This is an example of one of my customers design process
Finding Inspiration
Consider the reason and inspiration behind your desire to create a custom tattoo so you can communicate your needs to the artist. Creating a custom piece is a personal process in which an individual takes great care to express him or herself in a permanent way. When trying to decide on what to capture in a tattoo design, consider things that have impacted you or truly express who you are. Remember that the design does not have to be a literal representation; it can act as a symbolic or metaphorical statement.
- Maybe your perfect tattoo design portrays your kids, your partner, your pets or something that has simply struck you as beautiful or poignant.
- Some tattoos are intended to be memorial pieces for lost loved ones even if they don’t feature a portrait. For a memorial tattoo for your mom, for example, consider getting a tattoo of a character from a favorite storybook she read to you as a child. You might also consider a tattoo of the swing that hung from the oak tree outside of your childhood home.
- Perhaps there is a line from a favorite poem or song that speaks to your soul. Rather than having the actual words tattooed, another option would be creating a custom drawing of the image it conjures it your mind’s eye.
Look online for tattoo ideas and themes. Do a quick Google search of tattoos in a similar vein to the tattoo that you might like to get. For example, if you think you want to get a travel-themed or geometric tattoo, search specifically for images of these types of tattoos. Similarly, if you want to design a sleeve tattoo, then look for sleeve designs online. Seeing images of tattoos other people have can serve as inspiration, even if you decide to go a different route with your own design.
- Check social media as well. You can find tons of great ideas on Pinterest, Tumblr, and Instagram.
- You can also look through tattoo artists’ portfolios online.
Gather Reference Material
It is also important to gather reference material to provide the tattoo artist with some visual examples of the concepts you have for your custom design.
As you work on creating an original piece, do not expect to find exact examples of the design. Instead, concentrate on trying to find samples that convey the overall style or contain certain elements you wish to incorporate. The reference material merely serves as a visual guide to help the artist create an original drawing.
Location: Consider the body part on which the design will be tattooed. The design should fit that area of the body and complement the body’s natural curves.
- Number of elements: Avoid trying to incorporate too many elements into a single tattoo design. If you find you have many features you would like to include, consider spreading them out to multiple tattoos, or perhaps as separate components of a larger cohesive piece, such as a full sleeve. Too many elements will lend a busy and confusing look to the piece, ad there are also technical size constraints that your tattooer will discuss with you.
- Size: One of the biggest technical considerations in tattooing is the size of the piece. Although you will determine the exact size at the time of tattooing, the artist will want an approximate size at the time of design. Often, in the interest of optimal clarity and longevity, a tattooer will suggest simplifying a design or increasing the overall size of the piece.
- The future: As the skin ages, the lines of a tattoo will draw closer together and shrink the negative spaces (areas where skin shows through). As a result, some details become lost, and the tattoo may take on a blurry, muddled look.
Where Should You Place Your First Tattoo?
When it comes to getting your first tattoo, the design you’re going to get is the most important, of course. But the placement—where the tattoo actually lives on your skin—is also a key aspect to consider. So choosing the best spot, whether it’s a tiny tattoo or a larger piece, can help you appreciate the art at its finest.
Placement Considerations
Oftentimes people show up to get a tattoo with an idea of the design and placement they want.
While tattoos that are placed out of sight have their advantages, unless you stand in front of a mirror to look at your back, you’ll likely never really get a chance to admire it. If you’d rather be able to see your new tattoo daily, consider areas like your wrist, forearm, or even your ankle. But if your job requires you to hide your tattoos, or even if you’d just rather keep them out of sight—you can choose a spot that tends to be covered by your clothing, like your inner arm or your calf.
Another consideration is how your body fluctuates. You may want to consider any potential weight gain or loss and even the reality of aging (as your skin loses elasticity, it sags gradually). Just because a tattoo looks a certain way now, doesn’t mean it’ll stay that way forever.
Breast, stomach, and inner thigh tattoos are all likely to change and distort while forearm and wrist tattoos will stay the same shape for longer.
Designs and Scale
It’s not just the placement that matters when considering your first tattoo. The scale is also important. Depending on how elaborate you want the tattoo to be, it’ll need to be a certain size. The more detailed it is, the larger it’ll have to be. This can also change the tattoo placement as you’ll need a wider area of skin for certain designs.
Tattoo color
Here are the pigments that will show up especially well with your skin color:
- Light skin: red, white, and purple
- Tanned skin: blue, green, and orange
- Dark skin: black, dark red, deep blue, and other dark colors
Things under the skin that influence tattoo designs.
The Muscles
What is underneath your skin? Yes, that is correct, muscles and bones. Muscles are responsible for your ability to move through the world. Your mass and strength can influence how your tattoo ages and how it is viewed by the world. Simply put, the muscles underneath your skin create hills and valleys that can distort an/or create movement in a design.
Do not let this deter you though; knowing how these will influence the movement of your tattoo can add to the aesthetic and decrease the awkward effects of aging.
Bones
What is everything stacked on inside your body. Bones. They add structure and support, so you don’t end up a gelatinous mass, quivering on the floor. The bones are connected to the muscles by tendons, and to each other with ligaments. All that gooey mess inside your badass self is covered by your skin and gives you structure so you can move through the world.
What’s on top
Hair
Some people are sasquatches. That dense blanket of fur can affect how you view the image. Want to use a bug pin single to line this crispy daisy tattoo on ol’ biker Tom? Think again. That hair acts as a buffer that distorts any image you put into a person’s skin.
Scars
Burns, scrapes, cuts and gunshots. These marks left over by your body trying to fix some nasty wound can affect the results of your tattooing effort.
Knowing how the skin reacts to stress, as well as how it changes with age, will help you plan the perfect “custom” tattoo for your client, because we know “custom” means “custom fit!”
The muscles:
The muscles are a variable that changes constantly in all people. If you start working out, stop working out, get hurt or, as is the inevitability of all humans, age, your muscles will change in size and affect the skin above it. If that is so, how do we include this ever-changing variable into the design concept and placement?
First, look at the muscles in the area you are placing a tattoo. The muscle groupings have a stacked effect and create a crisscross pattern over most body parts. Where the lines following the muscle groups meet, a grid of offset perpendicular lines is formed.
Those perpendicular lines that form by tracing the edges of the muscles, gives you what I call distortion areas. These points are prone to movement whenever a person flexes or extends this part of their body.
Movement and body mapping
If you rotate your arm, pull or push your hand or grasp something with your fingers, those muscles are going to move. These lines can be placed anywhere the client may want to be tattooed as they all are boundaries as to where a muscle will affect the skin above it.
Putting a focal point or a static part of the image you are working with on top of these lines will create distortion whenever the person moves, so avoid that. These areas are best left for organic shapes and transitional elements of the tattoo that would benefit from distortion.
Preview Any Tattoo on Yourself: InkHunter
InkHunter really blows all other tattoo design apps out of the water for its ability to allow you to see any tattoo on any part of yourself in real-time via augmented reality. If you’re unsure about how a tattoo might look or you’re on the fence about placement, this is the app for you.
The app has incredible reviews all around and is even used by some tattoo artists to help give their clients a better idea of what they can expect.