Tattoo Design

In my spare time, I've been fond of taking tattoo commissions, as well as designing some just for fun. I haven't shown them off in a little while, so I thought I'd do a post about what I've been up to.

My biggest piece of pride is the design I created for my boyfriend, Max. I won't go into the true nerdiness of this Magic The Gathering Tattoo, but I was asked to compile the game's key elements together, to go on the back of his arm. My original design was circular, which I realized was dumb of me and would never fit - but I will post it here anyways, so you can see how it progressed. I then created a more linear one, which became the final. The shading I left to the artist, although I have gotten better at that myself. When he went for the first session, he told me the artists at our local parlor praised the drawing for being an apt body art piece, and not just a wonderful drawing that might look shitty on skin (apparently this happens a lot, I'm not surprised). I was super pleased!

After this, I took on a few other commissions. Recently, I drew this small piece for a friend of a friend, who was inspired by the water designs in my boyfriend's tattoo. She wanted a small sunset piece of the sun over the water to go on her hip, in black and white, with little shading. After eyeing both good and bad tattoos, and going back and forth, we decided on this little piece. She did not like the idea of rays, so this was my way of depicting the sun, so it didn't just look like a giant orb in the sky.

But besides just these, I've been doing other larger pieces. I was referred to by a friend to a girl who wanted a tattoo up her side of a tree of life, inspired by her favorite tapestry that hangs in her room. Alongside it, she wanted Hindi text that reads "My Family, My Life," and in Hindi because of her time abroad. I went off the deep end with the original design (the DNA tree below), which I loved, but it was not for her. I continued it for myself anyways, but her tree morphed into something quite different. Originally, I designed the words on scrolls woven through the tree, but she disliked the idea of traditional scroll work, and liked it much better when I simply ran the text down one side. I'll post both here for curiosity. She hopes to get it this semester, and I hope to see photographs when it gets done!

I was also commissioned by a girl online to do a chest piece. She had sketches of ideas, but wanted them shaped into something more solid, and colored as well. Though I still remain half unpaid for this, we all learn from the first time taking online commissions - be wary of young people with no money and make them pay beforehand (did pay half upfront, but then dropped off the face of the planet when I finished the tattoo). Either way, I loved this design, and I'm proud of what I did with it. This was my first color commission.

For fun, I've been designing pieces based on one of my favorite shows, Seinfeld. I have quotes saved from one of my favorite tumblrs, Seinquote. Deciding to work on created text, I took on the quote "They're real and they're spectacular," meant to curve under one breast. My text still needs work, but needless to say, it was fun to create my own and not rely on fonts.

My most recent work lies in another design for my boyfriend, which he wants as a chest piece someday. Also to be in black and white, this piece is to be in the Art Nouveau style, and will depict key imagery from his favorite Shakespeare soliloquy in Macbeth. I really love this one so far, and it might be my best and favorite! It isn't finished, but here is it's progress:

I hope there will be a lot more to come. Please let me know if you're interested in any designs for yourself, I'm always open for business. :) Just email me at Radiocommotion@aol.com !