Creating Masterful Tattoo Art from Start to Finish
Fip Buchanan
with photography by Marc Balanky
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Book Details
Price
|
2.50 |
|---|---|
Pages
| 233 p |
File Size
|
12,058 KB |
File Type
|
PDF format |
eISBN
| 9781440328978 |
Copyright©
| 2013 by Fip Buchanan |
Fip Buchanan has been a tattoo artist for thirty-two
years, including management and ownership of tattoo
studios from New York to California. Among others, he
was the owner of Avalon Tattoo in San Diego from 1989
to 1997; worked at Ed Hardy’s Tattoo City in San
Francisco from 2005 to 2008; and has written and taught
the class “Large Scale Tattoo Layout and Composition”
at the Alliance of Professional Tattooists Tattoo trade
show and various conventions for the past two years. He
was elected Vice President of the Alliance of
Professional Tattooists in 2011; is a Bloodborne
Pathogens Certified instructor who teaches classes to
tattoo artists worldwide, most recently in Beijing, China
in 2011; and he currently owns Avalon Tattoo II in San
Diego, California, which he established in 1997.
Fip also does illustrations, skateboard designs, T-shirt
designs, acrylic paintings and murals. He is a graduate of
the Art Institute of Pittsburgh, and his work has been
exhibited in galleries as well as published in the books
Forever Yes and Southern California Tattoo Road Trip,
and the magazines Tattoo, Skin and Ink, Prick Tattoo
and San Diego’s 944. Fip has specialized in large-scale
Japanese-inspired tattoos for the majority of his career
and is well known for his bold, colorful work.
Introduction
I began tattooing in 1979 and it became my career in the
fall of 1984, right after I graduated from the Art Institute
of Pittsburgh. I have drawn all my life and was inspired
by my mother in that direction at a very early age. I do
remember asking my mother what a tattoo was as a child
and she responded “Don’t ever get one of those, you’ll
get blood poisoning!” Well, I’ve gotten way more than
one of “those” and still don’t have blood poisoning!
Fortunately the health aspects of tattooing have much
improved through the passage of time, and those risks
are way less than they were in days gone by. Now most
health departments require that tattoo artists get
blood-borne pathogen training, along with having strict
guidelines about sterilization and sanitation that every
tattoo shop has to follow.
Tattooing has evolved a great deal since I’ve been
involved with it. There are so many styles and trends that
have come and gone, and some of the better ones have
stayed. The language of tattoo design has expanded
tremendously, which is one of many reasons why
tattooing has become so popular. In the good old days of
tattooing, the imagery was very limited. A lot of those
standard designs, and the style they were tattooed in, is
now referred to as American Traditional. Even when I
first began tattooing in 1979, eagles, skulls, anchors,
cartoon characters, weren’t part of a specific genre. They
were just tattoos. Now there is American Traditional,
Tribal, Black and Gray, Celtic, New School, Realistic,
Biomechanical, Japanese, and who knows what else.
With the expanded design options, more people can
relate to tattooing, and find, or create, a design that
resonates with them. Therefore the demographic of
tattooing has expanded. With unlimited design choices,
the tattoo clientele has also become unlimited. Gone are
the days of pointing at a design on the wall and saying,
“I’ll take that one!” Custom tattooing is now the norm.
Anything and everything can be adapted as tattoo
imagery. But whatever it is, there are certain principles
that always apply. Doing artwork as a tattoo on a human
body is different than working in any other medium.
There is no defined border to your “canvas” per se. And
the surface you’re working on varies inch by inch as far
as contour, and even texture. It’s very important to
consider the placement of the tattoo, the flow of the art
with the body, even the colors and how they’ll look on
the skin you’re working with. How will age affect the
look of the tattoo? How detailed should the design be? Is
the person in the sun often? There’s a lot to consider
when applying art to skin.
In this book, I hope to help you learn to create masterful
tattoo-oriented designs with the knowledge I’ve gained
with thirty plus years of tattooing. I won’t be going into
how to actually apply a tattoo. That is way too involved
a process to cover in any book. To properly learn to
apply tattoos, you would need to seek an apprenticeship
with a qualified tattoo artist who is willing to spend the
time needed to train you. My goal with this book is to
help you to better understand the art of tattoo and how to
apply the principles of tattoo design to creating your own
unique tattoo art, and enjoy doing so. Have fun with
it—I do every day!
10
Table of Contents
Special Offer
Introduction
What You’ll Need
CHAPTER 1
The Consultation
Meeting the Client
Sketching and Placement
Keys to a Good Composition
Adding Interest
Location Matters
Overcoming Common Obstacles
CHAPTER TWO
From Sketch to Tattoo
Planning Your Composition
From Sketch to Tattoo
Adding Interest to the Composition
Black and Gray Tattoos
Unifying Design Elements
Adding to Existing Tattoos
Iconic Images
Asian Style Tattoos
CHAPTER 3
Tattoo Style Art
Transfer Designs
Angel Wings
CHAPTER 4
Artists’ Gallery
Chris Walkin
Craig Driscoll
Jen Lee
Juan Puente
Kahlil Rintye
Shawn Barber
Mary Joy Scott
Robert Atkinson
Shawn Warcot
Fip Buchanan
About the Author
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Copyright
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