Tattoo Love

I am in the process of designing a new tattoo for myself.

It is of 2 koi fish, swimming upstream, and it is for my left inner forearm, when I get a tattoo design in my head it kinda starts to take over, buzzes about in my brain until I take pen to paper (or fiddle about on illustrator) and start to design myself something.

Hubby suggested last night that I really should carry a sketchpad and pencils round with me, so whenever I have tattoo ideas, painting ideas, photography ideas, anything really, I can sketch them out, and thus, not keep myself awake at night with all the ideas buzzing around my brain.

A good idea I think. So I may have to look at getting some sort of satchel for every day use. so I can keep my sketch pad and pencils along with my everyday handbag clutter and not end up in a complete mess. It kinda feels like I am regressing back to my college days, just without the Carter USM hair, and lack of nose ring. :)

Here is my preliminary sketch. in the very early stages as you can see! Just trying to work on sizing and spacing a bit first, adding in elements as I go along. 

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Yes, I know it really is very very early stages, but I thought I might share this one, from first concept to possible finished tattoo. (it is entirely possible that I change my mind on the position/design of this tattoo as it progresses. if so then its just a pretty design that will sit on my blog for eternity! it may end up on my leg, another option I am considering. I have so many tattoo ideas its hard to decide where I want them all)
I started with doing research online of Koi tattoos, koi drawings, koi photographs, anything I could find really, and using these as a base, started to draw them on Illustrator. These are my first ones, and I think there will be some tweaking, and some hand drawing and sketching being done very soon. My last tattoo I designed almost entirely on Illustrator, well, I designed the line work and shading, again from inspiration I found online, and working around my original tattoo I had on my right arm. However, now it has come to adding back ground and colour, I'm finding myself kinda stumped. Hubby is taking pen and pencil to my arm this weekend to try out some backgrounds and colours, so I can finally get the half sleeve finished.
Anyway back to the Koi. I like to try and keep my tattoos quite feminine, I like them to flow, but not be too complicated. So found myself drawn to the images with more elaborate fins and tails, just toned down a bit form the uber elaborate frilliness. The star is on there for possible positioning on my arm, as I already have a star on my wrist. I'll update with pictures as the design progresses.

Happy Wednesday
Jules x