Hope - A Tattoo in Stages
Rachel came up with the idea to have the letter "e" in "hope" represent the ribbon for Breast Cancer Awareness. She tossed it around with a friend, and this is the drawing that was presented to me for her first tattoo...
I loved the idea and we talked about turning each letter into ribbons, with the "e" being a more obvious pink.
My first step was to turn on the light box and trace my ideas over the original drawing. This way the feeling and shape was present while I created distinct, flowing ideas on top of the letters. Over and over, I drew different shapes, bends, and ribbon contortions. When doing this, I have to always keep precision far away from my mind. The whole point is to quickly trust myself and figure out the flow. No idea, or question is bad because I'm brainstorming on paper.
Go over something fifteen times and it becomes obvious how you want it to form.
Up next was taking pencil to paper and quickly rendering a sketch of lighting ideas. I didn't want anything realistic (i.e. a specific light source) but went for a style instead.
Once complete, I made the outline by... (insert drum roll)... outlining the sketch. I used a Micron and made about six individual outlines. Every time I tried my best, and each outline had stronger points. I then scanned them and pulled out the good parts and pieced them together to form a more precise outline in Photoshop.
I could have scanned the rendered sketch and outlined it in Adobe Illustrator, but I didn't really want it that precise. This inking method served the drawing fine.
Finally, I had a couple of color reservations, so I opened up Photoshop to get a better feel before I went into the skin. Using the final outline, I colored in and over with my Wacom and PS brushes. The actual colors were nowhere near exact, but they helped me to understand what was going on.
I quickly saw the black outline to be harsh so I colorized it accordingly.
Once I was sitting in front of her right shoulder blade, I not only felt comfortable with this piece, but I was excited to finally get it out of my head and onto skin. Mixing the colors didn't take as long because mentally, I had gone over some of that process earlier on the computer.
My college years of graphic design have ingrained the idea of multiple thumbnails. Every quick idea builds a stronger preface before approaching the final product. I know in the tattoo street shop environment, this presents a time problem: there's always a constraint, so too much time doesn't fit. But when worked on in my own time, I was able to flesh out a few pieces of the puzzle before getting close to her skin.
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