If you’re Maya Hofacker, it’s easy to spot and catch Pokémon—the little creatures call her arm and leg home. They’re part of colorful and bold sleeves that showcase some of Maya’s favorite Pokémon in an artistic way. She told Nerdist Pokémon has always been her special thing. She recently went through some saved drawings from childhood and at least ninety percent of them were of Pokémon. “Pokémon was always my favorite. It was and always will be a part of me,” she said.
Maya’s arm sleeve was inked by Mark Stewart. She went for a specific style. She explained, “I wanted the sleeve to be bold and recognizable, but in the traditional Japanese style as well. Like if you weren’t into Pokémon, you would just think it’s a normal koi fish and dragon.”
The arm sleeve took about 12 hours to complete spread over four sessions. The thigh tattoo, inked by Cat at Dark Moth Tattoo Collective, took a bit longer. For that, Maya picked her favorite Pokémon cards. You can spot Pikachu, Bulbasaur, Warturtle, and more. You’ll spot shiny Pokémon in both tattoos because Maya has special memories of them: “Shiny Pokémon were a huge deal for me to find in the games. My very first shiny used Self-Destruct before I could catch it, and I never forgot that! ”
Visit the gallery below to see more views of Maya’s awesome Pokémon ink.
If you have nerdy ink on your skin or you’re a tattoo artist that applies pop culture, STEM, music, or other nerd-inspired ink (tl;dr: I want to see basically all of the tattoos) on a regular basis, then please hit me up because I’d like to highlight you in a future Inked Wednesday gallery. I’m especially interested if you have a sleeve or other large tattoo. You can get in touch with me via email at [email protected]. Send me photos of the tattoos you’d like me to feature (the higher resolution, the better) and don’t forget to let me know the name of your tattoo artist if you have it, as well the name of the shop he or she works out of. If you are the tattoo artist, give me links to your portfolios and/or Instagram accounts so I can share them with our readers.
Images: Maya Hofacker
