I did this little bit of floral decoration yesterday.
The picture above was taken immediately after the completion of the tattoo.
(I’m guessing the redness around it gives that away though)
The picture was taken with my cell phone. Whenever I take a photo with my phone I think “I need a better phone.” I then never get a better phone because I am lazy and procrastinate.
I did this tattoo in two and a half hours including drawing time.
The design was roughed on with a bic pen while looking at a reference image the client had found online via searching for pretty flower tattoos.
I enjoy doing floral work on really white skin because I find the contrast striking.
This tattoo was soft lined so as not to appear overly bold even with the use of dark colors.
Bold lines on a flower tattoo isn’t my favorite thing in general, but especially on lighter skin tones as it makes the tattoo pop out a bit much and ruins the femininity of it to me.
Since I had to stamp the image with my domain name anyways I decided to see what the image looked like in black and white while in the editor.
I almost always do this as removing the color profile from a tattoo, drawing, painting, etc… allows me to see color value without distraction. Sometimes I alter the mapping to see if I could have achieved a different outcome that was more appealing without changing my basic color selections.
Just google “color value” or something similar if you have no idea what I’m talking about.
Anyawys… I usually toss such images in the trash bin afterwords as I don’t really have a use for them, but for the sake of fun I have decided to share.
As you can see, converting a color tattoo into grayscale gives a completely different view of color usage.
(Click the picture to see it larger)
I will sometimes alter the scale in my editor up to half a dozen times to see variations of what could have been, and check it against what is.
I think lack of knowledge or simple lack of caring about color values is often what hinders an artist most when it comes to achieving what they really want in a work.
Lastly…
Just for fun, I selected the background skin and removed the color while leaving the flower color filled.
There was no reason for this except I often enjoy such pictures.
I think I enjoy pictures such as these because it isolates the tattoo from it’s living canvas, and therefore becomes something new.
Tattoos by nature are part of the skin.
The natural skin tone is always the main color in a tattoo even though people rarely even note it.
To take the color from the flesh alters the overall look of the picture greatly.
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