Tattooing Smaller Pieces with Complex Multilayers!

When approaching smaller pieces, especially complex multilayered ones, I try to break the composition down into a few simple large light and dark areas that will read clearly from a distance, rather than looking like a jumble. With this big hand hook on Wes, we wanted to work in a few gears and things along with the hook- a recipe for potential chaos. So I began by anchoring the design with a big simple flowing diagonal shape, one with a decent surface area, and then plotted in the gear elements around that. You can read about the design strategy for this piece in more detail in the Contrast chapter of your ReinventingTheTattoo.com subscription.