Sunday, May 29, 2011

New maori tattoo gallery optimized for Ipad and Iphone

Hi,

I recently bought an Apple Ipad2 and use it mainly for shooting pictures and recording movies of the design process. I can easily add these photos to my twitter messages (@storm3d) and upload the movies to Youtube.com in a few clicks. It's also very usefull for quickly browsing the web...

There's only one big downside to Apple products, and that's the fact that Apple doesn't support the Adobe Flash plugin. For my website galleries, I use(d) the "simpleviewer" plugin, that creates a really nice and simple Flash gallery with a thumbnail and a larger image next or above it.

Now I use my Ipad, I see that a lot of mobile visitors cannot see the designs in my gallery, so I had to make changes to it.

My website design is based on the principles of the "Save the Pixel" e-book by Ben Hunt, which states that the design should be as simple as possible and every pixel should contribute to the main goal of the website.

Keeping this in mind, I redesigned the tattoo galleries. Here's a picture of the 'before' gallery:

flash gallery with maori tattoos for sale designer artistThe red marked area is the flash movie containing the maori tattoo gallery.

People could scroll through the images and see the number and price of the design.

Before ordering it, customers had to select the correct tattoo nr. from the dropdown list and hit the "Buy Now" button.


People often selected the wrong tattoo and bought the piece they didn't want.



To get rid of this problem I decided to implement the Lightbox plugin/script to my gallery instead of the simpleviewer movie.
One other advantage was that I could add the size and price of the design in the header/description and even add a Paypal button, so it became impossible to order the wrong tatoo design.

The new gallery is now looking like this, with the lightbox frame popping up:

maori tattoo gallery high resolution designs for salelightbox plugin for tattoo gallery webshop paypal button














So if you have an Ipad, Ipod or Iphone, please check it out and let me know if there's anything I can change to improve it.

Kind regards, Mark Storm
info@storm3d.com

Saturday, May 28, 2011

from: Victor H. Mair
to: Tian
date: Wed, May 25, 2011 at 7:30 PM
subject: smatter

Hanzi Smatter circa 1700

http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=3160



A friend of Dr. Mair sent him a
photograph of Dutch chinoiserie tile panel from the late 17th-early 18th century, and asked him to help her identify some of the curious scenes represented on it. Dr. Mair, however, was immediately drawn to the cartouche in the upper left corner.

Here is what happened...
from: Fryeda K.
to: tiangotlost@gmail.com
date: Fri, May 20, 2011 at 1:20 PM
subject: Tattoo

This idiot went to get "his name", but now gets "lots of laughs in Chinese restaurants".

So, the question is, what does it really say?

Thanks!



Although top character is , however it would not make any sense combining with .

Most likely it was a typo and intended tattoo is 精神, or spirit.
from: John C.
to: tiangotlost@gmail.com
date: Tue, May 17, 2011 at 12:58 PM
subject Tattoo Translation

Hi there,

I got a tattoo a few years back saw the image in a shop alongside a few others, and decided to get it. It is supposed to be Outlaw, though someone I used to game online with from China told me it actually directly translates to Out of the Law. I can live with that if that is true. Though now that it is time to get my tattoos touched up due to fading, I want to double check before I get a new coat of ink put on it. Here is the attached image from when it was still freshly done.

Thanks,

John



躲藏 means "[in] hiding" and is "criminal".

However the translation of 躲藏犯 is equivalent of "snitch" or "rat". It is associated with someone has betrayed his duty and honor to exchange for freedom but in a life of hiding. Definitely not glamorous in either law enforcement or crime syndicates' eyes.

Friday, May 27, 2011

Tattoo pictures of a "Cesc Fabregas" inspired elbow tattoo

Hi,

Yesterday one of my customers (thanks Ruairi! :)) showed me some pictures of his new tattoo that I sketched a few months ago. The tatoo design is inspired by the elbow tattoo of the Arsenal soccer player Cesc Fabregas, and is in a graphical polynesian style.

The original high quality flash design that I made looks like this:

Cesc Fabregas elbow tattoo arsenal soccer football design sheet flash linedrawing
It has a shark tooth, some kind of an eye and other repetitive patterns.

The band wraps around the elbow and connects perfectly on the outside of the arm.



My customer sent me the following photos of elbow:

polynesian armband tattoo elbow Cesc Fabregas football arsenal playerarsenal player fabregas elbow tattoo design polynesian



cesc fabregas elbow tattoo download free stencil








Any questions? Just let me know


Kind regards, Mark Storm

info@storm3d.com
www.storm3d.com

Thursday, May 26, 2011

Extension shoulder tattoo in Polynesian mixed style

Hi,

Last year I created a half sleeve tattoo in polynesian style for a Dutch customer. It's a bit of a mixed tribal style, it has some stylized flowers and other repetitive shapes:

custom maori mixed tattoo design with flowers tribalpolynesian tribal flash halfsleeve tattoos for sale
















Unfortunately the tattoo artist applied the stencil too small, so it now needs some extensions.

I marked the upper shoulder part that had to be inked.


I created a basic sketch and once it was approved I finalized it. To give you an idea how that process works I shot a short movie and placed it on youtube:




If you liked this video, or want to see more, please take a look on my youtube channel or visit my website Storm3d.com

Kind regards, Mark Storm
info@storm3d.com
www.storm3d.com

Monday, May 23, 2011

Tribal tattoo mask design polynesian style

Hi,

A few weeks ago I received an e-mail from the company "Paddle Republic", a surf/fitness school in the Key West, Florida.

Their design studio had come up with a polynesian mask logo, but it needed some adjustment, especially on the mask, because it was a design from a stock library. I was asked to redraw the (tattoo)mask with an original Maori inspired touch to it.

This is the logo from their design studio:

surf logo mask tiki maori tribal tattoo design










I made two pencil sketches with a different look:

maori mask logo tattoo design tiki ta mokopolynesian mask sketch maori style tiki



















It was in the right style but they asked me to do another sketch, a bit more round and with more koru/maori curves:

moko face mask logo tribal design sketches



















This was exactly what they were looking for, so I could trace the design in Adobe Illustrator, to make it a high quality vector logo:

vector file mask maori tattoo logo tracing Illustrator design



















Once that was completed, I added the words "Paddle Republic" and replaced the red color:

logo tiki maori mask surfing paddle republic high resolution




Kind regards, Mark Storm
info@storm3d.com
www.storm3d.com

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Maori kneeband tattoo design

Hi!

Here are the pictures my latest project, a kneeband tattoo in Maori/Kirituhi style. The tatoo wraps around the upper leg, just above the knee.
It has some Samoan and polynesian elements, but mainly consists of Koru tribal designs, filled with small detailed shapes.

First I made a basic layout with flowing curves and added some rows of arrowheads:

maori samoan kneeband tattoo sketches design







Then I filled the tattoo with polynesian and samoan elements, like triangles, waves and lines:

knee tattoo band around leg pencil drawings







My customer approved the design, so I could trace it and optimize the high resolution tattoo in Photoshop. Finally I added some nice shadings. This gives an effect of depth in the overal image

hi res tattoo knee maori band design koru







For updates and current projects, you can follow me on Twitter.

Kind regards, Mark Storm
info@storm3d.com
www.storm3d.com