Greetings Of Death

"It has been appointed once for a man to die, but after this the judgment.
Once the appointment has been made, nothing can be done to change it.
No need to be afraid of the Greetings Of Death...."

So goes the lyrics of one of the best speed metal songs ever made, by one of the best speed metal bands ever...Deliverance.  That is until they started to get all artsy and slow.  Imagine if Slayer circa "Reign in Blood" started playing Creed songs.  They used to be good (R.I.P.)

Summer 1990 - This was my first tattoo.  I was an 18 year old Marine and stationed at Shepard Air Force Base in Wichita Falls, TX.  I checked out a couple local studios, and decided to go with some studio outside the front gate of the base.  I think the name of the studio was "Different Drummer" or something like that.  Not being too knowledgeable in aspects of tattooing, I just thought that I pick a design off the wall, and they'll put it on me.  Well, that's exactly what happened.  I picked a "Grim Reaper" from a sheet of flash and said I wanted "Greetings Of Death" below it.  No problem.  He took down the sheet of flash, traced the reaper, tattooed it on, and that was it.  I was happy.  It was a standard first tattoo.  By the way, the original tattoo was only the portion above the "Greetings Of Death", and not the bottom part....which I had added a few years later.

Spring 1994 - I decided to add to the original design, and had a general idea of how I wanted it to look.  Originally, there was no scroll around the text, so I had that added in.  I also had the staff of the scythe turn into a serpent, wrap around the rest of the design, "go into the skin", and exit a mouth.  If you look close, there's a couple subliminal faces.  Did some touch up work on the original tattoo so that the overall design looks like it was one piece, and not two separate sessions.  Made the lettering a little bolder as well.  I'm quite please with the final result

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