Dylan and Drew Wearing are twins on a tattoo journey. Six years on from their first inking, and having already spent £40,000 between them, they say they are still not done with the needle.
“We’re nowhere near finished,” said Dylan Wearing, who has tattoos on his face, back, torso, arms and legs. He said he and his brother were addicted to the ink and were, for a while, in competition with each other to see who could get the most.
The pair received their first tattoo when they were 18, but despite travelling the same inky road, and being identical siblings, their designs diverge.
“I used to try to keep up with him,” Drew Wearing said of his brother. “But over the years he’s gone ahead of me so I’ve let him get on with it now and given up on the chase.”
While the brothers, from Coventry, are proud of their tattoos, they have had to face verbal abuse in person and online for how they look. Dylan Wearing told BBC CWR: “We’ve been told to kill ourselves, it gets that serious.
“Mainly it’s on the internet [that] people say those extreme things because they can hide behind screens and say things they usually wouldn’t say to your face.”
His brother added the reaction did not “make me want to stop”.
He said: “It doesn’t put me off, I’m going to get more.”
The 24-year-olds’ journey began when they got their first tattoos for their 18th birthday with their dad. From there, the fascination grew although not everyone in their family was a fan.
“When we got them on our face, our mum said she could’ve cried,” Dylan Wearing said.
“I haven’t told her I plan on getting more tattoos, I’ll probably just walk in the door tomorrow with it, and she’ll probably have a go at me but she’ll get over it.”