Freehand Designs - of confidence and skill

The day of the tattoo appointment - a day to look forward to. Even the more experienced tattooists among us often get at least a little excited, at least just before the appointment starts. Preliminary discussion or not - what will the end result look like? Will the tattoo artist match the image I have in mind? And what does the design that my tattoo artist has prepared for me actually look like?

The design - the basis for every tattoo, whether small lettering, a large-scale realism project or a Maori sleeve. A tattoo can be finely crafted and engraved to perfection - unplanned or inaccurate planning and placement will turn any motif, however small, into an eye-catcher in a negative sense. After all, the overall effect has to be right, not just the technical implementation. Accordingly, the tension rises before the first look at the planned motif, which is usually presented, discussed and/or worked out at the beginning of the session. Thanks to technology - with the help of drawing tablets and image editing software such as "Procreate" or "Photoshop", tattoo designs can now be created in a short space of time and can also be edited relatively easily, which makes the work much easier and quicker. Nevertheless, many colleagues, especially from older generations of tattoo artists, still prefer pen and paper to the Apple Pencil.

And yet - not every tattoo can be precisely visualized in advance. Although measurements can be taken and photos taken of the relevant body part, the shape of the body is and remains an important factor. It should be clear that a tattoo is not a 2-dimensional image, such as a drawing on paper or canvas. Muscles and bones have a decisive influence on the appearance of the tattoo, which makes it essential to adapt the motif. Just a few centimetres difference in alignment or a single unattractively placed line can become a disruptive factor. And as good as most motifs can be planned and aligned, a finished design is not necessarily useful in every case.

So-called freehand drawings, i.e. tattoo designs that are drawn directly onto the skin with sterile markers or brushes, are an elementary part of the tattoo artist's craft. Almost any motif can be started in the form of a sketch. Freehand drawing is particularly common in styles such as Maori (Polynesian), ornamental blackwork and similar abstract or ornamental styles. The motifs are usually so strongly adapted to the individual shape of the body that it is very difficult, if not impossible, to create an aesthetic placement using a conventionally printed stencil and apply it in an attractive way. This is where the marker comes into play - and with it a good deal of trust on the part of the customer. After all, it is reassuring to start a tattoo session with the knowledge of the exact motif. In the case of a freehand drawing, this is a little more complicated - preliminary sketches and a detailed preliminary discussion, also with sample images of the customer for desired motifs/elements, can make the elaboration easier. However, a direct sketch is associated with a much more intensive exchange during application - and is of course also somewhat more time-consuming.

Usually, the tattoo artist (after the usual hygienic preparation) works in the drawing from rough preliminary drawing to finer details. Different pen colors facilitate the visualization of light-dark contrasts and form contours. For ornamental projects, it is also usually essential to add auxiliary lines, such as line grids or tracing muscle contours. From the rough shape, outlines and area division to the addition of smaller details, an overall image is created piece by piece, which "fits" almost perfectly to the area to be tattooed. It is not for nothing that some tattoo artists work exclusively with such processes!

So what's wrong with simply starting every tattoo with a freehand sketch? One point here is the motif itself. With ornamental projects, there is often enough leeway in the design to allow creativity to flow in during the stencil placement, which makes the design a dynamic process. In comparison, however, photorealism, for example, lives from a very exact and, as the name suggests, "photorealistic" detailed realization of a motif. Anyone who has ever tried to trace a photo with pencils knows how time-consuming and complex such a drawing is. The tattoo result can be applied much more easily with a stencil - a freehand drawing is tantamount to a superfluous work step.

The accuracy of the preliminary drawing is also a factor - and the one that demands trust in the tattoo artist. A freehand drawing with markers is often by no means as precise and finely detailed as the finished tattoo - the drawing may even appear confusingly colorful and unclear to the customer's eye. First and foremost, it serves the tattoo artist as a basic construct for an image, which he holds in front of his inner eye. However, the addition of details to the skin sketch during the tattooing process is often all the more satisfying and amazing - expectations are bound to be exceeded!

At the end of the day, it is always advisable to take a tattoo artist's decision as to whether a stencil created in advance or a freehand drawing makes more sense for the project in question. All the more reason, however, to take a look at the portfolio or even talk to the tattoo artist in person beforehand. But trust can also pay off!