Week of the Skull

So, this week saw the return of Mike! I always enjoy working on him; he sits well, never complains and will sit as long as I will let him! Gotta love that in a client! Anyway, this piece started out as a cover up of his wife's name (that part of the tattoo is above this skull and is not visable in this pic) and all of the work on him is custom and drawn directly on him with a ball point pen (no stencils). The piece started out as black and grey and then I decided to go with color; I'm really glad that I did! Mike is too! The color really took the depth of the piece to another level. I also love the sick green color of this piece; I used the Zombie Greens from Alla Prima.
I'll post more pictures of the progression of this piece as it unfolds. Hopefully, future pics will be better than this one. I'm a tattoo artist, not a photographer! But, I am working on it; I need to buy a "natural light" light bulb to show the colors better and to help illuminate the tattoo. Hopefully I'll get one soon.