Good Wood
Add comment December 30th, 2009
The tattoo no one thought could be done.
I’m fortunate enough to tattoo in one of greatest tattoo city’s in the world, San Francisco, It is home to some of the best artists and biggest egos coming out of the Industry. It can be just as disappointing meeting your heroes as it is finding out their work ethics.
A lot of my business comes from people being told that their tattoo can’t be done or the artists won’t do it. Their ideas are just on the side of bizarre or just a little out of the ordinary. Nothing that would or should be deemed un-tattooable.
I guess the goal for every tattoo artists is to do work they love doing and nothing else. I myself don’t want to tattoo barbwire arm bands and baby names all day but I’m always up for a challenge.
The Idea:
This person wanted his arm to look like it was growing into a tree from his mid-forearm up his neck and then have his family members Initials carved into the bark.
He was told that it couldn’t be done and it would look weird. Another shop told him that you need to start it with some kind of symbol because a sleeve with to points going away from each other isn’t smart.
It is a little bizarre but I thought it would be a cool challenge to use black and gray to show texture and make the skin appear to look like weathered bark.
The most challenging part was that he needed both arms done in a month before he moved back to Southern California.
The Tattoo:
This is one of those tattoos that you can’t do a preliminary drawing for. It needs to be done free hand and just jump right into it. I compiled my photo reference of various trees and bark patterns and set to drawing right on him with a basic idea.
The basic drawing took an hour and half to refine and make sure was at the right distances to be covered with a shirt when working.
The first session was the hardest, this is his first tattoo. He went from nothing to wanting two full sleeves done in a short amount of time. We had to draw it on and make sure we set the look of the tattoo with the first session of shading.
The second arm was much easier. I knew how it was going to look and he knew what to expect pain and time wise, the pace had been set. We skipped some photos on the second arm to show more progress.
Every week we work on another arm so as to let the opposite heal. That way we can work every week instead of working on both and skipping two and this lets one completely heal in case I need to touch up any peeling.
As of now the right arm is complete and teh left will be done in a week and the final photos will then be added.
