Help me with this tattoo concept...many ideas in one piece?

elements im considering:

elephant
italian flag or other symbol
a symbol of youth (i love the story of peter pan, but dont wanna use disneys likeness of him in the tat...need other suggestions)
the color green
'om mani padme hum' symbols (buddhism)
a quote/song lyric lining top or bottom of piece
also i love travel, the idea of wanderlust, planes, kerouac

the tat will be on my lower back, from hip to hip, maybe 5 inches tall. id like ideas on what to keep, get rid of, add. also how to layout the design

 

way too many ideas to go into such a small piece... sounds like a great idea for a sleeve though. arm or leg... just my opinion though.

 

top-down the tattoo could be contained within an image of sky and planes or a plane, which would have dimension / proportion to it rather than being flat and unrealistic (i'm referring to land here, but i'll get to the plane plane too), the planes could have whatever plants you so desire, and that could be your green

background could be sunrise or sunset, perhaps with silhouetted hills or mountains beneath it, as well as a silhouetted plane flying somewhere in front of the sun / sunlight

elephant could be situated mid-rightish, facing bottom-leftish with the italian flagged draped over the visible side with a happy and youthful kerouac riding it, and the elephant could have buddhist symbol either blended or whatever vertically on its front-left leg and stepping over a small animal like a rodent of some sort (that symbol means compassion, right?)

OR the elephant could be stepping over the symbol itself with its front-left foot and the symbol could be blended or formed from small stones or something else that's discreet, in the ground / grass or what have you, pivoted similarly to elephant's stance, so from top-left to bottom right... ultimately however you'd want

not sure on the quote / lyric (might find something later), but it could simply be used to tighten up the whole piece as a discreetly designed arc above it so as not to detract from the piece, or a straight line along the base of the piece

i tried to cover everything you had in mind (because it's what you had in mind and because i wanted a go at it), but from a practical standpoint i'm not sure if it could be put into the space you mentioned... i think it could, personally, 5 inches is pretty deep. i guess it just depends on who's doing it and their style

as far how it could look... the way i imagine it it would be cool, just like any other large piece with a lot of components... i see no reason why it should look bad....

oh, and i just wanted to add that i think the elephant would look better if it had a peaceful look to it, like with its head down a bit and its eyes kind of relaxed looking, rather than all excited... kind of depends on where the sun's at, i think... either way, just a thought

also, the right side of the piece / elephant would need to be counterbalanced by something on the left, maybe trees deep left extending from fore or mid to background and just to the right of that a stream that's just kind of doing its own thing, also extending to the background

anyway, hope that helped

 

I think that there's a few too many ideas there.. they seem more like separate pieces. If you're going for Om Mani Padme Hum in Tibetan script (like in my sig) then I personally think it'd look great as an armlet (or whatever those things that go round the upper arm are called).
As for the quote, make very sure it's one you think you'll always agree with! "live and let live" perhaps.

 

i think it would be cool to have the om mani padme hum tattoo in it but i think it deserves to be a seperate tattoo. i plan on getting it on the back of my neck for all to see. i already have the Buddhist swastika carved over my heart.

 

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