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Artist offers airbrush tattoos as a nice pick-me-up for children in hospital

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[Benjamin Lloyd airbrushes temporary tattoos onto New Zealand children / Facebook]

Artist Benjamin Lloyd has been tattooing kids for a few years. But don’t worry, the New Zealand airbrushing expert uses a water-based Indian ink that comes off in the shower.

Lloyd specializes in body painting and other washable art forms and his designs have always been a hit with kids.

Watching their faces light up at the sight of their new ink recently gave Lloyd an idea: why not use his skills to give a much needed confidence boost to some kids that really needed it?

He took to Facebook on May 22 with a proposition: if 50 people liked his post, he would head down to Starship Children’s Health, Auckland’s major children’s hospital, and give a tattoo to everyone who wanted one, saying:

“Nothing brings me more joy than boosting a kids confidence with a custom tattoo. 50 likes and ill go to starship hospital and tat all the kids up.”

With 24 hours, Lloyd’s offer had gotten not just 50 likes, but hundreds of thousands, and today his post has garnered some 425,000 reactions.

The offer is making him famous in New Zealand. And on a recent news segment, Lloyd revealed the sudden death of his step-son, Lincoln was a major motivation. Fighting tears, he said Lincoln was the first child he tattooed, but sadly died two years ago.

Now, Lloyd is taken that tragedy and turning it into something positive — the chance to brighten the day of a sick child.