’s just tattoo measurements on our hands,” and I can already imagine how easy it would be to make memes out of that whole conversation. At the same time, it raises a genuinely curious thought about how unreliable our own bodies can be as measurement tools over time. Still, the humor in it definitely outweighs the practicality.
 
John F Dean
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If the body changes size, then the skin covering it changes size, and the tattoo on it would change size as well.

I learn from the mistakes of others who take my advice.

 
R Scott
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Adam Savage (of Mythbuster fame) did tattoo a ruler on his forearm and had a couple videos on it. And yes it does change over time. He used to sell temporary tattoo copies of it if you want to try it, or play a joke on your friends ;)

"You must be the change you want to see in the world." "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win." --Mahatma Gandhi
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Tereza Okava
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someone I "know" through friend-of-a-friend got one of these done. He is a professional craftsperson.
He talked about it on a video here (maybe around 3:30)
https://www.benuyeda.com/tattoo

It seems like an interesting idea but as far as I'm concerned you're still eyeballing-- no different from the 1-cm-ish pinky width or the 1-inch-ish terminal digit of the thumb, 10-cm 4-fingers-together, etc.  for eyeballing stuff it works fine, but I don't think anyone's doing finish carpentry with tattooed measurements....
regardless of whether the size changes, the lines are going to move every time you move your body (the tension on your skin changes the aspect of the tattoo).
Still, it did come out very cool looking.
 
Robert Ray
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depends
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[Thumbnail for giphy.gif]

Our inability to change everything should not stop us from changing what we can.

 
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