Reptile & Amphibian Forums

About a year ago I got a the beginings of a tattoo of the scales off the tail of my cal. king, thought some folks here might find it interesting

http://jake.rakis.net/gallery/romitattoo/IMG_1362

what a stupid thing to do.

The picture is huge and i decided to link to the gallery that resizes it for you, and would also let you view other pictures from the set. perhaps that was too retarded.

here.

Cool tat!! I definitely don't have the guts to do something like that, but I think it looks great!

-Willow Raevynwood

Thank you I still have many, many hours to go, but I'm very happy with the progress so far. I have a feeling i may regret it 10 years in the future, but i'll deal with that when i get there

NAAAA! MAN hell no, i'm almost covered and i will never regret!
i will LIVE! without regret!
soooo tell the story, is that a really cool idea for a coverup?
or how did it come togeather? cause i see 3 differ inkings?(from what i can see)
i understand that you will have many sitting's to go threw , but
you get the point,
Thanks, please tell
DJW

That was actually all done in one 5 hour sitting. It's based off of part of the tail of my snake (the far right hand part in the picture at the bottom). When it's done all of the black diamonds will be filled in with black, the grey ones will be filled in between with grey (leaving the scales skin coloured), and the belly scales (the underneath of my arm) will be slightly shaded and have a light grey between them. The light grey is supposed to be the connective tissue you'd see between each scale on an actual snake. The main focus when drawing it on me (it took him 3 hours to draw it on my arm, 5 to ink it) was to get the scales to fit the contour of my arm so that it moved properly with my arm, and looked neat

That was all a year ago, though, and I'm starting to think I may want to finish it up a bit differently. I was originally thinking I'd want it in a sort of tribal style, very solid black and stark contrast, but I'm starting to think I might want to go more in between. Still have it be heavy, but throw in a bit of shading. I'm still trying to figure out how to finish it up I'm pretty sure the plan is, though, to eventually make it a sleeve.

Thank you for all the positive comments I thought some people on this forum might find it neat, much like i did

May i offer some advice? -Get the most detail as possible!
"Quality not quantity" -the more detail the better, tribal is cool ---but somewhat lazy, someday you will walk in somewhere and there will be sitting
500 tribal tattooed uninspired crackers, ya know? (I have a leg
Of what could be called "tribal" but it's very original, different.... But, the idea you have is super cool!!!
But i can almost assure you that if you and your artist go with
A lazy tribal approach, the tat in a few years or ten WILL not make any sense, you'll get allot of "what...who, what is it" and so on, but you will always have folks without imagination, you get the point, think about it real hard - and go with detail, it will make sense, it WILL look like a snake. Some folks might say
(In regards to detail) "It will just look like a blur" bullsh..
I have a Viking warrior standing in the mist of his fallen brothers, skulls, carcasses, blood and bones- real carnage (it's a whole quarter arm) detail so great that you can't see it a foot away-the bodies) but from five foot it creates depth, QUALITY!
Go to Paul Booths site and see for yourself,
Peace,
DJW
Paul Booth

Paul Booth is the sh!t. I've wanted a tat from him for a few years. I met him a couple times at shows and conventions, but he was always too busy to get to me dammit, and unfortunately we live a few states away from him. One day though

That snake scale tattoo idea is original and refreshing in these days of the same old tribal stuff. I agree, get as much detail as you can, I wish I had gotten a bit more detail in a couple of mine...but that was years ago and I still love them no matter what cuz I know I had mine before they became the mainstream, same with my piercings I was doing body piercing professionally before 90% of the general population knew it was possible to pierce all the things we do thesedays, lol.

Good on ya dude, please post an updated pic when you have some more work done on it!
-----
(i)Klaatu...Verata...Nichtu!(/i)

..tattoo I have ever seen.Really!

I have seen hundreds of snake tattoos (especially at reptile expos) and I usually abhore them for their plain unoriginality.
A tat should say something about a person but the old snake on the arm (even if its a chondro python or woma)is way to common.

However YOUR tat is very original and authentic and accentuates the anatomy. I wish I would have thought of that.

I spent ten years in the Marine Corps and never got any ink because I never saw anything that said "me". If I had thought of this I would probably gotten a tatoo. I agree with TXDM, go with quality. Let us know when it is finished.
Bob

Thats really a great tattoo something really different. You dont see something like that alot these days. Really original.