The Ice Cream Tattoo Quest was a lot of fun. I have no idea how many people showed up, since the whole entire first hour was a blur of stencils and rubbing-alcohol fumes — and the second hour was a blur of roll-on mustache glue and shiny red glitter.

Thanks to Toren and Justin for being my two-man stencil-application team, and Pat and Mary for cleaning up all the overspray with alcohol-soaked cotton balls. I’m writing an article for MAKE magazine on how to set up your own airbrush-tattoo rig, and I’ll be sure to list “find a funny, enthusiastic four-person team” as number one on the to-do list, just above “try not to blow yourself up with the nitrogen bottle.” Of course, if one of your team is also a certified SCUBA tankmaster, as Toren is, then you’re that much luckier.

Julie Gottesman, who did the photos for the Ultimate Water Gun Pontani Sisters shoot, came down to take pictures, and they are great. The one of Lexie, above, just slays me. But I stupidly neglected to pass out model releases, which means that I have a bunch more AWESOME photos that I shouldn’t post or use. If you were at the tattoo crawl, and especially if you remember arm-wrestling for Julie, won’t you please drop a comment? I’d love to use them!

Thanks to everyone that came out! I had a lot of fun, and can now write a magazine article on “how to be a local Tattoo Hero using parts from your basement welding shop” with a clear conscience.