With the Incredible Hulk on his left shin only two weeks old, Staff Sgt. Alex Bahmandeji was back in a tattooist's chair outside Kentucky's Fort Knox on a recent Tuesday to get a tribute to the band the Sex Pistols finished on his left calf.

Staff Sgt. Bahmandeji is ready to pony up for more work in coming weeks, as he and other soldiers race to get tattoos before Army brass tighten rules that are now the least restrictive in the armed forces.

A new set of Army regulations, now under final review, would ban tattoos below the knee or elbow, but soldiers who already have the ink will be grandfathered in. That has set off a rush by soldiers to get work done ahead of a looming cutoff date, which Army authorities have said will most likely be 60 days after the approval of any new regulation.

"I'm working on a sleeve on both arms," 34-year-old Staff Sgt. Bahmandeji said, referring to tattoos that cover the entire arm down to the wrist. Staring down the barrel of new regulations, the construction supervisor says, "forces me to finish my new pieces within 60 days."

Current Army uniform policy bans tattoos on the head and face, but it allows them down the arms and legs and on the hands. New recruits face the same prohibitions but also are banned from having neck tattoos. The coming regulations have irked many soldiers who would like to keep adding to their skin-art collection.