They come in all shapes and sizes. They decorate the biceps of sweaty motorcycle men. They remain hidden under the socks of high school rebels.
They're tattoos. And they're showing up everywhere, just ask the artists at two of Charlottesville's tattoo parlors: Acme Tattoo and Bigg Dawg Tattoo.
Today's tattoo and piercing clientele increasingly opt for their body art in compromising places, Acme Tattoo artist Mike Rennie said. But this lack of humility does not faze him.
"Working in this industry depreciates the value of nudity," Rennie said. "But don't get me wrong, seeing naked people is still cool."
Some of the risque new trends in body art include surgically implanted stud earrings, which make a design under the skin, and tattoos drawn on previously uncharted areas - unexplored at least by tattoo artists.
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"The weirdest place I've ever put a tattoo is on the inside of the leg, right where the butt meets the thigh," Rennie said with a grin that revealed the tattoo on the inside of his lip. "It was pretty awkward."
Tattoos increasingly occupy not only a diverse array of body parts, but an increasingly broad spectrum of people. And they are not just becoming more popular in these Charlottesville studios - they are breaking generation boundaries. The dark purple waiting room of Bigg Dawg recently hosted an entire family of virgin tattooees.
"This guy came in the other day with his mother and grandmother," Bigg Dawg owner Brian Simmers said. "The guy got a Leo symbol, his mom got a dolphin, and his grandmother got a yellow rose. It's getting more popular and accepted."
Simmers and his parents have owned and operated Bigg Dawg Tattoo since moving to Charlottesville from Richmond about eight months ago. A veteran artist of three years, Simmers gets most excited about the growing group of elderly tattoo connoisseurs.
"I like to see the older people come," Simmers said. "Most of the time, older people don't like tattoos. It's cool to see them come here."
Acme Tattoo cannot boast the same abundance of older clientele, but it too has a diverse assortment of customers.
"We get a lot of people we know and a lot of students," Acme Tattoo employee Tony Lechmanski said. "And a lot of cops too."
As diverse as the tattoo customers are, their response to the light-filled, turquoise waiting room of Acme Tattoo remarkably is similar. The walls, covered from top to bottom with different tattoo options, get the blood pumping.
"They act big and tough," said Lechmanski of customers who enter his store. "It is funny watching people trying to be intensely cool while we are just this bunch of dorks sitting behind the counter."
But it doesn't take long for the tough persona of the soon-to-be-tattooed customer to slough off. The gang at Acme particularly enjoys big men who can't handle little tattoos.
"The other day this guy was getting a tiny little tattoo but was acting like we were tattooing his eyeball or something," Lechmanski said. "It was hilarious."
But there's no question that getting a tattoo hurts. And nobody would know better than the tattoo-covered Bigg Dawg artist, Simmers.
"Of course it hurts," he said. "There are definitely spots that are a lot worse. The arms and the legs aren't bad, but the stomach and lower back are really intense."
From surgical implants to toes to inner lips, tattoos and piercings test people's pain thresholds to the limit.
And what has been the most popular design from this self-torture? Letters.
"Chinese writing is very popular," Simmers said. "The Zodiac signs are popular too."
The majority of today's tattoo patrons are interested in using their bodies to communicate everything from astrological signs to Old English.
"A lot of people get things written on them in Old English," Lechmanski said. "And a lot of people get this heart with my name in the middle," he joked.
But what if the worst does happen and a customer winds up with body art that he absolutely hates?
Every problem has a solution - for tattoo artists that solution is to use more ink.
"We can cover most tattoos with another design, but the new picture has to be a lot bigger and darker," Simmers said as he pulled out a photo album displaying before and after shots of a very successful mission to cover the name of an ex-girlfriend on a man's bicep.
And body art does not come cheap. Both tattoo parlors charge a minimum of $50 per hour with an average of $100 an hour. The cost is based on the design and the placement.
But that price covers not only the time and ink - it helps the artist make up for only having three or four customers a day and his unpaid time as an apprentice.
To become a tattoo artist, one must spend a certain amount of time doing an apprenticeship.
"The time depends on how fast you learn and the way you are being taught," Rennie said. "It also depends on the state; some require you to be an apprentice for a certain number of years."
The artists themselves are living, breathing advertisements for their services. Covered in images from snakes to skulls, Rennie uses his body to reflect things of significance to him.
"My tattoos are all important events or things that mean something to me," Rennie said.
While these artists consider their tattoos meaningful, not everyone who come in for body art has the same idea.
"By far U.Va. students get more trendy tattoos," Rennie said.
But the artist's creativity is in constant demand no matter what the design.
"If you don't give the artist a fairly large amount of freedom, the tattoo will not turn out nearly as well as it could," Lechmanski said. "They have an eye and a sense for what will turn out the best"
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