I really wish IAM:project29k had sent in more photos of this tattoo. According to the description he provided us, there are 110 squares total, split between the solid black squares and the negative space ones.
Square Root
2
Tag Archives: blackwork
Holy Stencil King
I wanted to show the process in which Matt Black of Divine Canvas in London lays down his amazing dotwork tattoos, and I think what might strike tattoo artists or people who are heavily tattooed the most, is that he’s somehow able to lay a stencil for a big psychedelic wavework tattoo like this. I’d assume something like this had to be freehand, not planned in advance, if only because it’s practically impossible to draw something like this on flat paper and then stencil it so accurately onto a complex shape like this part of the body. Seriously, it’s quite hard for me to understand how he did this, and it almost makes me think I’m misinterpreting the photo and it’s not a stencil. But I’m quite sure it is.
Anyway, stage two is to lightly outline all the shapes in dotwork, as you can see above on the right. After that it’s a matter of filling in the waves, with all the secondary detail — a secondary set of ripples and fluctuations in dot density on top of original design, eventually leaving the customer with an incredible living, pulsating piece of art on their body.
(Both images can be zoomed to get a better view)
More Amazing Blackwork
The blackwork tattoo masters have been uploading some great work today, so I want to feature three more great pieces (see mountains more in BME’s tattoo galleries). From top to bottom, the geometric back burst (note the subtle variations in weight that really play with your eye and separate the artist from the tattooist) by Vincent Hocquet (beautifulfreaktattoo.com — edit: note the updated URL), a great backpiece and more by on artist Pinke Leenders (tattoopink.be, photo by Reginald Tackoen), and a wonderful scalp piece extending down the neck and chest of Christ Wentworth by Joe Munroe (joemunroe.co.uk). So much talent out there today — tattoo patrons are very lucky art collectors — that there’s no excuse for not wearing a great tattoo.
Once you go blackwork…
Like the old saying goes, “once you go blackwork, you never go back to work”… err… something like that? Anyway, I want to share two great new pieces from two of the masters of geometric dotwork blackwork tattooing, with the top tattoo being done by Matt Black of Divine Canvas in London — I love the way he used multiple levels — and the bottom one, a beautiful swastika earburst, by Brian Gomes on Andre Cruz.
Scroll of Power
I can’t count the number of times I’ve called John Joyce a master when it comes to scarification, but it’s painfully obvious anytime you see one of his scars. Clearly the client here is modifying himself not only through tattoos and scarification, but also through physical training. Given the size of his arms, it’ll be interesting to see how this one heals up. Normally arms are pretty easy to predict, but with someone who works out his arms on a regular basis, the movement will affect how the scar tissue forms. Not to mention it’s done over black ink, so no matter how much the scar raises, it’ll still be noticeable against the blackwork.
This spirit is home grown
You don’t get to see big beautiful Celtic work much these days. As blackwork goes, it’s been almost entirely pushed out by neotribal, dotwork, and geometric tattoos. So it’s always a treat when you get to see it done right, like in this gorgeous backpiece (and then some — it’s basically a full-body tattoo) by Colin Dale. I know, maybe I’m pushing things classing it as Celtic in the traditional tattoo sense of the word, since it’s got much more of a Scandinavian or Viking sensibility about it, but it’s a beauty either way. I was even more pleased when I realized that Colin is a fellow Canadian, from Saskatoon, although now working at Skin and Bone in Copenhagen. Be sure to click and look at this stunner at full size.
Enter the labrinth, then leave when you don’t meet David Bowie
I am not a huge fan of heavy solid blackwork myself (particularly “piercer arm”) but I have to admit, this piece with random geometric flesh removals by Anders is prety freaking rad. The split shows the work fresh and then healed at 1.5 years.
A BMEBoy and his bike
You’ve seen his both his tattoos and scars on ModBlog many times before, but when it comes to getting in front of the camera, Gabor (IAM: Wyrd) can be a little shy. Which is why this photo is such a rare treat, and a great way to end the day.
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Honour and Pride
This is what happens when you let Brian Decker take a scalpel to skin with heavy blackwork.
Here’s what Brian has to say about the pieces.
To clarify, these pieces were a bit of an experiment with scarification over tattooing in two sessions. The “MY” on both sides was lined and filled with the ESU. The “PRIDE” and “HONOR” were lined with a scalpel and filled with a hyfrecator. You can see the hyfrecator work will need a touch-up session, and yielded no raised effect. The ESU removed the tattoo fully in one shot and keloided upward.
1 ticket to the gun show please
Babakhin Dmitry from Babakhin Tatau does it again with yet another tribal blackwork piece. This one looks like he incorporated some almost Egyptian motifs.
Oh and the guy doesn’t look half bad either.
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