
They (My tattoos) all have a meaning… but we all need secrets 😉
Alex O’Loughlin
– TV.com Live Chat, 1 October 2009
The Cover-Ups and Hidden Treasures:
There is some added confusion from the fact that for some of Alex’s roles some or all of his tattoos are covered up, sometimes with better end results. Let´s start with his present day role:
Steve McGarrett, in Hawaii Five-0
Navy SEAL, turned Special Unit Cop. For this role only the bicep tattoos are allowed to be untouched. Whenever any of the other tattoos are visible they are covered up. Either badly with very orange make-up or it is digitally removed in editing.

But then there are some ‘hidden treasures’. The quest of finding them has become many a fan girls’ priority. It is those brief glimpses of his lower back tattoo that we as viewers are not supposed to see.
To catch these rare moments, make some fans squeal with excitement and joy 😀
On these Season 1 footage, the old tattoo is still visible:
Hawaii Five-0: Episode 1:03 (Malama Ka Aina)

Hawaii Five-0: Episode 1:07 (Ho’apono)
Hawaii Five-0: Episode 1:10 (Heihei)

Hawaii Five-0: Episode 1:13 (Ke Kinohi)

Update 22 July 2014:
We also found this glimpse in this episode.

Hawaii Five-0: Episode 1:19 (Na Me’e Laua Na Paio)
Just now (September 9th 2014) stumbled upon the new back tattoo peekaboo in 1:23
Hawaii Five-0: Episode 1:23 Ua Hiki Mai Kapalena Pau

From Season 2 onwards, the new enlarged back tattoo is visible:
Hawaii Five-0: Episode 2:02 (Ua awe Wale)


Hawaii Five-0: Episode 3:07

Hawaii Five-0: Episode 3:20

Hope you enjoyed seeing them all as much as we did in finding them! If anybody knows of some we might have missed, please let us know.
Mick St John – Moonlight
Vampire PI that was turned in 1952. I am no history buff about tattoos, but I would presume that the folks back then were not big on permanent ink decorations at all.
It would have been interesting to know if the process of getting a tattoo would be workable on the undead, though.
So for Moonlight the cover-up continues.


(I really wish the make-up department from H50 would get some tips about covering these works of art from the Moonlight and the Back-Up Plan people. Or maybe even better, just let Steve embrace Island life and leave them all alone!)
Moonlight’s “hidden treasures”
Episode 7 – Ringer
I have read many a claim of the rare forbidden glimpse of the back tattoo in the fight scene of Ringer (Moonlight – Episode 7) and I agree, if you know it is there you see some markings, but it just didn’t get my fan girl heart racing at all. It really is just too dark. Or maybe not…….

My special thanks to my gifted partner who performed this miracle and provided us with something to squeal at!
Update: 22 July 2014
Episode 4 – Fever
With our latest look at Moonlight this last month, we found this small hidden treasure that we have missed before:

For me the greatest thing about these hidden treasures in Moonlight and also Hawaii Five-0, is that they so how much of the hard work Alex do himself. – because most of them are seen during stunts.
Dr Andy Yablonski from Three Rivers
The transplant surgeon might have had had a sordid past, but he seems to be untouched by ink. Only one brief glimpse during the entire series shows us his naked and empty skin – with no tattoos. 
SIGH!!
Stan the Cheese Farmer, in The Back-up Plan.
Sadly, a total cover-up here, but truly well done. There is no ink anywhere to be seen. Except maybe for that one forbidden glimpse of the tips of the back-tattoo on his side. (this glimpse is unfortunately not visible on all DVD versions of the film) Are you able to spot it ? 😉

Before and after picture from the make-up department of “The Back-Up Plan”
Gecko – Before
Rising Sun – Before
Lotus – Before
Geiger – Before
After
From the before and after pictures you can see it must have been a rather big job covering the tattoos. I really wish they would share with us how they did it and how long it took!
And it is interesting that there are no photos of the Tramp Stamp and how it was covered…..It must have been covered as well, because in the movie we see Stan from behind 😉
Russell Haden the Ozzie pilot from Whiteout.
For a bloke like him it is all systems go. He bares it all to the US Marshal to get her interested, but to no avail. Maybe all the ink was just not her style, or maybe she was not into the Australian accent, like most of the fan girls seem to be.
Who knows, why she did not volunteer to do that strip-search that the man so boldly offered and was clearly in need off……Maybe trying to advertise your manhood in minus 33°C, running naked across the snow, is not such a good idea after all.
Many a man might have fallen short on that one, I think……. 😀

Marshall, the musician in August Rush,
Unfortunately Alex’s screen time in this movie is so short, there are only a few moments of him without long sleeves and here you can see that they did not try to cover any of the tattoos.

This makes me wonder if the glimpse of the back tattoo on the roof should stir any feelings of hidden treasures found (well it does for me 😛 )……..

Detective Kevin Hiatt, in The Shield.
Nobody that has seen Alex in The Shield can forget the “chair scene”.
Although Alex is seemingly naked, there is not really much of this body to be seen. We do however know that possibly all of his tattoos were visible and there was no attempt at any cover-ups here, (although The Shield storylines were full of them 😀 ).

Marcus Bohem, the car thief from The Invisible.
In this film all his tattoos are visible, even the extra tattoo of the swallow that I spoke about earlier in part one.
They cast these two gorgeously hot people in a relationship in this movie. Why, oh why didn’t they just juice it up a bit more and showed us some more of Alex’s beautiful body?

Michael Carter in FEED
Boy oh boy, FEED! All I can say is, the naked truth is beautiful and it showed us everything……about the tattoos of course!! 😉

Will Bryant in Mary Bryant
Alex plays a convict send to Australia to start the new colony. In today’s day and age a convict without a tattoo seems rare, but of course this took place in the 1700’s, so the people from Western civilizations were not yet big on ink decorations, I think.
Here it was easy; they could just splash some dirt on him for the tattoo cover-up. Well, apparently not. According to a report, he spent three hours in the make-up department to get the tattoos covered – lucky girls (or boys)!

(Maybe I would have taken just a little bit longer to get the job done).
Jack Flange in Oyster Farmer
This was my first sighting of all of Alex’s tattoos. Not difficult to see that somebody that has seen The Back-up Plan with the “clean” Stan, could find all Jack’s ink confusing!

All these cover-ups just show us how many happy make-up girls there must be walking around……sigh!!
Please take note, that this is not where our story ends – Here our next quest follows the trail of how these works of art evolved over the years.
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