Process

A lot of people like these kind of posts, so I'm going to go through what goes into the making of a painting for me.

First of all is the inspiration, I was going through an old sketchbook looking for a line drawing for a tattoo, and I was checking out these study sketches for a tattoo I did around 2003. It was some underwater mech I did as a lower leg 'sleeve' from the knee down. It was one of the first tattoos I did like that, and while I would do a million things different now, I really liked those claws.

Next up was some research.....no google or other people's tattoo websites, I'm not down with lame shortcuts.

I settled on kind of a lobster/prawn hybrid.

After that, I made some actual size rough sketches, I have a bunch of 24"x36" illustration board I need to use up, so I decided to fill a whole sheet. I used brush pens for this because they are good for sketching fast.

Moving on from there, I transferred the lines of the lobster, and some of the waves; and lightly sketched the rest of the background right on the board.

Once I was done with that, I began the tedious task of lining this thing out, still mostly brush pens, and a few Pitt pens and tiny brushes for the little details. I wanted it to stand out from far away, but reveal little details and patterns as you get close up on it. Then I started blocking in the water bars and finger waves with watercolor ink.

Starting the color with some light washes.

Many washes later, and time to overlay patterns of opaque liquid acrylic on top.

The final painting, I took this pic before I remembered to sign it. Only thing left to do now is scan this in sections, join them in photoshop, and make any adjustments before making prints.

I don't know what I'm going to do with the original yet, maybe sell it, or hang at the studio.