A Tattoo Design, from Sketch to Skin

A friend of mine from high school, Rich, connected with me on Facebook. He remembered that I was always into art and wondered if I still did much art. I said yes and showed him my Facebook page, All Sorts of Art by Ali.

He liked my work and wanted to know if I could design a tattoo for his arm and shoulder. He wanted a drawing of the Tree of Life that showed the branches and the roots, with the trunk in the form of a woman and man embracing. I love to draw both trees and people, so that design sounded perfect for me. 

I gave him a price for the comprehensive sketch, and that upon approval of the sketch, I would start the finished art, which would be half paid up front and half paid on completion. He went ahead and paid me for the sketch and also the first half of the finished art before I even started, which I thought was very nice because it showed his trust of me. I quickly produced a comp sketch, above, based on some reference pictures that he provided. 

I submitted the comp sketch to Rich, and he made a request for me to make the entwined couple a little less prominent, so that appeared to be within the tree trunk instead of actually being the tree trunk. I achieved this by thickening the trunk around them and adding a woody bark texture to them so that they blended in more. In addition to making the trunk thicker, I added a little bit more to the tree branches to fill out that area, as well. Here is the pic, which received final approval. Next step, the finished art!

Now that Rich had approved the comp sketch and the deposit was already paid, it was time to start the finished art. I was going to produce this as black-and-white line art so that it would be easy for the tattooist to create a stencil. Rich had asked whether he should get color added to it, and I explained that it would be fairly easy for the tattoo artist to add color once the linework was done. I transferred my pencil sketch to a piece of bristol board and inked the design. When I was almost finished, I sent him a picture and asked if he wanted any last-minute changes, but he said it looked perfect. That was nice to hear! Here is the finished ink drawing.

Now that the line art was finished, I wanted to do a color version so that Rich could determine whether he wanted to get color on the tattoo. To keep the original art clean and easy to reproduce as a stencil, I made a photocopy and added the color to that. I used colored pencil to color the leaves and the tree bark/roots, and then I added some blue around the top of the tree and some red around the roots. The blue gave a sense of sky, and we know that the ground isn't red, but I didn't want to make it brown like the tree, and I liked the way the red set off the other colors. It was just a concept sketch, of course, to help him visualize a bit better. He was always free to get different colors. Once the art was delivered, it was up to the tattoo artist to add their own flourishes. If you will notice (you can click any picture to view it larger), I did sign my artwork, just above the lowest branch on the left side of the trunk. I pointed this out to Rich and said it was fine with me if he decided not to keep the signature.

He got it and sent me this picture showing it "live". As you can see from the below photo, it is covering his shoulder and upper arm, and it is quite large (he is facing toward the left side of the photo). He had given me the dimensions of 7 inches by 11 inches, and I did the artwork on a 9" x 12" bristol board so that it was full-sized. The tattoo artist did a good job! There isn't any background color, as I'd provided in my sketch, but the green leaves and golden-brown color of the bark are very good matches to my suggested colors. This tattoo had so many tiny details, it must have taken a long time. I feel very honored that he was willing to spend the time, money, and, let's face it--physical pain--to get my design permanently added to his body!

All artwork is original and protected by copyright. 

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Sugar Glider Diet

This is one of a series of posters that I did for a presenter who visits schools, churches and other groups to give a lesson about exotic creatures--accompanied by illustrated posters--and then presents the actual animal to the children. The illustration style is whimsical, but informative. This one displays examples of the typical diet of a sugar glider, a small marsupial mammal native to Australia and Indonesia.

The sugar glider resembles a flying squirrel in that it has extra skin stretching between the arms and legs that fan out to act as gliding "wings" as it leaps from tree to tree, hence the "glider" part of the name. However, sugar gilders are not squirrels but are actually small opossums, of all things!

And like opossums, they are omnivores. They feed on tree sap in their native habitat, but some people keep sugar gliders as pets, much like hamsters. If you are caring for a captive sugar glider, there are a variety of things you can feed your pet, and a varied diet is always best. Sugar gliders can eat fresh fruit and vegetables (raisins are a particular treat for hand-feeding) or prepared foods, such as parrot chow or even cat food. They do not need to be given meat, but be sure they get their protein by feeding them some cooked egg, nuts and seeds, or some yummy crickets or mealworms from the pet store.

Illustration is mine. Click to enlarge!

