Halloween In August!

Ok - I've always been a bit of a Halloween Grinch. Not sure why - can't put my finger on it. I suppose I'm not a big horror fan. Whatever the reason - the last couple years I've seen a major change... I don't know whether it's because I've been working with Rev. Chad or what - but I'm getting better with it! I still don't really dig gore and horror movies, but I AM starting to come around to the whole Halloween thing. And my art's starting to show that. Lately I've been working on my buddy Rob's Halloween party invite (you'll see it soon!) and some Halloween stuff for KMart (through Real Art) and am getting in the spirit of the season. So here's a little sketch I did recently that I hope you dig! I kept it rough - scanned pencil sketch - and colored it with the airbrush tool in Photoshop. Happy (early) Halloween!

Rob's Tiki

Here's another tattoo I dig from my apprenticeship. I did this one early last fall on my buddy Rob Anspach - about a year ago - but it's still one of my favs! (And one of Rob's too.) Check out Rob's blog - he's all about posting cool stories, articles, art... you name it... http://circa71.wordpress.com/

Culinary Delights!

I probably won't be posting as often as I am these first few days, but I figure I might as well get some cool stuff up here to keep my audience well fed! And hey - if I set the bar high, hopefully I'll keep at it and stay on task! So here's a few new illustrations I've done that are inspired by a recent project I worked on at Real Art. do I smell a set of tattoo flash coming soon??? Hmmmm....

Enjoy!

Jess's Shark - Past and Present

I'll start this blog off with one of my favorite tattoos that I've done so far. I think the reason I dig this one so much is because it's when I first realized that it was totally ok to crack open Photoshop when laying out a tattoo! (A techniquie I've used since and highly recommend!) See - when I first approached this tattoo midway through my apprenticeship, I wasn't all that happy with it. And for good reason. As you'll see in the before/after image - it was really unfinished looking. (Thanks, Jess, for your patience!) So I took some pics of it, threw them into Photoshop, and messed around with it till I was happy with the look. I then prented it out and used it as a reference for our second session... and I think it made a helluvalot of difference! I hope you'll agree!

Here are the "before and after" photos:























Here's my photshop comp:























Big difference, huh? If you're a fellow tattoo artist, I highly recommend using any resource at your disposal for designing and planning tattoos. There really is no "wrong way" to design for tattooing - as long as you're getting results that you and your client both are happy with!