While some Star Wars fans like to relive their favorite film moments by collecting comics or displaying action figures, other fans express their love for the saga with a bit more permanence. At this year's first Star Wars Tattoo Contest and Art Show at Celebration III, fans inked with everything from a full back tattoo of the Millennium Falcon to the a subtle ankle tattoo of Clone Wars Cartoon Yoda, mingled and waited patiently to see who could impress the judges and crowd with the best designs.

The contest's organizer, Star Wars fan and tattoo aficionado Shane Turgeon, understands all too well why fans feel the need to go under the needle to pay tribute to their favorite Jedi or Sith. Out of his own love for Star Wars tattoos, he created the site Tattoosandtoys.com so inked fans everywhere could showcase their elaborate skin art.

"I basically started the site after I got my first Star Wars tattoo because I found there really wasn't a place where tattooed Star Wars fans could show off their work," Turgeon remembers. "I knew from seeing articles in magazines and the odd web posting that there were a number of other inked fans out there so I decided to set out and create a place where everything was under one roof, and where people could come and interact with each other."

Since then, Turgeon's site features over 400 photos of Star Wars tattoo designs and the list keeps growing thanks to tattooing events like these.

"I attended Celebration II back in 2002, just after I'd first launched the site," Turgeon says. "Of course, those of us who had Star Wars ink seemed to find instant kinship but what amazed me was the reaction from the non-tattooed fans. People loved seeing the tattoos and those who had their tattoos showing were being stopped every five feet! Since then my site has garnered a lot of attention and I thought that putting on a tattoo event at C3 would be a great place for the tattooed fans to interact with one another and that the competition would be the perfect way to respect the time, energy and effort that goes into each one."

	Hilary Gillespie's tattoo art

The contestants were judged on a scale of 1 to 10 in three areas: First Impression, Creativity and Technical. Turgeon, Chicago's Deluxe Tattoo skin art artist Hannah Aitchison, actor Alan Ruscoe (Plo Koon) and Star Wars Conceptual Artists and Sculptors Robert Barnes and Mike Murnane judged the event.

As the contestants lined up for each category, it became rather apparent to the audience that female fans were just as much covered in their favorite Star Wars scenes as the men.

"The appeal of Star Wars tattoos really is universal," Turgeon says. "People automatically assume that it's mostly a male-dominated area of fandom but I would say that easily 35% of the tattoos I've seen are from females."

In fact, one female fan -- Graphic Designer Hilary Gillespie, from Toronto, Ontario, Canada -- almost stole the show when she won first prize for the Large Color competition with her "Evolution of the Stormtrooper" sleeve, inked by tattoo artist Shane Faulkner of King of Fools Tattoo in Toronto with additional designs from tattoo artist Eric Negron of Sun Devil in New York City.

"Star Wars being so central in pop culture and recognizable all over the world makes it really easy for strangers to relate to the images depicted in your art and I think they're kind of just fun tattoos to have," Gillespie says. "They remind a lot of people of their childhood and of vintage toys long lost. It's sort of like having a really, really rare collectible that makes you part of a super exclusive club."