Leviathan Tattoo Process

Hope everyone's starting the new year off right! Most likely it's the same thing you were doing the year before and more, but still...:-)

I wanted to share the process of a tattoo I recently designed for a friend. I went through several steps of the design process that I wanted to share with everyone, because this piece was actually challenging and a lot of fun. I've always had a thing for dragons and was highly fascinated with the mythical lore behind them. I feel dragons represent a certain dignity and ancient presence that most mythical creatures don't seem to harness. They come off as feared, sacred, sheltered and free at the same time. Ancient beasts with the breath of a volcano, but the innocence of an elephant. I tried to keep this in mind when designing this.

DAY I:
Unfortunately, I don't currently have the pre-rough sketches I did, but i'll start off with this in-process final version. I slowly made decisions as I went along filling in all the small details such as the scales and chain details. Most illustrations i'll start by spreading out where I add the contour, but for this I started in one area and kept going.

DAY III:

This is the final version in pencil. I was actually unsure of how to shade everything in, so I left it alone for a few days and made a photocopy to practice. 

DAY VII: 

This is what I came up with for a shaded and inked result after about 3 tries of different layering. I put more emphasis in the scales (which felt like it took years) compared to the small minor details in the chain. I wanted the dragon to feel as if it had a weight to it. Of course, since i'm always looking for something new, I decided to add color to it...

That's where I came up with this...

DAY VIII:

I wanted to keep the colors traditional, because I felt the design of the dragon itself wasn't very traditional. If it were personally up to me though, the whole thing would be purple. Ya'll should know I have a thing for everything purple. Matter a fact this is a good time for some grape drink baby...

Hope you enjoyed this and much as i did! 

You can only obtain as much information as you will yourself to. There's never a limit when it comes to potential!

-K

More work coming in the next few days!