We love this!
An airbrushing artist is putting his amazing skills to use for a wonderful reason – ‘tattooing’ children in a local hospital to raise their spirits.
Benjamin Lloyd, from New Zealand, put a call out on his Facebook page: 50 likes for his post and he would tattoo the children in in Auckland’s Starship Children’s Hospital.
“Nothing brings me more joy than boosting a kid’s confidence with a custom tattoo,” he said in the post. “50 likes and I’ll go to Starship hospital and tat all the kids up. It’s airbrushed on (not permanent) peace.”
But Benjamin didn’t get 50 likes – not even close. He got over 40,000.
“Oh it just illuminates their faces, you’re blown away,” he explained to One News Now.
“It made me realise how much it makes kids happy and boosts their confidence, so I first said 50 likes and I’ll do it. I went to sleep and I was blown away by the reaction in the morning.”
Sadly Benjamin’s motivation came from a tragic place. Airbrushing tattoos was something he shared with his stepson Lincoln, who sadly passed away two years ago – now commenters are praising him for turning his pain into something positive and loving.
“My son’s at Starship we are just in between cycles he has cancer, we will be back on the 14th of June I hope u will be up around then will be awesome for him to get this done,” said one commenter.
While another saw the value in what Benjamin was doing: “Would love for you to come and visit/work your magic on our Heart Kids NZ at one of our family events. They wear their scars with such pride I am sure your tattoos would look amazing on them and def bring smiles all round.”
“Ok normally I don’t post on stuff like this,” said another, “but as childhood cancer survivor I must say the day an airbrush artist came in to do face paints I begged for a tattoo on my head. My bare naked head!! Cuz I had no hair?!! It was the coolest thing ever!!! Everybody thought I was the coolest kid on the floor cuz I had a skull on my noggin!!! Along with unicorns and butterflies but still!! So all you haters need to f*** off?!! Being a kid and getting airbrushed was the best day of my life!!! Going thru chemo and radiation is shi**y and sucks!!! Let the kids have some damn fun!!”
Benjamin is now set to honour his pledge and bring a little rock and roll to the patients at Starship Hopsital with safe, water-based Indian ink.
We bet they can’t wait!
