The commitment required for large scale tattoo work is certainly commendable — the amount of time it takes along with the pain and cost over multiple sessions makes the completed piece not only a triumph of art, but also a triumph over various hurdles along the way.  A full sleeve project is one of these large scale projects and is one of the most visible you can get — making it important to get the right artwork from the right artist!

That’s the case in this fantastic sleeve featuring all different sorts of World War II fighter and bomber aircraft.  You can see famous planes like the P-51 Mustang, B-17 Flying Fortress, P-47 Thunderbolt, and SBD Dauntless here.

The awesome sleeve was created by artist Jason Leisge of Oddball Studios in Portland, OR.

For a larger shot, click on the link below or the image above.

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We’re always on the lookout for the elusive spacecraft tattoo for Space Saturday but seem to have trouble finding appropriate tattoos to feature. We’ve seen a few tattoos of the Space Shuttle, but nothing from Apollo, Gemini, or Mercury — anyone?

Luckily we were fortunate to find this fantastic tattoo of the Space Shuttle this week and thought the colorful execution and depiction of light was nothing short of spectacular. Credit goes to artist Josh Woods of Black 13 Tattoo in Nashville, TN.

Please click on the link below or the image above for a larger image!

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Today we’re glad to feature one of the worlds most adored and beloved airplanes — the Douglas DC-3.  Also known as the C-47 Skytrain and the “Gooney Bird”, the rugged DC-3 was one of the first successful passenger airliners as well as a popular transport and paratroop aircraft during World War II.  This particular tattoo shows a DC-3 as a C-47 with a bit of WWII-vintage nose art adorning the ample forward fuselage.

The colorful tattoo along with the propeller and wings was created by artist Shawn Willmorth at The Hive Tattoo & Piercing in Moses Lake, WA.

See a larger shot of the tattoo by clicking on the link below or the image above.

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The aircraft designs of the 1930’s are considered to be some of the most classic and attractive aircraft ever produced in the 100 years of powered flight. Manufacturers and models like Waco, Boeing, Travel Air, and Fairchild provided the basis for the American sport flying community.  Pictured here is a unique tattoo featuring a Fairchild 22 C7B parasol-wing sport plane.  First flown in 1931, the 22 was a two-person sportplane powered, in the C7B version, by a 125 hp Menasco C-4 inline engine.

This highly detailed and fantastic tattoo was created by Jeffery Tarinelli at Oddball Studios in Portland, OR.  Oddball Studios has quite a few aviation tattoos in their portfolio, so we’ll be seeing more from them over the coming weeks!

Click on the link below or the image above for a larger version of the photo.

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One of the challenges of tattooing aircraft is the fact that airplanes are composed of straight lines and the human body is inherently curved. On top of that, when taking a photo of the completed piece, it’s hard to capture the tattoo in two dimensions when it exists in three dimensions.

With those challenges in mind, this tattoo of a Royal Air Force North American B-25D Mitchell done in black and gray shows some amazing attention to detail. It was expertly executed by Mark Lazio of Ground Zero Tattoo in Riverside, CA.

Click on the link below or the image above to see a larger version.

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Harkening from the style of tattoo popularized during World War II, today we have a old school style tattoo featuring an aviatrix, a propeller, and an aircraft of the era (perhaps a Howard DGA or Lockheed Vega). 

The colorful tattoo was created by Sean O’Neill of The Tattoo Room in Simi Valley, CA.

Click on the image above or the link below for a larger version of the photo!

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Another quick P-51 Mustang tattoo for today — this time a colorful stylized head-on shot on the inner bicep created by John Montgomery of the Tattoo Syndicate in San Bernardino, CA

Click on the link below or the image above for a bigger shot of the tattoo.

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A colorful sleeve project for today that needed two photos to properly document. Yet again we can see that the North American P-51 Mustang continues to be one of the most popular aviation tattoo subjects out there. 

This particular tattoo project was created by Mark Lazio of Ground Zero Tattoo in Riverside, CA.

Please click on the link below to see a larger version of the photo and the second photo in the series. 

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We’ve been using Twitter for a few months through our editors account and it’s been a great way to promote the site - so we decided to get our own account for the site! 

Follow us at http://www.twitter.com/tattoosinflight

And if you follow us, we’ll follow you…

Finally!  I found a tattoo of my favorite plane — the Boeing Stearman PT-17 Kaydet.  The “Stearman” was usually the first plane a cadet got his hands on in flight training during WWII, and it made a great many pilots.  After the war many Stearmans saw service as crop dusters and sport planes and today many Stearmans are still flying as a reasonably priced warbird collectable!

This tattoo was beautifully done by Thomas Graham of Supergenius Tattoo in the Boeing birthplace, Seattle, WA.

Please click on the link below or the image above to see a larger image!

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