Forearm tatoo design seamless fit

Hi There,

This week I have been working on a large project, a maori / kirituhi forearm design.
Like other sleeves, this tattoo design had to be wrapped around the forearm completely and make a seamless fit.

Here you'll see a few pictures of the design in different stages:












The size of the design is 27 cm high and the width at the elbow is 30 cm and at the wrist it's 18 cm.

To make sure the design fit's seamless I first draw one side of the design and copy it. Then I place it against the other side and continue the design. I always try to keep the lines flowing and the fills interesting.

The customer liked the tattoo immediately, so I only had to make some minor changes to this drawing. Here are a few pictures of the process of tracing the design:















Tomorrow I will be working on an armband in maori / kirituhi design. Really enjoying this kind of projects, where I can use my own style and mix it with Maori shapes and symbols.

Regards, Mark

from: Taija N.
to: tiangotlost@gmail.com
date: Wed, Jun 17, 2009 at 7:27 AM
subject: Tattoo

Hi!

I got a tattoo few years ago, when i was young and now I think I really didn't think it through. In tattoo there is cat (looks like a rat), so I started to wonder if the mark with the cat is really real. Does it say anything, is it false?

When I took it, it had meaning for me. Now I can't even remember that word what it was supposed to meant. I've checked all the possibles I know it could be, but haven't found that mark anywhere. I know, I've might been a stupid and I really don't understand how I forget it. Maybe it was that I didn't really understand what it meant and I just trusted the man who tattooed it.

I've read too much stories about people having stupid, even insulting or meaningless tattoos, so I just want to know if mine is real.

I guess, good thing is no one japanese or Chinese haven't ever stared it or laughed:D

Thank you very much in advance. I hope you can help me. I put the picture of tattoo for you.

Taija N.



It looks like 名 to me, what do you think?

Update shoulder tattoo sketch

Hi,

A quick update on the maori shoulder design I started yesterday...

Today I received the comments from my customer, he wanted to apply some changes to the lower side of the tattoo design. It took me a couple of hours to adjust the sketch, but here's the latest design. He really liked the shoulder part, but wanted less curles and round edges in this tatoo.




















I'll get back to you tomorrow with the latest info on this pencil sketch and maybe some updates on the forearm tattoo design.

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

custom tattoo design

Hi,

Yesterday I started on a new shoulder piece for a customer from Colombia.
He wanted a quarter/half sleeve maori design with some elements from shoulder tattoo 147 and 152.

Not to detailed fills and it had to wrap around the arm a little. The total size of the design is 18 cm x 15 cm.

Here's the first two pictures of the design:

















The final sketch will follow when the customer is satisfied with this pencil sketch.

I'm also working on a forearm tatoo design, that wraps around completely and has to make a seamless fit. Quite a challenge, I'll post some pictures soon.

If you want to send me a message, simply use my e-mailaddress, or put a comment on this blog.

Mark

Tattoo photos of my tribal designs

Hi,

I think it's nice to show you some photos of people wearing my designs.
Here are a few pictures I received lately:



The first design is nr. 142 in the shoulder gallery of my website.
The second tattoo is nr. 146 in the shoulder gallery and the third is a custom tattoo design, so that is specially created for this customer and is not sold to anyone else.

In the upcoming week, I will start on a lower arm tattoo with some flowers and ferns. You'll see some sketches of it on this blog, so if you wish to subscribe, simple use the "Add This" button in the upper right corner.

Any comments? Really like to hear your opinion.

Thanks!

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

Cover up tattoo design

Hi there,

Recently I got the question from someone who wanted to cover up an old tattoo.
The design was a faded dragon or horse or something like that.
Normally I don't design cover-up tattoos, but for this time I agreed on turning it into a maori shoulder tattoo, with some nice fills and curles.

First I made a template with an example of the existing design and the space I should cover in total.


The customer wanted a circle in the middle and some curly maori ferns around it.
Total size of the existing design was 2,5 cm wide and 6 cm high. The cover up had to be somewhere around 14 cm high and 10 cm wide.

I print the template on A4 size paper with all the lines in really lightgrey, so the lines are not that visible.
The first sketch was just a try-out to see how I had to work around the existing tattoo.


