Queen of Hearts Process

 Alrighty, how about a little behind the scenes? I have just finished my very first custom tattoo design! 

I'm still only working for friends. Michelle requested I draw her a custom Queen of Hearts to go on what will be an Alice in Wonderland sleeve she has been working on. How exciting for me!

Portrayed here I have a few of the steps I took to make this design. The very first one was just a basic concept of what we were looking for and it was a little too detailed for the size she wants (3"x4") and so I had to fatten her up a bit and take out some of the smaller details plus something was needed in order to break up the two characters since the piece is going to be in color and we don't need a big block of red.

The next step was to play around with some color and add the Q details that a playing card would have. I wasn't sure what color the hair needed to be at this point but that's ok, this is about 3 hours of work so far.

I sent the designs to Michelle to see what she thought and she preferred the blonde hair and gave the go-ahead to finish it up. I bolded the tiny detailing on the sleeve, turned her blonde, and squished her together a little so that she's the proper playing card size.

All said and done this is about 5 hours of work and the next step will be setting a date for the tattoo :)