Hollywood actor Mark Wahlberg had four large tattoos, including this bizarre number – his initials, surname and date of birth emblazoned across his shoulder. Why he ever thought this was a good idea is beyond us, perhaps it was a by-product of his drug taking past.

These days, Mr Wahlberg is a family man and has decided to ditch all of his tattoos, having them removed with laser treatment, we’re not sure if he’s using the same clinic as Megan Fox. Having been told he’d need 8-10 treatments to remove his tattoos, but has had over 30 so far and some remains are still hanging on. He describes the treatments as like being splashed with hot bacon fat and much more painful than having the tattoo applied.

Take this as a warning – if while removal techniques do exist and are the best they’ve ever been, they do hurt and can take much longer than even experts predict. Also bear in mind Mr Wahlberg can afford the very best in removal treatment, so his may be quicker than yours would be for the same size tattoo.

The main thought that appeared in our mind when seeing the tattoo across Steve-O’s back was… Why? Why on earth would you have a portrait of yourself tattooed on your own back?

We can only think it was an interaction between Mr O’s ego and psychological problems, caused by drug use.

Mr O has a large number of tattoos, mainly smaller ones. Should he ever decide to get them removed, we think he could be stuck with this back one. It’s huge, so probably best just left in place. Hopefully his future self will be happy to live with the design.

Of all the dodgy celebrity tattoos that we’ve seen, this wins for sheer, unbelievable ego. We’re still hoping it will be revealed as a big prank on the media.

Mr Rodman is an ex-basketball star and either has a great sense of humour, or is having a long public battle with mental illness, depending on who you listen to. He has a large number of tattoos, but the one we’re focussed on here is the large winged lady with… shaft… covering most of his back.

There’s too much wrong here to list everything: the porn-star fashion, the style of the wings? Horns? Not fitting the style of the model. The previously mentioned… shaft. About the best thing you can say about this one is, he doesn’t have to look at it in the mirror!

As a design, it’s kind of fine – flowery wings? Could be tasteful. But on a butt? That’s what you really want to see when you see wings, either a strip of cloth separating them, or worse… nothing separating them. Really, if you’re going to go for this sort of tattoo design, at least be sensible and have them on your back.

Ms Fox had the tattoo of Marilyn’s face applied to her arm when she was eighteen and now, seven years later, has decided it attracts ‘negative energy’ as Marilyn allegedly suffered from bi-polar disorder (AKA manic depression.)

Ms Fox has had at least two sessions of laser removal and the face is noticeably lighter, but unfortunately far from completely removed. Reportedly, Ms Fox has not been enjoying the laser removal, claiming it hurts much more than receiving the tattoo did.

Please, if you’re eighteen and thinking of getting your first tattoo, don’t make the mistake Megan Fox did. Think long and hard about the design, perhaps get a temporary design first as a test, and think about where it is on your body and what you’ll do about it if you decide you don’t like it in the future.

First up is Tommy Lee.

It’s difficult to know where to start with Mr Lee. He’s pretty much a walking example of why you shouldn’t decorate your body without a solid plan. Independently, some of the pieces of art are beautiful, but they’re rubbing up against things like “Mayhem” scrawled across his torso, and scrollwork across his back. Together, they look like a hotch-potch, and are so extensive nothing is ever going to be able to fix it.

If you must get yourself tattooed, and know you’ll want a lot of them, please: think ahead. Try to rein in your enthusiasm and plan for how you’ll look when everything is done, don’t just pull willy-nilly from the catalogue.

Many, many people did. He now has a thriving gallery of submissions, and has woven the best images and stories in to a new book, Science Ink: Tattoos of the Science Obsessed.

If you’re interested in the human stories behind tattoos, we strongly recommend having a look through the gallery and clicking some of the images to see the story written up about them. The love some of the scientists and geeks have for their favourite subjects is inspirational.

We’ve got a range of flag temporary tattoos which are perfect for showing your allegiance for an event, but let you clean it off before getting back to work the next day.

As well as English flag tattoos, we’ve got ones for various European countries and Brazil. Usually people want them for football matches, and you can certainly double up on your order and use them for Euro 2012 as well.

