After a family crisis, 47-year-old Don McClintock of Christchurch, New Zealand – a man who “never liked tattoos” – had the names of his kids tattooed on his neck. Then, in an attempt to change his family’s luck, into his skin went an indelible Lady Luck. Now, seven years later, the only areas of McClintock’s body not covered in Down Under Tattoo artist Steve Johnson’s work are his face, the backs of his feet and some small areas of his inner thighs.
Unsurprisingly McClintock has lost track of just how many tattoos he has, how many hours he’s spent under the needle or how much it has cost him over the years, though he estimates his full-suit’s total price tag to be between sixty- and seventy-thousand dollars.
McClintock’s expensive suit began to pay itself off on November 2nd when McClintock took home a $1000 prize for best overall tattoo at the Lower Hutt Charity Tattoo Show in – you guessed it – Lower Hutt, Wellington, New Zealand. The annual charity event is a combination tattoo/motorcycle/leather/family circus expo (if you can imagine such a thing) that raises money for the Life Education Trust – a charitable organization aimed at providing the children of NZ with “healthbased education” and the “knowledge and skills to raise their awareness to live a fulfilling and healthy life.”
McClintock may be running out of tattooable canvas but will be able to live vicariously through his family, which has begun to follow in his inky footsteps despite having originally found his tattoo obsession strange.
“My family has started to get them now too,” McClintock told the New Zealand press. “I’ve definitely started a craze with them.”