Adult appearance of tattoo done on a toddler; graphic design of forms 1970s-early 1980s

[lapillus]

I have a character who received a government tattoo (if it makes a difference something more along the line of concentration camp tattoos than either homemade/prison tattoo or an art one) on his inner forearm somewhere between the ages of 3 to 5 in the early 1980's in the US. I am wondering what it would look like now assuming there have been no

Comments

[quitereasonable]

maybe google youth gang tattoos? We used to get a lot of reports of very young gang members getting tattoos when I worked for the Texas Dept of Health.

[lapillus]

OOh that's an idea! Thanks! It's the huge age/size discrepancy that I'm having the hardest time finding.

[curtana]

I knew someone whose father tattooed a small red star (or was it a starfish? I forget) on her stomach when she was a little kid. By the time she was an adult, it had spread out to the point where it was basically like a collection of red dots and the original shape wasn't at all obvious. The arm might not stretch quite as much as the stomach area, but I still think it would be basically illegible by adulthood - I don't think it would stretch proportionally, but rather the inked spots would get further and further apart as new skin grows in between them, if that makes any sense. I am not a tattoo expert, though :)

[lapillus]

Thanks!

[red_day_dawning]

I have a birth-mark on my outer forearm, approx 1 inch square, made up of scattered golden brown freckles. It's been like since I can recall, but my older sister swears that it was once a solid birthmark, & that as I grew older & my skin grew/expanded it 'stretched' to become a speckled kind of mark. She claims she can recall trying to scrub it off my arm (thinking it was dirt) when I was around one year old. So it's possible a tattoo might also distort as it stretches, leaving it speckled rather than solid, with patches/spots of the natural skin colour interspersed with the ink.

[lapillus]

Interesting, thanks!

[dandelion]

You might actually want to look at pictures of the lip tattoos of Thoroughbred horses for an indication. They have to be tattooed before they enter their first race, so at about two years old for many horses (long before they've stopped growing), and since they can live to 25 or so, the wear and stretching might be similar. Not identical, given it's on a horse and it's not in the same place as your character's, but I think you may be able to get some idea from that.

[lapillus]

Oh, a very interesting idea and one I'd NEVER have come up with.

*off to more goggling*

[crazymule]

This might not work, however since the Thoroughbred is basically fully grown at one due to the intense breeding. their mouth isn't going to expand much more than when they got the tattoo.

[ataramos]

Though slightly morbid and I dont know if this would be similar at all, see if you can look up concentration camp tattoos. Many people who went into them during WWII weren't done growing yet, you might be able to find a 'then/now' picture of them that still bears the tattoo.

As for your second question, I seem to always kind of associate blocky letters with advertisements of the age, but that doesnt always apply to more official documents. I looked at my birth certificate, I was born in 1980, and it looks like the font is from the 60's. I unfortunately dont have a scanner so I couldn't scan it in for you. But it looks a lot like this one http://www.peterspioneers.com/marilynBC.jpg though from Wisconsin instead. So I guess the font is closer to 1940's. http://www.tngenes.net/deaths/dc/osbourne-edgar.pdf <-- death certificate from 1988, which is beyond what you want, but still

[lapillus]

I'd spent a couple of hours googling the concentration camp tattoos without much useful info (mostly, I couldn't find out how old they'd been when they got them).

HUGE thanks for the forms links and a great idea for birth/death certificates. I don't need that far back, the form itself is from somewhere in the 1980-1982 range and given how long forms tend to stay the same unless some new regulation changes what's needed on them I figured back to the 1790's wasn't a bad idea.

[aussielung]

You can make an educated guess on how old the survivors where when they where marked. Since the nazi's had a general rule that children under 12 and there mothers would be sent to the gas chamber then it would be safe to say there are not many people sporting the ID tats that received them at the age your character did. You obviously wont get a true indication of the effects of growth from infant to adult on the tattoo but as far as time's effect on the tat goes though this will give you a perfect indication of the state of your characters tattoo.