Marzia Bisognin
Marzia Bisognin got this cartoon-style portrait of author Banana Yoshimoto tattooed on her arm in July 2016. She commissioned illustrator Anke Weckmann to create the drawing and then had it tattooed by Katja Graaf at Velvet Tattoo in Brighton UK. She wanted the design to be an artistic interpretation rather than a literal portrait. On her YouTube channel she explained:
I asked an amazing illustrator and artist that I follow on Twitter to make a design for me…I don’t know if you can tell who it’s supposed to be because I told her to keep it not too exactly alike to the person that I’m tattooing. But I think she did a great job and I’m very excited about it.
Marzia deliberated a lot where to put this tattoo and hadn’t finalized her decision until the day that she got it. She chose her right arm so that she could have a different theme for each arm. Her left side has tattoos that describe her personality and her right side has her inspirations.
This arm [points to her left arm] — I didn’t want to add to it because all these tattoos are personal to me; they have a meaning related to the way I am. But instead, the tattoo I have back here [showing her right arm] is for my parents. They’re an inspiration for me. And since I’m getting Banana Yoshimoto, which is a huge inspiration to me as well, I thought maybe in the front here.