Euro 2012 is on from 8th June to 1st July, and the Olympics starts on 27th July, so any tattoos you don’t use during the cup battle – and lets face it, we might not be in there for long – you can use during the Olympics instead. If we do get through to the cup final and you slather yourself in your remaining temporary designs (do send us some pictures!) you’ll have plenty of time to get some more before the Olympics opening ceremony.

So, here are the winners announced at the convention, and receiving some of the amazing Eaton Nott designed awards we mentioned earlier.

SATURDAY
Small Black and Grey
Jamie by Eric Marcinizyn, Trademark Tattoo (Germany)

Large Black and Grey
Larry by Carlos Torres, Timeline Gallery (USA)

Small Colour
Nicky by Hazel Nicholls, Design for Life

Large Colour
Julie by Jay Parker, Skin Illustrations

Best Of Day
Nathan by Miss Arianna, Skinwear (Italy)

SUNDAY
Small Black and Grey
Santosh by Mohan Gurung, Mohan’s Tattoo Inn (Napal)

Large Black and Grey
Kirstin by Neil Bass, tattoo FX

Small Colour
Jack by Alex Willot, La Main Blue (France)

Large Colour
Ken by Noi Siamese, 1969 tattoo (Norway)

Best of Day
Darren by Eric Marcinizyn, Trademark Tattoo (Germany)

You can see some pictures of the convention on Flickr.

It looks like some excellent work was shown. If you’ve got better links for any of the above people and companies, let us know in the comments and we’ll re-jig what we’ve got.

Eaton Nott, a Brighton design boutique specialising in the bizarre, were commissioned to create a series of unusual awards. They did a marvellous job and the awards are both grotesque and beautiful. Click through to their Facebook gallery to see all of the designs.

There are a wide range of tattoo removal techniques, and given that Ms Osbourne can afford to visit the very best of clinics we’re sure she’ll be having laser treatment from expert professionals. Even so, there’s a chance she won’t be able to remove the tattoos completely and may end up with scarring where they are. Here’s hoping that doesn’t happen and she gets the results she wants.

Queried by fans about why she wanted to get rid of some of her tattoos, she replied “would you want tinkerbell above your ass crack? As of right now I’m only getting rid of 2 stupid ones!”

To prevent tattoo regret, we strongly recommend a “try before you etch” policy – use some temporary designs to see what a tattoo will look like on you for a while before getting something you might want to remove later. It doesn’t mean your taste won’t change in the future, it’s just to help you be sure about your decision and not get a design you know you’ll feel stuck with.

Police in Bahia have noticed almost 70 people in their small town are now branded with the word ‘Freudenthal’, an unique word in Brazilian which they have tracked back to Mario Freudenthal, who is wanted in relation to drug trafficking. The word has also been found on the bodies of dead people believed to be drug addicts.

Lt. Jose Mello thinks the suspect must be an “egotistical psychotic” for wanting the tattoos applied. One wonders if it’s an extension of the tagging graffiti artists have long used to try to claim territory from each other.

It’s fair to say the Freudenthal is not a tattoo design we’re expecting to stock, and hopefully the Brazilian police will soon bring the mad scheme to a halt.

Tina’s original auction, now set to bring in more than NZ$12,000, will be split so 20% of the money goes to the winner’s choice of charity, who will also receive a photo of Tina’s derrière after their chosen design has been inked in to it. The auction finishes tomorrow on 20th Jan at 5pm (New Zealand time) if you want to get a bid in.

The coverage of Tina’s auction has inspired a spate of others to join in, most of them at least in part for a good cause. You can have your choice of tattoos put on a husband & wife’s thighs, with 60% going to either cancer or epilepsy charities, one on a man’s throat with 20% going to a Women’s Refuge, and a man who is offering his whole bottom and his back in separate auctions to help pay for his child’s cancer treatment.

We wish all the auctioneers the best with their fundraising efforts, and hope they’re happy with the designs they get.

You can order a few packs from us and make sure you’re completely happy with the placement, type of tattoo, and the reaction from other people (if it’s normally visible), before getting yourself a permanent one. We have thousands of tattoo designs, so there’s bound to be something you like to try out.

We hope you’re having a good day and if you’re reading this while a little sozzled, it’s much better to decide to get one of our tattoos than a permanent one, with ours you can always change your mind when you sober up. Plus, how many permanent tattoos can you get delivered to your door? Not a lot!