It took me around an hour to do this one.


I scanned it and mailed it to my customer who wanted a bit more detail and more curves.

The second sketch worked out better and the shape was done.
After some e-mailcontact on the fills we agreed to keep it simple with some basic lines and full black fills.




Next time I will try to explain how to make a tattoo design ready for a tattoo shop, by creating a linedrawing for a stencil.

Till then!

Regards, Mark

Finished The Rock style shoulder tattoo

Hi,

I showed you the first sketches yesterday for a Finish customer, Jarno.
He really like the sketch design, so I finished it today.
(Please respect the customer, this tattoo is protected by copyright and is not to be used by other people.)

Here's the final result:




















At the moment I'm waiting for some details on new custom pieces.
So hopefully I can show you some new sketches in a few days.

Kind regards, Mark Storm

Polynesian shoulder design Dwayne Johnson style

Hi!

My latest shoulder tatoo design is loosely based on the Dwayne Johnson "The Rock" tattoo.
The design is for a customer from Finland (sorry Jarno :).
I have transformed the shapes a bit more in my own style, but tried to keep the detailed design.
First I made the basic layout with a nice round shoulder part on top.
Then I started working on the lower part, slowly working my way up.

To make the upperpart nice and clean, I decided to make it symmetrical. The sketch is sent to the customer and I will update you soon with a finalized or updated tattoo sketch. :)

Comments? Just let me know!

Mark Storm
info@storm3d.com
www.storm3d.com

Finished tattoo design for the Shoulder

Hi There,

Here's the finished shoulder tattoo. Scanned and optimized.

I made some small changes in the upper shoulder, so the fill is a bit more interesting. The repeating shapes on the left side of the shoulder represent arrowheads and the maori curly shapes are called Koru or Fern.




















A little history for those who want to know more about the meaning of Koru:
The koru is the Maori name given to the newborn, unfurling fern frond and symbolises new life, growth, strength and peace. The koru is an iconic symbol of New-Zealand.
It is an integral symbol in Maori carving and tattoos.

Regards, Mark

from: David L.
to: tiangotlost@gmail.com
date: Sun, Jun 14, 2009 at 12:11 PM
subject: tattoo meaning

Hi, I'm called David Lopez.

I'm from Barcelona and I would like to know that it means a tattoo that I did to myself years ago.
I believe that it is Chinese and though I did it for aesthetics, now I am afraid of taking a meaning that I don't want.

My girlfriend and I would have a lot of interest to know the real meaning of my tattoo.

Thank you very much in advance. You will be of great help!

David



賈 means "buy/trade", 路 means "road, path", 卡 means "card".

賈路卡 sounds like a type of prepaid card that allows its owner to access public transportation. Typically it is called 乗車券 定期券 (short for 定期乗車券) in Japan and 月票 in China.

Some readers suggested this could be translation of "Jeanluc", but that is not correct. Jeanluc is 吉魯克.

Latest custom tattoo sketch

Hi,

At the moment I'm working on a shoulder tattoo piece, half sleeve in Maori / Kirituhi style.
This is the first sketch, but the customer wanted a bit more detail in the upper shoulder part of the design, so I had to change that.

This is the first sketch and next to it the one with a more detailed shoulder part:

Get back to you soon with a finished design, or another adjusted sketch, depending on the reply of my customer.

Regards, Mark

Massachusetts is red(-faced)

Dr. Victor Mair, who wrote about the MaxPlanckForschung Cover Fiasco, points me to another piece in Language Log.



Dr. Mair says:

Reading the New Yorker on the train this morning, I was struck by the full-page ad following p. 17. When my eye drifted down the page a little, I had a bit of a shock.

I could immediately read the four Chinese characters on the arch over the entrance to Boston's Chinatown: 天下為公 ("All-under-Heaven Is a Commonwealth"), reading left to right. What left me disoriented is that each of the characters in the inscription was reversed. But then I realized that the entire inscription was a mirror image of what it should be. In other words, all four characters should be flipped over as a group and read from right to left.


As shown in the ad


Corrected (Note: classical Chinese is written right-to-left, hence the corrected image shows 公為下天 instead of 天下為公)

While not as embarrassing as the MaxPlanckForschung Cover Fiasco, I think that the Massachusetts Office of Travel and Tourism might consider asking the advertising agency responsible for the New Yorker slip-up to give them a partial refund.

