Draconaei’s Blog

My tattoo-desiring friend did indeed get my winged letter design tattooed onto his calf.  Though I was not there for the inking process, he was kind enough to provide me a photograph so I could see the final work of art:

I think it turned out rather nicely, don’t you?  (Will upload a clearer image when I am able!)

Yet again I’ve had the good fortune of a tattoo design request!  How I love the satisfaction that comes from creating something beautiful and sharing it with others.  This story begins with the doodle on the left.

Rotated 90 degrees, this symbol contains the letters J, F, and O, three letters my friend’s name.  Initially used as a form of signature, he discovered that turning the form on its side somewhat resembled a winged stick figure.  He was fascinated with its tattoo potential, but had no luck graphically translating the idea; here my process begins.

I spun the design in two separate directions.  The first, seen on the left: a unique symbol that somewhat resembles an ancient script, the meaning of which would remain cryptic except to my friend.  He began his request with the intention of ending with a personal symbol along these lines.

The second design, seen on the right: a winged creature maintaining the general shape of the doodle, but given a breath of life (and some artistic liberty.)  His original tattoo fascination was sparked by the doodle’s semblance to a winged stick figure, so this direction also seemed appropriate.

After an exchange of emails, he favored the second direction.  The “shaded” style seemed a bit too basic to me, so I made an effort to add detail and speak a graphic language that better matched the dragon’s general form.  After many iterations, I settled on a broken geometry with implied lines to help to bring out the sharp but feather-like quality of the wings and the sharp quality of the tail, and triangular-like cutouts that bring a serpentine belly to mind.  To keep with the initial simplicity of the original doodle, I kept the design to a basic black-and-white format.  See the final chosen design here:

He plans to get inked quite soon, and I look forward to seeing and posting photographs once he does!

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Having already posted about the tattooing process, I won’t bore you with more of the same.  Instead I will inform you that my tattoo has now mostly healed, and has given me a delightful surprise: the flame aligns straight up my leg while my foot is flexed, but curves along my foot when my foot is pointed.

I placed the tattoo along the interior curve of my ankle, in order for the shape of the flames to coincide with the contour of my anklebone, and because of the high significance I place on my feet, as a dancer.  The bright colors now hide the subtle shadows of my protruding bone, but more interestingly, the tattoo appears different from different angles.  From the front, it appears as designed, but from the top, bottom or sides, the design is truncated to the tips of the flames, or a single tongue of fire.

I enjoy how the two-dimensional tattoo has become three-dimensional, living art.  It moves as I move, and as I dance… its appearance is tied to my motion and the perspective to my body.

After years of declaring myself too fickle to design a tattoo for myself… I’ve designed a tattoo for myself. Check it out!

I love designs imbued with several layers of meaning, so if you’re curious to understand my own, read on.

Fire contained in the shape of a teardrop is an embodiment of two elements and two extremes simultaneously. The fire represents passion, anger, and hope, while the water represents sadness and tranquility.

For personal reasons I won’t get into here, achieving harmony with two opposing forces is very important to me and an integral quality of my being. When the two extremes combine, they temper each other; limiting tongues of fire to within the frame of a teardrop brings some calm to the flames, but gives more life and energy to the water droplet. The most beautiful part of the design comes from the balance achieved here.

Three tongues of fire connect the design to the Holy Trinity, representing God’s influence in myself and my art. The color scheme is one I draw a great deal of personal energy from by including my favorite color (purple) and all the sequential warm colors of the rainbow. The particular outline is one I’ve been doodling as early as middle school and has remained appealing to me consistently throughout my past.

There you have it! What do you think? Even though this is my own personal tattoo design, I would love to hear everyone’s opinions!

This was my first experience watching someone get inked, so I learned about the tattooing process and stipulations to keep in mind for any future tattoo designs.

First, the tattoo artist will have plenty to say! They will modify the design based on their artistic opinions, detail capability, and ability to mix and blend colors, all of which vary from artist to artist. The first lesson came somewhat as a surprise.

Black and colored inks behave differently. Black ink retains its shape beneath the tissue, while colored ink tends to spread and bleed. A color outline would soften the tattoo’s edges, so tattoos are generally outlined in black ink to retain a sharp, crisp image. My friend’s tattoo was no exception, so after a brief discussion, the design was modified so that all major components were outlined in black.

Once the tattoo artist and the customer have reached a design compromise, the outlines are stenciled onto a type of wax paper, and then transferred onto the client’s skin. They can then look at the design and evaluate the location, size, or other modifications before any permanent work is done. The stencil can be washed off, modified and re-stenciled until the customer is happy with its appearance.

When the stencil is finalized, the tattooing begins. Black ink is drawn in first, following the stenciled outline. The tool used by the tattoo artist somewhat resembles a fountain pen, with a needle in the center that rapidly moves up and down at the touch of a button. The artist dips the end of this pen into the ink, presses it to the skin, and the needle rapidly punctures the tissue. Ink from the surface is pulled beneath the skin, becoming permanent body art.

The tattoo artist keeps a cloth handy to wipe the skin every minute or so, which cleans the surface of excess ink, and blood from the many micro-puncture wounds.

Outlining and black inking complete, the artist begins to fill in the colored portions of the tattoo, one color at a time. The colors have a very particular order, which is a little counter-intuitive because it is the opposite of painting: darkest to lightest. In this case, the artist began inking the dark green, and finished with the yellow, still wiping the skin every minute.

The brightness of the tattoo depends both on the ink colors and skin color. The paler the skin, the more vibrantly colors show through. It has nothing to do with contrast between skin color and ink color; because the ink is below the skin, the tissue acts as a filter or screen over the tattoo itself. For example, a white tattoo on a dark-skinned person would be effectively invisible.

Because my friend is pale-skinned, and chose a tattoo with bright colors, the tattoo’s appearance is strikingly vibrant… behold! The body art in it’s finalized form.

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This story begins with the most random of meetings.

A friend of a brother of a friend, at the party where we first met, offhandedly mentioned wanting a new tattoo. Despite being only a small step removed from strangers at the time, I offered to design one for her, and she actually took me up on it!

The request: design a tattoo representing, but not having the literal appearance of, a phoenix. Include the symbol in this painting on the right, titled “Phoenix,” following the same color scheme (red, yellow, and green.) Add a pair of wings in the same style.

Adobe Illustrator is my program of choice here. Vector graphics make for quick, easy scaling and tweaking. That being said, this is a good time to explain how I work with digital media. In a nutshell: many, many, many iterations.

I love exploring a million subtle alterations in design, and taking a project in a variety of different directions. This is perfect for the computer, where duplicating an image is as easy as ctrl+c and I can compare each modification side-by-side in an instant. I’m also reluctant to quickly commit to any given change; I like leaving copies of old design iterations around to refer to later, so I end up with files that look like this:

Cluttered as it may be, it allows me to see my own design process, and I can return from a less successful design to a previous idea without any trouble.

After several meetings and many designs garnered from the process above, we settled on this as the final tattoo design:

Stay tuned for descriptions of the tattooing process and photos of the finished body art!