Tattoo band wrapping around lower leg

Hi!

Another new tattoo project this week, a custom design for the lower leg.
My customer asked me if I could draw a band fully wrapping around his leg, just above the ankle, 15 cm in height.

When I receive the measurements, the first thing I do is making a template in Google Sketchup.
I need to get the right curvature of the design, so I creat two circles with the right circumference and make a cone shape in 3d. Then I unwrap it with the "unfold" plugin into a 2d surface.











The final template looks like this:












Finally I print it at the right size and start drawing.

The customer wanted a design inspired on another lower leg tattoo I did some time ago.

With pencil I made this first sketch with some koru curves and triangular tribal shapes.
The design was immediately approved by my client, so I could trace it, scan it and finalize it in Photoshop.














Any questions?

Just let me know!

Kind regards, Mark Storm

Shauncey's Pantherabbit

Last month in Penn Station, I ran into a gentleman who was covered with tattoos and was happy to share one with us here on best-tatto-design.

As luck would have it, he was a tattoo artist himself, up from Florida, biding his time as he waited for his train to arrive.

As tattooists generally have a lot of work to share, it is always interesting to see what one piece they will offer up, and Shauncey Fury, of Ocala Tattoo & Piercing in Ocala, Florida, shared this whimsical piece:

 

Your eyes do not deceive you, that is a bad-ass panther wearing bunny ears.

Shauncey explained that he went to Mike Wilson, an artist at Inksmith & Rogers, in Jacksonville Beach, Florida, who is known for, among other things, his panther tattoos. They thought they'd "mix it up a bit" and added the rabbit ears for comedic effect. The result is a whimsical tattoo that is certainly a conversation piece!

Shauncey has been tattooing for five years and gravitates toward portraits and American traditional-style tattoos. You can see a sampling of his work here 

Thanks to Shauncey for sharing this cool tattoo with us here on best-tatto-design!

ALOHA monday!

Here's what I got to do yesterday...

This one was on a Japanese woman who was leaving town the next day...

This one was alot of fun... there was language barrier there but our sales girl helped me out in that department since she speaks Japanese.

This woman was so nice! She was from England and was leaving town the next day also. This was so fun to do! The foot is weird to tattoo but I think I'm getting used to it.

This guy came in knowing that I was still learning... and had a bunch of stuff on his leg that needed fixing... this one in particular. His entire leg is (sorta) finished, it just needs more solid color and linework. Last night's project: palm tree. So I drew up a newer one on top so he can see what I was planning to do.

This was the completed line work... this one looked more like a full palm tree like the one on the other side of his leg. This was fun to do!

We did a little bit of shading before we called it a night. Bill was right there with me helping me along. Really excited to work on this guy again! He's going to give me his entire calf as my project! SWEET!

Working sales tonight... tattooing Noah's friend tomorrow.

Aloha!

Waiter, There's a Marlin in My Cactus!

Believe it or not, I still have a couple of lingering pre-September tattoo encounters to write about, one of which is this bizarre tattoo I spotted two months ago today:

This tattoo on Michael's right ankle is one of three that he has. He explained that it is an interpretation of a painting that hung in Flaco's Cuban Bakery in Gainesville, Florida where he played in the house band, Michael Claytor & His Friends.

The band played there for two years and, as a tribute to the experience, Michael had this tattooed to honor the experience.

This was inked by Mike Salay at Anthem Tattoo in Gainesville.

Thanks again to Michael for sharing this cool and unusual tattoo with us here on best-tatto-design!

And a little Michael Claytor bonus:

Joey's Señorita

I met Joey on the subway one afternoon last month after spotting this cool tattoo on his left forearm:

He told me that this Mexican girl, a señorita with a jug of alcohol, was a way of incorporating his wife's Hispanic heritage into a traditional pin-up tattoo. I asked Joey if this resembled her in any way and he said it didn't, however he still appreciates the symbolism, along with a little drop of humor.

The tattoo was created by Johnny Truant at Lotus Tattoo in Sayville. Click the Lotus tag below to see other work from Lotus that has appeared on the site.

Thanks to Joey for sharing this lovely tattoo with us here on best-tatto-design!

more tattoos!

So here are a few things that I've worked on since my last post:

FIRST, a local guy who is friends with everyone at the shop came in and let me do my largest tattoo yet with black and grey. This was my second attempt at grey wash, and was left alone the entire time.

This tiki took me about 3.5-4 hours and really took my time. I'm certainly no expert at this, but I have to say that it was exciting to draw up the design for the client AND tattoo the entire thing by myself. Anna was with me for questions and stuff, but for the most part I was left alone. I stuck with mostly mid tones so that it would heal light, and then once it is healed I can go in again and smooth out what I didn't do right. It's better to stay light then go too dark right away.... expecially if you're inexperienced like myself.

Thanks to Dustin for letting me try out this tiki on him. He was super nice and definitely a team player!

 This one was done on military guy who comes in regularly to get tattooed by just about everyone at the shop. He's super nice and wanted his nickname "Jukebox" on his back.
So here we go. Simple and black. He loved it drawn up this way so we left it.

This one came in last night.... The kids entire family came in and everyone got tattooed! This was on the son who was recently married and was here on military business with his new wife. Anna outlined this one for me since it has to be super perfect, then I filled it in.

After I tattooed the son, I tattooed the Mom too! She was super sweet and was really happy with her new tattoo. This was on her wrist and I did the whole thing myself.

I also forgot to post pics of Noah's last session with me.... we have been taking a few weeks off so he can enjoy the beach, so here's the photo....

We worked on this swirl for about 2 hours and then he went home.... this was after a long day of hiking too! It's almost healed up and then we will take some pictures. It's awesome that I can use him as a "guinea pig" to see how my tattoos are healing and get feedback from him on what I am doing differently and what feels better, etc.

Off to print out pictures for my NEW portfolio today! My first tattoo portfolio that is.

ALOHA!!!!!

Amy's Skelanimal

I met Amy outside of Madison Square Garden and she chose this, of her 20+ tattoos, to share with us here on best-tatto-design:

This is one of the many "Skelanimals" (click to see more). I believe this one is Dax the Dog, which is Amy's favorite one.

Why's she get it? "Just because..." she grinned.

The tattoo was inked by the artist that does all her work, Michelle Haspel at Fat Kat Tattoos in Keyport, New Jersey. Work from Fat Kat on best-tatto-design can be seen here.

Thanks to Amy for sharing her Skelanimal with us here on best-tatto-design!