Okay my husband and I plan to get tattoos together.. I get one half of the heart and he gets the other.. I drew these, so tell me what you think.. (mostly looking for opinions on the drawings themselves, any improvements needed or comments) By the way, my camera kind of sucks balls..

This is the two drawings together..


This is my half..


This is his half.. (still deciding whether to add other stuff with it)

When viewed together the stitching would look out of place on the one half without it being on the other. Aside from that just needs some shading details. I think it has too much to be a simple 2D drawing, and not enough to give it the depth or detail that would make it stand out. I understand keeping it simple for the tattoo artist so YMMV.

HTH
-Raeb

Yeah my shading kind of sucks, I only had a mechanical pencil.. lol yeah the stitching will probably be on his side also, I just haven't added too many details to his yet because he hasn't decided what he wants with it.. I like to do it all at once, lol.

Also I was also hoping that our tattoo artist can add some detail to it also while it is actually being done.

I get the best results when I find an artist whose other works I like, then just give him a concept and let him take it away. After all, he is the artist- not me.

Instead of walking in and saying "I want THIS", give him the sketch and say "This is where I'm going with my idea, see what you can do". Have him produce some sample sketches and pick and choose the elements you like and don't like. Something so permanent deserves a lot of deliberation.

Dare I ask where you are getting it?

I agree that the vines are really nice but when put together they will look out of place on one side. I would do as Bren suggested, find an artist you love, he/she will be able to "finish" it, and may have other sugggestions it is what they do.

In the end though you have to love it!

Yeah thats what I planned to do, the vines are just some extra detail for my tattoo, he is going to get something with his also.. This is just sort of a blueprint I guess you could say, hopefully the tattoo artist can elaborate on it.

I am with Bren. I like finding my artist and giving them the concept and letting them run.

I am with Bren. I like finding my artist and giving them the concept and letting them run.

Listen to Styg. He probably has more tattoos than everyone else in the guild put together.

I don't know about put together.....


.....at least not yet.



This one is my favorite.

Or possibly the Mickey Mouse skull, but I don't have a picture of that one handy.

Also wanted to add that I love the idea. The missus and I have been discussing a complimentary tattoo option (the only question is where I can put it.)

Reading this thread, I can't help but recall the time that we found out a friend had gotten a tattoo on her back of her husband's name, and my wife said "wow, that's a lot of dedication, what if something happens to him or your marriage" and she said "eh, there are a lot of guys named Matt!"

HAHA

My other favorite tattoo story: a friend of mine, who is a marine engineer, got a job with the Navy that involved scuba diving for ship repair. He had to go to Navy Seal training. One of the people he met there would talk to women at bars, eventually get their name, and say "You know, I've got your name tattooed on my butt!" They would of course express disbelief and would eventually insist he show them, at which point he would drop his drawers and show them the "YOUR NAME" that he had tattooed on his butt.

Sorry, Feo, I've hijacked your thread. You can have it back now. I express no opinion on your tattoo, as I am inkless, but I have been sorely tempted for several years to get the writing on the One Ring tattooed around my upper arm. Maybe one day...

Rastus, you fucking nerd.

Get back to your Civil Procedure textbooks, law geek.

I like tattoos and have designed a couple myself. That said, just ask yourself this question: will you like it when you're 80 years old and all wrinkly?

I won't like anything when I am 80 years old and wrinkly. Get the fuck out of my front yard!

I won't like anything when I am 80 years old and wrinkly. Get the fuck out of my front yard!


Quoted For Truth!

ART NERDITRY INCOMING:

I recently gave feedback on a friend's original tat design that I think is in the same vein (HA) as this one - it had a couple of different style elements going on that I felt were fine apart but that she might want to carefully consider when combined, or at least how they were combined. Hers was flowers, vines, and a geometric symbol -- here's an organic, realistic heart with stylized vines/keys/leaves. You want to make sure all your elements look "right" as a single entity, so you may want to think about either a more stylized heart or more realistic embellishments (considering how a photo-realistic padlock would look gouged through a heart chamber I am gonna venture an assumption it'd be leaning more towards all stylized.)

Second is the thing that's been mentioned, which is that half a heart, out of context, can look like a bendy teardrop sort of a thing and not readily like a heart when seen independent of its buddy. It might help alleviate the confusion if it was a more deeply curved symbolic heart kind of in this theme, or cut jagged down the middle like classic kids' "BFF" necklaces. Alternately, you want themed heart tattoos on two people, you could each get an entire heart with complementary stuff, like one has the key and one has the lock, etc etc.

Finally, to parrot Bren, definitely definitely get the artist to take something and carry the idea forward -- in the case of the flowers/symbol tat I mentioned above, she had an awesome drawing, but the overall composition/placement of each bit really needed the attention of a professional to make it look just that - pro. We all kind of came to the same conclusion, but none of us had the expertise to say quite WHAT needed to be done to it, and that is where a good tattooist reviewing the sketches and making their own really comes in handy.

This puts me in mind of another school of design Linn.

I have seen some pretty cool paired up tattoos where it was a complete picture on it's own, but then when you put it together with the partner's it made something else.

So have half the heart somehow worked into a greater design then when you overlap your arms or what have you then it completes the picture, kind of like the mad magazine foldouts they used to have.


I guess the other question that pops in my head now is scale. It also occurs to me the size difference between me and the missus is kind of vast and anything that was the right size for one of us would look off scale on the other if we had something that was designed to connect.