'It's beautiful, it's empowering': Favourite tattoos and the stories behind them

Tattoo lovers and artists gathered in Regina this weekend for the 15th annual Pile O' Bones Tattoo Convention. 

"Regina has a really strong tattoo community and we just try to show it off to the rest of the province and the rest of Canada," organizer Richard Bandet.

The event attracts artists from across the country, he said. 

"There's definitely an energy, you know, hearing the tattoo machines working and just the atmosphere of all the people that are excited to see each other," Bandet said. "It's really energizing." 

"When I was a kid I was obsessed with dinosaurs," Samantha Ponto said while showing her fossil tattoo. "I still am. My poppa got me into dinosaurs because I was raised by my grandparents."

For Ponto, the tattoo is a reminder of her childhood and searching at Buffalo Pound with her Poppa.

"My favourite part of my childhood was always looking for fossils with him."

Carter Couzens was in a chair for a while at the convention as he had a piece worked on for around six hours.

"Each of the flowers represents a woman in my life. So my mom, mother-in-law, wife and this tiger woman headdress thing is kind of like a continuation of that," he said. "And it's basically just...I don't know, a symbol of the strong women in my life."

Jared Gottselig said his favourite tattoo is the one he got done on March 16 that are 'nerd tattoos.'

"I'm getting Pokemon themed tattoos on my forearm. I'm going to be getting the Pokeball and the first gym badges as kind of a game that I grew up with and just got a lot of childhood memories from it," Gotsling said as he headed in to go under the needle.

Marissa Young's favourite tattoo is two flowers coloured in the birthstone colours of her two children.

"I didn't want to get the generic like the kids names and the birthday and everything. So I was like 'Can you just put their birthstone colours in the flowers?' So once the blue it's closest to Sapphire and then the other ones Ruby for my son," she said. "I love it."

"My kids love it. Zoe, she's five," she laughed. "She wants a tattoo but you're five kid, so no."

Mina von Staden Hodges was being tattooed for around nine hours at the convention. She said the concept took months to come to pass.

"I've always loved mermaids, sirens, anything really mythical. But I also wanted something that I thought was really powerful not only in regards to female stereotypes but something that allowed women to take back their power," she said. "It's gothic, it's beautiful, it's empowering."

"My favourite tattoo is probably the praying mantis on my arm. I got him really just because I have a huge interest in insects and they're just so cute," Britt Melland said.

"I think their faces, I think they're very cute. I like their mating ritual that....like, the male insect will sacrifice itself for its children. I think that's really cute."