Tattoo designs
OMG!!! A new post!!!
I know, it has been a while since I’ve posted. It’s hard to find the time to post when I don’t have a place to call “my own” and I’m constantly bouncing from one place to the next. Combine that with work, travelling, new tattoo designs (more on that in a bit), video art planning (more on that in a future post), house planning, and other random things, and it leaves me with no time left to write a decent article. In fact, I should be working right now, so let’s get right down to it shall we? The topic of today’s post? Tattoo designs I’m working on, and why I enjoy designing tattoo art.
Tattoo designs vary greatly in style and purpose. Some people are content picking something off a wall, and others get generic words or symbols that represent something important to them. For some, it’s about tradition or culture; In Samoan society, the tattooing ceremonies for young chiefs, typically conducted at the time of puberty, were part of their ascendance to a leadership role. The permanent marks left by the tattoo artists would forever celebrate their endurance and dedication to cultural traditions.
For me, designing a tattoo (usually fairly tribal in nature) is about the the interplay of lines and negative space into the body. In a way, it symbolizes the weaving of life’s experiences into me. But more importantly, it’s about finding a design that “feels” right for a particular part of a body for a particular person. Although I’m not a spiritual person (at least not in the traditional “catholic” sense), there is a certain spirituality that comes from designing a tattoo. It needs to represent the aura and energy of a person, and flow in such a way as to express the individual’s style and personality. I can’t explain how I design a tattoo; It comes from within, like a “vision” of sorts that I get from knowing the person intimately. That’s why I only design tattoos for myself and people close to me (wife and sister). It’s a long process of drawing, designing, erasing and starting over, in order to get the vision from my head on to paper.
I recently finished a tattoo design for MC. She wanted a music theme, so my challenge was to incorporate a musical element into a design that flows for her and the area she would get it in (upper back). Here’s what it looks like:
I’ve also recently begun working on my half-sleeve style shoulder tattoo. The main reason for this post, aside from the theory and ideas behind how I design tattoos, is to show the work in progress of my tattoo designs and give you a glimpse into the process. Unfortunately, I no longer have the original designs I worked on for the past several years, only the one final design I have settled on. The first image is the completed pencil drawing. From there the image is scanned into the computer, trimmed and cleaned up for contrast, and each element of the tattoo is carefully cut out and re-drawn digitally so I have full control over borders and colors. The second image shows the work in progress (with about 20 hours of work so far, and about another 20 hours to go).
So there you have it. Now you have a bit of an understanding on how I design tattoos, the process I follow, and the work involved. I hope you’ve enjoyed my first design article on this site. I’ll update this post with two more “work in progress” designs as I continue to work on the design over the next couple of weeks.
A7
Edit 1: Here is the latest updatewith the top section done. I’m getting there!
