looking for advice ...

[joflasher]

from those of you with tattoos or who have designed tattoos in the past. My brother wants me to design a red, gold and black dragon for his lower back. Its supposed to look like its attacking the screaming wyrm that on his upper shoulder.

I have the basic line work at the size he wanted. I'm sticking to the same size of scales as the wyrm, that shouldn't be too much of a problem. Now I need to know the dos and don'ts as far as colors and shading go. I don't want to spend days creating this thing if the tattoo artist (a fairly good one, from the looks of the wyrm) is going to cut out 1/2 the detail. Ink addicts, I know you're out there. Give a newbie some advice here.

Comments

[pancua.livejournal.com]

A good artist can get fairly complex with shading. I would suggest cruising some tattoo websites and see what most are doing. You will find a ton of them on google.

[flasher.livejournal.com]

I did google and got pages and pages of flash. That doesn't tell me anything about what colors do and do not take well, which are physically impossible and what type of color layering is possible as far as shading goes. Can you layer colors? If so, what are the rules? Light colors first or could gold go over top of dark red and still be visible? Stuff like that. I don't want to make a picture only to have it come out looking completely different color wise.

[pancua.livejournal.com]

Oh I see what you are saying. AFAIK, layering like you would in a painting is not possible as the ink can't exactly be thinned out per se. I'm not 100% certain about that but I have a tattoo place that I really like, I could give you their number and you could talk to one of the guys there. They have all been inking for some time.

[jnanacandra.livejournal.com]

What colors will work will depend to some extent on his skin. Red and white are two colors that *tend* not to take well, but the paler the skin the better they will work. (Red also has a tendency to leach out sooner than other colors.)

While a good artist can in theory do anything you can draw, color blending and layering does get tricky. They can only ink one color at a time, and while they can mix their inks before they go on, a long smooth gradient seems to be all but impossible. Light blue to dark blue works well, red to gold not so well. I have a red-to-gold section on my shoulder and the actual blended portion is maybe half a centimeter, making for a fairly harsh line from a distance - it's the only thing I'm not 100% happy about with that tattoo (the one in my icon).

Linework can get very detailed - if you can trace it with a steady hand, the tattoo artist can ink it. You'll probably want to use more hard edges and black lines than you would otherwise, because that keeps the detail crisper as the tattoo ages.

Hey, hope this helps

[scribblekitten.livejournal.com]

I've sold countless tattoo flash cards over the years to make ends meet and my husband has owned his own shop and been a tattoo artist for over 20 years so I asked him to give me his advice on your questions. He was taught by some of the best in the business, Lyle Tuttle, Sr. and Jr. and Sailor Jerry in case you are interested.

This is from my husband who has been a tattoo artist for over 20 years:
They only go so deep to start with on color and let it heal and then go back and brush it some more with color later. White, the actual gold not the color comes right out of the skin very quickly. And yellows, come out and even red will fade with time. Any light colors will fade quickly, but darker colors like blue, deep red, greens, dark orange, burgundy, dark purple and black have lasting power. Green seems to be the strongest besides black to lasting in the skin. Thing to remember, any that resembles a skin tone will eventually fade.

You put your dark colors in first and then go back to put the light colors in and they can't make any promises that the light colors will stay. Metalic Gold put on bare skin or over another color or even the gold flakes will be rejected by the skin very quickly and is a waste of money, time and effort.

Thin lines in details fade or distort with the skin changes over time and most artist won't use thin line art as the tattoo, unless they are just trying to make money. Bolder lines and areas that are larger with "fanning" black filled with color for shading or details works best. Depending on how skilled the tattoo artist is, details can or may be left out or changed at his/her whim. The artist will usually do something to change it from the flash card image in some fashion so that it is an original to them. That way even if they do this same tat 50 times, it will never be the exact same one on every customer. So make your tattoos with these thoughts in mind.

[omnia-mutantur.livejournal.com]

if possible, see some pictures of what the specific artist has done. particularly not brand new pictures. (just done pictures are crisper than healed tats)

[msde.livejournal.com]

It sounds like it might be worth tracking down his tattoo artist just to see if they have any preferences.

[flasher.livejournal.com]

I knew you guys would come through. Thank you for all the advice so far.

Jack's current tatoo is about a year old and is pretty nice, shading wise. Its all black, green and blue, though, so I don't know what other colors will look like on his skin. He has the same pale skin as I do, only his actually tans nicely copper in the summer.

When I said gold, I didn't mean metallic, only the color yellow. The artist he uses won't do the metallic inks at all.