My first tattoo design
Ninja May 14th, 2009
When asked to do a custom tattoo design, I usually politely decline (due to time constraints and slight fear of seeing my art haunt me on someone’s body). But how could I say “no” to my favorite Suicide Girl? ~__^
Tanya sent over this photo of her current back tattoo. A blank slate can be daunting, but working around someone else’s design? I think I’m up for the challenge. The only direction she gave was that I could work up to the shoulder blade area and that she would like cherry blossoms.
I started by sketching the muscle structure of her back. I wanted the branches of the tree to follow the natural contours of her back.
Rough sketch with a red pencil.
More doodling.
Pen sketches on marker paper.
Trial inks: wispy and light vs dark and dramatic. My hands were extremely unsteady and I wasn’t satisfied with the brush work.
Now we’re on track: nothing quite like a mechanical pencil! I’m going to beef up the contrast and levels in Photoshop later.
Now all that’s left is adding the cherry blossoms.
Here’s the final. I stayed up until 5:30 AM drawing cherry blossoms, whew. There were a lot of rejected drawings in between, but I was too tired to take photos. Enjoy!
Happy drawing,
Ninja
____________________________________________________________
UPDATE:
In the end, Tanya opted for a different design by the amazing tattoo artist Tim Kern (what a cool last name). He’s a world famous tattoo artist whose work can be seen in Charlie Kaufman’s Synecdoche, New York and on the bodies of 27 other lovely Suicide Girls. He’s a pro, so I knew she would be in good hands. ^__^ Tim does such a wonderful job rendering bark! I can’t wait to see what it looks like when the inks are finished next month.
Related posts
