A dad in Alberta, Canada got a massive tattoo to match his son's birthmark after realizing the eight-year-old was self-conscious about it.
Derek Prue, Sr. spent more than 30 hours getting a scaled replication of his son's birthmark on his chest and ribs.
"I knew he was self-conscious about it," Prue told the CBC. "I saw how he was reacting, and it made me want to do it so that he wouldn't be the only one."
Eight-year-old Junior was allowed to see the final stages of the tattoo. And he was shocked by his father's decision to get a matching birthmark.
"I was happy and I was a little confused because I didn’t know that he was gonna do that," he said.
Prue Sr. told the CBC that he thought it would be a quick afternoon affair to get the piece done. He expected to be out in three hours but it took 10 times that.
"I remember the first time coming in, laying down and then after maybe three, four hours, I was like, 'Yeah, are we almost done?'" he said. "And Tony's like, 'Yeah, we're almost done [with] the outline.'"
Prue's tattoo artist Tony Gibbert noted that the birthmark replica was in a particularly painful area. The deep purple tattoo is over a lot of bones that are close to the surface.
"Pretty much everywhere he wants to get tattooed, is all just pain," he said with a laugh in a video from Reuters.
Take a look at the process and see the side-by-side of the finished tattoo up top.
