I’m a big fan on the the tattoo TV shows “Miami Ink” and “LA Ink,” not that I have any tattoos or plans on getting any inked on my skin, but I do appreciate the artwork that tattoo artist create. When I was coming up with new designs for our TYVEK Wallet line at my previous place of employment, I thought I’d present the concept of doing one based on tattoos. Ed Hardy’s designs, which are tattoo related in nature, had not hit mainstream at that time so I thought that we’d be hitting the ground running with this popular trend. So with that in mind I sketched up the concept design below.
Like most of my sketches, I work pretty closely to my original concepts when it comes to working it up in the computer. I started by sketching out some pretty tight pencil drawings of the individual elements, scanned them in, and then colored them in Photoshop before laying out the wallet design.
The above were my initial color versions of the design. Like the “Rockin’ Guitar” design I posted yesterday, nothing gets by without some tweaking, changes, and alterations…and “Tattoo” was no exception. I won’t bore you with all of the incremental changes between the major ones, but I will share with you the significant ones. After a couple of nips and tucks to the artwork and layout, my boss decided that he wanted to take the design in a different direction, a more monochromatic direction. Below are the results of said demands.
I think that the above version works…it’s just different. However, since my original concept was tattoo art, I still prefer the first version which more strongly captures that feeling. The changes didn’t stop there…after reconsidering and some overt nudging on my part, my boss wanted to revisit the first version…but with some further…modifications.
On the Exterior Artwork, the Winged Heart was replaced with a Lion’s Shield, ribbons were removed, wording changed, etc. The major change was on the Interior Pocket Artwork where the Coy Fish and Lotus Flower were completely deleted and a large Flaming Dagger became the focus. Even though we returned to some of my original ideas, I still lean toward my first attempt.
The elements from this wallet were then worked into a Textile Repeat and placed into various apparel templates as potential future clothing concepts.
So there you go, my first attempt at being a tattoo artist…all-be-it in Photoshop, but a tattoo artist none-the-less. Enjoy!
I prefer Miami Ink. Lol. This looks a lot like Ed Hardy’s designs.
Hey there Megan, like I said in the post…this design was done prior to the massive wave that is Ed Hardy now. At the time, his stuff hadn’t completely saturated into the market as it has now. If it had, I surely wasn’t completely aware of it. And as for which Ink I prefer…”LA,” I think that the girl’s art is just so much more vibrant and colorful.