?designing tattoo transfer around curve of shoulder and slee

[presstorelease]

How do professionals design a tattoo transfer design, let’s say a sleeve with the upper shoulder and near the arm pit. I’ve tried to use conventional tracing paper for a tattoo design after measuring the diameter of the limb and I’ve found that paper simply does not form correctly because of it’s stiffness around the body without a slit or dart. So how do professionals design a tattoo sleeve that must curve so much around? Is there a possibly a type of plastic or rubber paper that molds to the body easily and can be used to trace out and design how a tattoo will look over very curved parts of the body? How should I be able to do this important aspect?

Thanks for any help

[xDreamerx]

Let me be blunt….and honest. I dont mean to be rude or even sound disheartening to you. But you cannot always depend on stencils. You HAVE to learn how to draw. Cuz mose pieces that are sleeves…or in odd parts are custom drawn. You have to rely on your abilities as an artist to help you along the way.

I already replied to your other post about stencil paper. So that may help you greatly. But keep in mind you need to keep your drawing skills up. that way you can draw on skin.

I learned how to draw with ball point pen. That way I couldnt erase my mistakes but had to figure ways to hide them and make them seem like they were part of the piece. So I quit doing that after about 3 yrs of straight ball point pen, no pencil, no color pencil..etc. Just pen. I figured it would help me with tattooing better, and it did, but a shop owner once told me “stop drawing in pen, it makes everything you draw look like prison art.” See….to me…I always thought that if you drew in pencil and then inked it with a pen was cheating. I know sounds weird but that was my mentality back then.

So basically to make my story short….just learn how to draw better and better….and better. Then you wont have to worry about if the stencil will work on rounded edges. Hope this helps…once again friend.

[presstorelease]

thank you so much for your response. I truly appreciate it. I’m obviously a greenhorn but interested in understanding exactly how tattooists do a largely designed piece like a sleeve. So I’m basically understanding from your response that a once a preliminary design is sketched out on paper that the tattoo artist will then free hand draw the design onto the skin with a skin marker and bypass much of the need for a stencil. that makes complete sense if that is the case. So is this what everyone does? free hand draw the design with a skin marker?

Sincerely appreciate any help with this question

[presstorelease]

thank you again for the feedback and this is my real question stumping me.

and basically I’m wanting to create a geometric polynesian tat for the upper thigh and have simply been wondering how a pro would get all the perfect lines to “line up” correctly as the design on paper won’t more than likely be exactly correct when the design is applied to the body.

I’m wondering if will the pro tat artist will look at the design and then free hand draw with a skin marker the entire design onto the skin? If so, does the pro use a type of ruler that bends well with the body curve?

Very stumped on this question.

truly thankful for any feedback

[xDreamerx]

For Polynesian work, which is something I havent done and wont do. Only cause I believe there is too much tradition behind it…..I could go on about why I havent done it yet.

But if I was to….IF…and I mean IF lol I would measure the area I’m working on, in this idea the thigh. And after I get my exact measurements down then I would use those figures to design the Polynesian so that it will fit. And using tissue paper is much larger than the standard 8 1/2 x 11 sheets when you buy the big packs…….hope this helps!

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