While the end result of a tattoo gets all of the shine, the initial design is perhaps the most important part of the process. A great tattoo design combines aesthetic beauty with personal meaning, permanently displaying a piece of one's personality or beliefs for the world to see (and in some cases, not see!). As a designer, it is important to be flexible with styles and have an understanding of how to make a tattoo look amazing, regardless of distance and years of aging.
Through sharing my experience and demonstrating some techniques, I hope to teach you how to accomplish all of this!
This class covers the following topics:
Foundation for a great tattoo design - establishing the direction, style, and placement for the design, researching images that will guide the sketch
Sketching the concept - illustrating the results of the research, taking placement and execution into account
Prepping for production - finalizing the sketch for body application or temporary tattoo printing
Please note that this class is about Tattoo Design, and it IS NOT intended to teach you how to tattoo. We will briefly go over the tattooing process so you can get the whole picture, but we do not advise that you try this at home.
This class is for anyone interested in the world of tattoo design, whether you are someone who is interested in getting a tattoo or your own, someone looking to design tattoos for others, are are simply looking for a new challenge to apply your creative skills.
Design a beautiful and meaningful tattoo
Consultation and Research
- Ask "What is the significance behind this piece?"
What is the story behind this piece? Is it a celebration? A dedication? Simply something you love? Given the answers, you should be able to determine the mood for the piece.
- Ask "What type of style are you looking for?"
Tattoo art comes in all shapes and sizes: photorealistic, Japanese, cartoon, graffiti, script... the list goes on. With this question you answer the graphic direction for the tattoo design. Inked Magazine is a great place to look for inspiration!
- Ask "Where will this tattoo be placed?"
While the first two questions are a little more high level, this third question is the most practical. No matter what design you are looking to create, you have to make sure it will work for the body part it will be applied to. How does this body part bend? What is the surface area like? How will the skin age?
Again, checking out pictures for how some of your favorite tattoos were applied to body parts is super helpful when designing your own.
- Gather images for research
Gather 8-10 images that will help guide your tattoo design. These images should include emotional references to your subject matter (the mood), ideas of the style you are going for (the execution), and actual images of the person/place/thing you will be creating.
Look for these elements in your images: high contrast lighting, texture, expression, and proportion. These will all be important when tracing your design.
Sketching
- Choose the researched images that will inform the tracing
Choose elements from various research images that will inform your tracing. You can take the lighting from one photo, the texture from another, and the proportion from another, and combine them all into one really compelling graphic.
If you are working with a 3D object, make sure there is only one single light source! This will be huge for your usage of black ink vs. skin.
- Start tracing... NAIL THE EYES!
Using a light source and tracing paper, start pulling the elements from each image into a singular graphic. At this point you can be creating a thumbnail image in order to get the proportions and shading right.
If you are creating a piece with a human or animal with eyes, be careful! This is BY FAR the most important part. I wouldn't move on to the next phase until the eyes are squared away.
Careful of the edges! Try to avoid too many harsh lines, as they don't really exist in nature. Also, assymetry is just fine if you are going for something natural!
- Identify your black shapes
When designing a 3D tattoo, your use of black can make or break the graphic. The black shapes will trick the eye into thinking that piece of the graphic is in the background while the areas of skin are actually closer to the viewer.
Prepping for production
- Apply shading
In order to design a real tattoo you need to mark off the areas where you will be applying shading, because this requires a different technique than applying the lines with ink.
For the purposes of this class project you can illustrate the shading as part of the graphic and as how it would look on skin.
- Create the stencil using Carbon Paper
Using a stencil printer or simply tracing your graphic onto carbon paper, you can create the mock up of how the design will look on the skin. Carbon paper is pretty easy to get your hands on, here is a good option.
- Share Your Work!
Upload your design to your project page and share with your classmates.
