"David, you've been messing with colors, right? Doing it freestyle... mixing them together to get other colors?."
"Um, yeah. Have you been reading my blog?"
"Sure. Hey, do they make a skin color?"
"Yep, and you can mix to try and match your skin tone."
"So, do you think you could add some red ink, and give my left arm a farmer's tan?"

"Wow."

Here's a cover up I did yesterday. She wanted stars and picked out curves/shapes from off the wall. The fun part was randomly stenciling on the stars then drawing the cloud shapes with my Fisher Space pen.

Along with what's been posted here, another handful of tattoos and commentary has been posted in the Tattoo Gallery. Script samples, a celtic thingy, two french hens and a tie dyed peace symbol.

View Ohana in the gallery

While some clients communicate what look or feel they want directly, others approach with subtle adjectives for me to pick up on. As I gain experience, I'm slowing figuring out how to translate the communicated vision (a murky glimpse of what they have in their heads) into the final tattoo product.

"I like how it looks cartoony."
Alright, I'll stick with pure black outlines.

"Can you make it look just kinda real?"
Sure, I'll render more accurate shadows with a matching grey wash before I add pure color.

"Look at that flash... will it cost me more to make it look right?"
Nope, but you just gave me freedom to add even more personal input, thank you!

Honestly, even if I wanted to mess around with different styles on paper, I wouldn't do so whole heartedly. With tattooing, you have to knock out every one with precision and confidence. So jumping into an unfamiliar style is a matter of versing yourself beforehand with examples, trying to figure out how someone else achieved certain effects, and then pulling it all together to let it mix with your innate style.

It's pure learning... *prepackaged, um, on a stick.

Tomorrow I'll be tattooing another flower, a lily, on the top of a foot. She wants it black and grey (maybe some hints of color, we'll see). I'll post it inside this entry to show yet another different style.

UPDATE: Here's the black and grey sketch-like Lily.

* I'm not really sure what that line means

I added this flash butterfly above an already existing tattoo. It's nothing special, but I liked it. While I was finishing up, I realized my comfort level was higher and I was curious why the process went faster... then I realized that I'm slowly building experience.

I've never done this exact butterfly, but I've certainly tattooed butterflies on people. With a little bit of experience behind my head, I'm able to have a mental idea of what the final tattoo will look like.

Having a mental image of a final product is nothing new. I see it in my head. But being able to see a complete image and then translate that to how it might look and transfer onto skin is something completely new.

The same with mixing color. I'm in the birthing stages of understanding what works visually, but having messed with it before, it becomes a matter of trusting and applying what I've learned into the wings of a tiny, flash butterfly.

I'm just excited to keep letting it all develop.

Andy got this on his shin, right below his knee. Ouch.

I'm not sure how much I've gone into the extra dimension of depth while tattooing. The concept is taking more time than I imagined. I am drawing with a set of needles going in and out of the skin. Which seems basic enough... but adding a mental calibration of precise depth on a three dimensional surface is tricky. Oh, and that surface happens to move, flinch, twitch, perspire, swell, and contract.

Also, depth needs to change depending on what area of the body is getting tattooed. When going over Andy's knee, the skin on the side of his calf is normal, but the challenge is figuring out - on the fly - where that skin begins to thin out towards the front of the leg. If you've tattooed, this is basic knowledge. You hear it, and it makes sense. Then you tattoo and watch as a normal line gets crazy thick, if not blown out as you pass over a thin area.

So when I moved from calf to shin, there's a transition to the thin section over the tibia bone. I'm certain he felt more pain there, but more importantly, I needed to trust what my hands felt while I slowly approached that area. The skin stretches a little different, as if slack has been slightly removed. Then suddenly, it's taut and I had better have already diminished my needle depth.

View larger image

Gradually more people have been coming in with great images found online. They find the look for whatever it is they want, then they print out the idea and bring it with them. It's great to have more than words to translate their ideas into a tattoo.

Here's a dragon I finished three or four hours ago. It's a combination of what she found online tweaked to fit for the shape of her back. One part dragon, two parts rotated wings, another dragon head and then I made the outline by throwing the Photoshop print out onto a lightbox.

Oh, and dragons are so much fun... who knew?

Sorry about the glare, but here's a larger version. And here's some other angles of the tattoo

This guy came in and wanted Buckethead on the back of his calf. He's a huge fan and was gung ho on getting a complete pose in full color.

What I enjoyed was the detail. He was specific on the orange "Funeral" band, and even curious about some of the colors. As I concentrated on the lettering and flow of the hair, I enjoyed letting myself loose on the fingerboard... I like how it looks hand made; inexact. In fact, I had a version of the outline with computer perfect frets ready to go, but it took everything in me to let it go and try it with personality.

Random info about the tattoo:
* The black stripe on the jacket really lent well to showing the rotation of the arms. * The hands are almost purely negative space; that's fun. Oh, and the guitar is negative space as well. It's, obviously, his skin with darker skin tones to add a subtle wood grain. * Yes, Buckethead wears a Michael Myers mask. * It's about 12, no, make that 11 inches tall.

The lightest part of the red is mixed with white and orange. The orange wards of a pinkish tone! Also, there's no black in the yellow; the darker tones are mixed from purple and brown. But there is some grey in the red pants. Right over the grey I went with some dark red, to normal (Starbrite) red.

View larger image

Still more to go, here's the small post from the last session. I thoroughly enjoyed figuring out how to mix orange. How do you make orange darker? I went over the greys with a version of orange mixed with blue. And it seems to have done the trick.

We'll fill in the body with color next session. And I can't wait to throw in the water blues to set it all off.