All this drawing tattoos got me wanting to design my next tattoo. I have a nice space on the outside of my left forearm that needs filling, so i came up with this. I really like the aesthetics of three roses, and the image of Apollo would sit well with the rest of my tattoos. Originally i wanted another full length greek god in this area but then i realised that when the sleeve was finished there would not be a great variation of tattoos on that arm. I feel that the roses would add more to the sleeve when it is complete and just the head of the greek god Apollo would tie in nicely.

This is just a more modern version of a tattoo that caught me eye in one of my books. It's a human skull with a single rose between its teeth.

This idea came about when I was looking at tattoos of daggers going through hearts. I find myself liking the steriotypical hearts when i look at them but I am not happy with my them when i draw them, so I decided to change the heart element to be an actual heart.
I preferred the idea of a pen penetrating the heart instead of a dagger. I thought this would be better suited to me as an illustration student and the fact that I don't really own any knives or daggers for reference! So i found myself the nicest looking pen (which happened to be a Parker pen i used when i was in school!) It's silver with a gold nib, i feel this will look great when i add colour to it later.

Old school tattoo design

Iv recently become fascinated with tattoo design and I am particularly keen on the old school designs from the 50's, 60's and 70's. I used to be into the traditional style pin-up girls but recently skulls, hearts and daggers have been tickling my fancy. So just for some fun I have been taking the idea of traditional tattoo art and putting my own edge on it. Here are a few examples of the first lot of drawings I have done. I have a few tattoos of my own however not in this style. I have angels and greek gods on my left arm which will hopefully soon be a finished sleeve.

First sketch (2B pencil) of an old lady I have done for the self directed brief in Uni. This sketch took approx. 2 hours and is A4 size.

Guy Denning - Inspiration for Self Directed Brief

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