I decided that it was time to get an animal specific tattoo. After a lot of thought, I decided that Melvin Goat had the perfect mix of panache and uniqueness that I was looking for. While I trust my artist's abilities (Chris Chrome at Heart and Soul Tattoo in Yuba City), I have seen way too many portrait tattoos that struggle to capture the elements that define the subject so I wanted to steer clear of that since a non-perfect Melvin would be worse than no Melvin at all. For those who have never seen Melvin, he has a very distinctive strut. His whole body wiggles as he moves and this combined with his face gave me the idea of having a "Melvin Dragon". This was not without risk because of the fact that Melvin is a very hairy Angora goat. I was keenly aware that this could turn out looking like a character from "The Neverending Story" - the Luckdragon. The thought of having to explain that I was not a fan-boy for this movie for the rest of my life was not appealing.
As it turns out, when I introduced the concept and sent in the source pictures, my artist had the same worries.
As it turns out, I think he did a great job pulling it off and five and a half hours later, I am as lucky to have the tattoo I wanted as I am lucky to have Melvin as my friend.
