Sam’s Okami Tattoo

Sam “Anuvia” Olson sent in her Okami tattoo. I’ll let her explain:

I’ve always been a gamer gal since the first time I could even pick up a controller and ever since I’d always had dreamed of becoming a concept artist. The idea of seeing something I’d designed or helped bring to life being translated into a playable medium was something that always kept my going through my artistic development.

Around 2006/07 I began to be disinterested in idea of a career in gaming due to the fact that the gaming industry had officially been dominated by First Person Shooters and it seemed like the age of the platformer had official come to an end. That’s not to say I don’t enjoy a good FPS (Put me on COD:5 and you’re goin’ down ;D) but it all just seemed like the world of gaming had been transformed into slight variations of the same thing.

Then, one day I happened across a game featuring a white wolf in which you played as a god…at first I thought it would be one of those poorly translated second string japanese games but I decided to give it a shot anyways, as the idea of painting seemed to neat to pass up. I watched the opening cutscene and fell in love. The style of the game and the remarkable visuals not only stunned me, but they actually renewed my faith in both the industry and also in myself as an artist. Okami was the game that dragged me out of my “dark place”, so to speak, and helped me find myself once again. Now that I’ve found a refreshing take on the modern video game that was not only fun to play, but visually captivating, I feel that I must move forward to find my place in the sun ;D (pun intended)

The tattoo was designed by Melita Curphy and the actual tattooing was done by Nate of First Amendment Tattoo.