Found it!

A little while back I wrote about what my next tattoo would be and I believe I have now come to a decision.  I want a galaxy and whirlpool combined.  Most of my tattoo ideas have been of combining two things that are important to me or that really interest me.  And well I was on the track of science a few weeks ago and this fits the bill.  My fascination with the ocean and space.

As I was searching for some images to use as reference I knew I was looking for a spiral galaxy of some sort.  In order to incorporate the whirlpool it would only make sense.  So I'm looking through the Hubble site for inspiration and I stumble across a galaxy known as M51 or the "Whirpool" galaxy.  I just about stopped dead in my tracks.  Here I am looking for something to mix with a whirlpool and the galaxy that catches my eye goes by the same name!  It was definitely one of those "fate" moments.  Or whatever you want to call it.  These things came together in a way that just made sense.

So I guess I should share what I've found:

There are other images of the Whirlpool Galaxy but the colours in this particular one really appeal to me.  Once I decided on combining the two elements I knew I wanted to have reds and/or blues in the galaxy.  After all, it is a bit hard to represent star light in a tattoo so the surrounding colours need to be bright, yet galaxy like.  The whirlpool is the easy part and I'm sure if I put some effort into it I could draw one myself.  I do like the colours in the picture I found and I'm inclined to see what Japanese style with the water might look like.

Needless to say I'm incredibly excited that I figured this out as it puts to rest something that I have been thinking about... a lot.  Now I just have to sort out how big it needs to be so I know where it can go.