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Book Cover Design, Part Four: The Finished Product

So, now you know how my comp sketch from Part One http://allsortsartbyali.blogspot.com/2015/03/book-cover-design-part-one-comp-sketch.html ended up as my final art in Part Three http://allsortsartbyali.blogspot.com/2015/03/book-cover-design-part-three-final.html , but how about the jacket design, itself? Did the client approve my font choice, typesetting design and placement of the artwork in the mockup from Part Two http://allsortsartbyali.blogspot.com/2015/03/book-cover-design-part-two-mockup.html ?

The answer is yes. After the one fairly simple change to the format of the illustration mentioned in my last post, the rest of my design for the book cover was approved with no problems, and the picture above is the finished product. Thanks for following along for the multi-step process of designing a book cover. Hope you found it interesting and informative!

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Book Cover Design, Part Three: Final Art...or Not

Continued from Part Two : http://allsortsartbyali.blogspot.com/2015/03/book-cover-design-part-two-mockup.html

The client approved the comprehensive sketch with no changes, so I produced it in the final medium, colored ink with colored pencil accent. Since there were no changes, I was able to use the original pen and ink drawing (from which I made the photocopies in Part One) and add the color to that. However, after the finished artwork was submitted, the client wondered if it wouldn't be too much trouble to change the format of the triptych slightly. Where I'd had diagonal transitions, the client wanted vertical transitions.

It WAS kind of a pain to make changes, especially because the deadline didn't leave me a lot of time to redo the piece from scratch. However, since only a scan of the work was going to submitted and not the physical copy, I knew I could actually cut the board itself to reconfigure the illustration. After a bit of literal cut-and-paste, the final piece was submitted...and approved!

Artwork is my original. To see how it compares to the original sketch, see Part One:http://allsortsartbyali.blogspot.com/2015/03/book-cover-design-part-one-comp-sketch.html

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Book Cover Design, Part Two: The Mockup

After producing my comp sketch http://allsortsartbyali.blogspot.com/2015/03/book-cover-design-part-one-comp-sketch.html , I wanted to show how I would use it as part of the book cover. The client wanted a simple book cover that wouldn't be tricky to print, so I used black type on a plain white background, centering the triptych illustration across the middle and set off with a red border.

A "mockup" helps a client see how the final illustration will look within the finished project. Mockups for book covers will normally involve placement and typesetting, which is of course quite easy now that a computer can be used, with hundreds of different font styles and sizes. It used to be an artist had to use transfer lettering, laboriously applied, and before that, hand-lettering was required!

Do you like the way the comp sketch appears on the cover of the book? Do you think the client liked the illustration itself, and also the design for the cover?

Let's go see what happens in Part Three!  http://allsortsartbyali.blogspot.com/2015/03/book-cover-design-part-three-final.html

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Book Cover Design, Part One: The Comp Sketch

A few years ago, I was contracted to provide a book cover design and several interior illustrations for a book about the dyeing and restoration process for fabrics, leather and suede. The author left the design concept up to me, and once I submitted a sketch, he would approve it or suggest changes. I read the manuscript and decided that since the title was very straightforward, I would make a triptych-style illustration (a triptych is composed of three panels that either fit together to make a larger piece, or that coordinate--if two are used, it is called a diptych). One panel would show the science behind the process, as many dyes are mixed according to a specific recipe or chemical process; one would show examples of materials mentioned in the title--I used a satiny fabric, a shiny black leather, and a muted brown suede for maximum contrast among the three. The final panel would show someone carefully redyeing a piece of clothing.

I produced a "comp sketch" for the client. "Comp" is short for "comprehensive". A comprehensive sketch differs greatly from, say, a thumbnail sketch, which is a small, loose rendering designed only to communicate a simple concept and perhaps to figure out compositional elements. A comp sketch is comprehensive--that is to say, it is done full size, with the final composition and colors and rendered fully. The only difference between the comprehensive sketch and the finished art, other than any changes requested by the client, might be the medium. Usually "quicker" graphic media such as ink, marker and colored pencil are used, whereas finished art is more likely to be painted (this is about art done by hand, not on the computer, obviously). I made a line drawing in ink on board, and then I photocopied the line drawing and colored it with colored pencils. This way, if the client wanted color changes, it would be easy enough to make another photocopy of the original drawing and submit the new color scheme.

Above photo is my first comp sketch. Click to enlarge for detail.
Here's Part Two  http://allsortsartbyali.blogspot.com/2015/03/book-cover-design-part-two-mockup.html

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