Update: This snafu is brought to you by Connelly Partners in Boston, MA. http://www.connellypartners.com/

Go to "our work", print, MOTT, it's the third one.

(Thanks to anonymous for the tip.)

from: James H.
to: tiangotlost@gmail.com
date: Sun, Jun 7, 2009 at 12:31 PM
subject: Translation of friend's tattoo

My friend Trev got this tattoo several years ago and he claims it means "survive". A Japanese woman in a sandwich shop gave us some reason to doubt this when she claimed it does not translate to that but she declined to translate it for us, She did say it was "nothing bad" though. As you can imagine I'm looking forward to mocking him if it is wrong. Any idea what it says?


I forwarded this to Alan Siegrist and he had this to say:

The tattoo reads 存続する [sonzoku suru] which means to "continue to exist."

This is not the same as the ordinary meaning of to "survive" in English which should be translated 生き残る [ikinokoru], when referring to a person surviving some sort of disaster like a plane crash, or surviving to old age.

The verb 存続する is not used to refer to people, but rather some sort of inanimate object or concept.

Perhaps 存続 might be used in the legal concept of "survivorship" so that might be how the mistake occurred.

I guess this is sort of "close but no cigar."

Tattoo tutorial for a Maori / Kirituhi design in 5 steps

Hi!

Today I will show you another example on how I draw my Kirituhi / Maori tattoos.
I always use A3 size paper of 200 grams/m2. My tools are good quality H2 and some B1 and B2 pencils. For the final tracing and fills I use a "Paper Mate" marker with a tip of 1-2 mm.
This marker will not smudge when I erase my pencil lines, as many others do.
If you wish to order these markers, just follow this link and search for "paper mate"

First I make a rough outline of the area I will cover.
Then the fern shapes or koru are made in a flowing line and pattern and between these shapes I make some interesting fills and patterns.
When the fill is done I trace the image with a steady hand and erase all pencil lines.
Finally I scan the design and remove some dust and clean it up a little.

Here's a small photo impression of some stages of the design process.








The final piece looks like this.

















Any questions, comments or reactions are welcome!

Kind regards, Mark

New template and design for my tattoo blog

Hi there,

For some time I had my simple standard blogger template. A bit boring I think.
So I started to search for a new template and totally adjusted one to my wishes.
The original design is called "Charcoal".

There are some links in the menu to my own website, so the navigation between the blog and site is better.

The colors are still the same, but it's a bit cleaner and easier to read.
If you have some features you wish to see on it, like a poll or a slideshow, just let me know and I will try to add it.

Ps. The header is just a simple design for now, maybe I can change it in the future.

Regards, Mark Storm

Tattoo in memory of grandfather in tribal style

Hi there,

I received a message from a customer who would like to have a tattoo to remember his grandfather who past away. He wanted to have a design of 12 cm x 6 cm on the inside of his lowerarm. The only thing I had toincorporate was a Myosotis flower.

The first sketch was a bit too curly and feminin as you can see:














I had to make a new sketch and it worked out really nice. It's a symmetrical design with the flower right in the middle. The flower needed some color, so I used yellow and blue for it.

Here's the final design:













I'll get back with some new designs soon!

Regards, Mark
info@storm3d.com
www.storm3d.com

Tattoo design in Polynesian / Mixed tribal style

Hi!

As a graphic designer I get a lot of requests for custom designs.
The average sketch takes me around a week to finish, so I can only do 4 custom tatoos each month. To make sure I only focus on my own style and designs, I decided to stop doing cover-ups and extensions existing tattoos. It just takes too much time and the result doesn't really satisfy me, as a complete new and fresh design does.

Enough on this point, now the new tattoo stuff...

Here's the latest custom tattoo design. It's a combination of Polynesian, Maori and other tribal styles and it is for the shoulder and upperarm.















At the moment I'm working on another custom maori style piece, a shoulder design which is a combination of Shoulder tattoo 140 and 142 from my website.
Check them out on www.storm3d.com


Will be back soon to show you some new designs.

Kind regards, Mark