Tattoo Design

This course teaches the design craft behind a tattoo that still reads beautifully a decade after it heals, which is a different discipline from making a nice drawing on paper. You will learn the rules of the four core styles a beginner must know, American Traditional, neo-traditional, black-and-grey, and fine-line, and why each evolved from how ink behaves in skin. You will design with bold readable line weights and enough spacing that the piece does not blur as the body ages, plan placement that wraps and flows with muscle and bone, build the reference sheets, line drawings, and stencils an artist uses at the machine, and respect the ethics around sacred and culturally protected imagery. You will leave able to produce a complete, tattoo-ready design package an artist could take to the chair.