At the moment I'm working on a series of new designs for my galleries, to replace some 'old' tattoos.
I'm really inspired by the intricate Samoan patterns which have a lot of repetitive shapes and symbols and bold tattoos.
I started with a new tatoo, a halfsleeve tribal with some Samoan and Maori influences and shapes.
First I drew a basic layout of the tatoo to make it fit to the shoulder and upper arm.
Then I draw a few crossing lines, a bit tapered to give it a sense of depth.
On the left side of the tatou I added a koru fern, a national symbol of New-Zealand, aka "Aotearoa", and created a line of spearheads. I traced it with a black marker and a steady hand ofcourse ;)
To get a sharp and crisp look, I use a lot of triangular shapes with a high contrast between the black and white patterns. The heavy black lines are drawn to divide the tattoo into smaller section, so it's not one "greyish" mass:
When the Samoan tattoo was finished, I made a few nice pictures with my Canon 400D DSLR, which has a nice depth of field, the blurry fades:
To show you the full design process, I made video that is some sort of time-lapes, where you can see it from pencil sketch to high resolution design:
This digital mock-up shows how the tattoo will look on your shoulder. It's not a 100% accurate, but gives you an idea:
The final design can be purchased from my blog, simply hit the 'buy now' button below and you'll be forwarded to the Paypal website. Use your creditcard or Paypal account for the payment and as soon as I receive it, I'll send you two high resolution images of this tattoo.
The first is the full design with all patterns and black shapes.
The second is a linedrawing, so your tattoo artist can transfer the tatoo onto your body.
