People Illustrated : Tattoos: Hundreds of living canvases are parading cheek by jowl at their national convention, where no emotion is too obscure to find an epidermal outlet.

The hotel ballroom was brimming with the exotic, the erotic and the symbolic, not to mention the autobiographical, the fantastic and the downright weird.

It was the opening night of the Tattoo Tour USA convention in San Diego, a tribal gathering for several hundred of those who are devoted to using their epidermis to express their loves and longings and sometimes their phobias and grudges.

“Look, I have New York City burning in my armpit,” said Matt Jesse, 23, a graphic arts student from the University of Arizona. “I hate New York.” He has spent six years and $14,000 on 100-plus tattoo sessions to incrementally create his “body suit.”

Kris Kilbourne, 35, of Spokane, who was a computer analyst before the economy went sour and she opened Tiger Tattoo, won the trophy for Best Overall Tattoo Female. Her theme is Danish mythology, mortal women yielding to passionate congress with supernatural males, intertwined with flowers and vines.

“I’m really quite a romantic,” she said. She is excited about an offer to pose for “Illustrated Women,” a coffee-table book.

Her chest and loins and legs and backside, all of which she displayed to the whistling and stomping crowd, are a multicolored mural of loveliness, a living work of art in progress, with more sessions planned with her artist.

“Motivational sociology is hard to figure,” she said, “but most people who are into tattoos are responding to some primal urge to create a new identity. The men want tattoos that are powerful and thrusting, the women want to be desirable and vulnerable. It’s a primitive art form but one that endures.”

The convention is an opportunity to compare and contrast, to talk technique and needle one another. Judges, though, have a firm rule: All tattoos must be healed to be judged, meaning fresh tattoos are not permissible.

Judges look for a fit between form and function. “We want tattoos that seem natural on the body,” said judge Kandi Everett. “This isn’t a flat canvas, you know.”

Zan Ryder, 22, a dancer at Foxy’s in Anaheim, had among her visual enhancements a signature of rock star Billy Idol on her right buttock. Idol is Ryder’s favorite singer and, besides, the name Bruce Springsteen would have taken up too much valuable space.

Green and blue dragons, wolves and spear-thrusting orange warriors are big these days. So are laughing skulls, naked bodies and red devils. Lip, nose and bellybutton rings are increasingly popular for the accessory-minded.

Herve Villechaize, 50, the abbreviated actor who has no skin illustrations of his own but played the role of Tattoo on “Fantasy Island,” attended the convention to present the trophies. He was accompanied by Kathy Self, 37, a full-sized person from Midget Delight Productions in Burbank.

Such good friends are they that part of Self’s theme is a large illustration of Villechaize on her back. “I want him with me always,” she said.

Dave Waldman, 28, an electrician from San Diego, favors Japanese-style dragons and flowered swirls. He shaved his head and grew a pointy red beard to accentuate this fashion statement.

“It’s kind of an ongoing process,” he said. “Sometimes when it gets close to one of my appointments, I get terribly nervous. Finally getting the tattoo is a way to relieve stress. I try to stay on good terms with my doctor, my dentist, and my tattooist.”

Although tattooing is predominantly a male practice (none dare call it a fetish), there are more women indulging these days, Madonna and Cher wanna-bes maybe. It is not unusual to find couples who share the fascination.

Take Heavenly Moreno, 28, a Carl’s Jr. employee from Phoenix. She was at the convention, which opened Thursday at the Bahia Hotel and closes today, with her husband and tattooist, Diehard, who admits to being 35-plus.

“She’s a beauty, isn’t she?” Diehard said as he directed a bystander to inspect the butterfly, eagle and dolphin on his wife’s chest and the Pegasus on her shoulder. “Our theme is ecological,” Heavenly said.

Each tattoo is a story, and if the story is not self-explanatory, the tattooed provide commentary.

Fallen Angel, 35, who practices tattooing in Radcliff, Ky., as the Queen of Hearts, has the highlights and lowlights of her life tattooed on her body. Her marriage is on her back, the birth of her child is on her flank, and her former husband, well, you don’t want to know where he is.

“My body is like a church, and my tattoos are my stained glass windows,” she said. “I was baptized (tattooed) when I was 14.”

Mike Hinkle, 26, of Palmdale has a haggish female figure on one side of his upper thorax. “That’s for women. They take your money, your job, your life, everything.” On the other side is a fellow trapped behind barbed wire on the opposite side. “That’s me, fighting, struggling to get free.”

On his back are red claw marks. “That’s for my mother and the grief she caused me,” he said.

He wears his hair in a spiked and glazed nine-inch-tall Mohawk. And oh yes, he’s got a laughing skull: “That’s me laughing at the world.”

Like many others, Hinkle gives and gets tattoos. He did a “Spider-Man Gets Inked” that consumes the entire back of Rik Salie, 22, a San Diego sailor who, thankfully, is a Spider-Man fan, now and forever.

Exhibitionism is allowed, even encouraged. Men and women strolled about in G-strings, but there were those who, for whatever their idiosyncratic reasons, preferred to stay under wraps.

Richard Carson, 48, traveled to the convention from his job as a school custodian in Fowlerville, Mich., but decided to stay hidden under a monk’s robe. He is, however, displaying the latest addition to his body suit, the symbols of a Tibetan mantra tattooed on his bald head.

“There are secrets on my head,” he said.