Japanese Backpiece Tattoo: The Outline

The Outline Tattooed in One Session 
We begin! (Why do I always say "we"? I'm obviously a passive participant at this stage.) The design requires a little fine tuning to fit my back but for the most part, the stencil goes on and then Greg redraws a few things. 

Composition 
The body of the dragon directly connects with the cherry blossoms and wind at the upper left. The clutched pearl of wisdom takes up a place of some prominence at the upper right, providing balance to the design. The lower body of the dragon now loops downward and to the left while the tale finally ends downward and to the right, somewhere on my upper thigh.
The design is essentially as big as it can be.

What You're Looking At 
Purple ink from the stencil and Greg's hand drawn changes mix with the black lines that are the permanent tattooed outline of this back piece. My skin is red and slightly swollen in this picture, taken right after the outline was finished. This is a completely normal reaction. Because my threshold for pain had been reached before the outline was finished, Greg was forced to tattoo some of the outline lightly and quickly. He also didn't start the scales of the dragon's skin (although he did do the belly scales). You can see the sweeping wind left by one of the claws and the spiral design of the pearl of wisdom.

Japanese Backpiece Tattoo: Face of the Dragon

The Face of the Dragon Comes to Life 
Here at our next session, Greg finished outlining the body scales and created darker lines where he had had to work quickly before. And, he also starts the color.

The face of the dragon emerges, almost in the center of my back. I've left all color decisions up to Greg, although we chat about everything. At every stage I relied on his wealth of experience and his artistic aesthetic. Confidence and trust are, I think, a big part of the tattooist/client relationship, although it's not often discussed. 

A Few Words on Color

The darker colors last longer (blue, green, or purple as opposed to red or yellow) and so we both gravitate to these colors. It's important to understand that all tattoos fade. The length of time that a tattoo remains vibrant depends on the initial quality of the tattoo, how well it's treated during the healing process, and how much or little sunlight it receives in its lifetime.

Like the outline photo, this was taken right after being tattooed. Some of the red in the dragon's face is thus small beads of blood (you can see these in the yellow areas) and the whole colored area is a little darker than it will finally appear due to the redness of swelling. Greg is blending the colors, one over the other, shading the whiskers of the face gradually from red to yellow, the face itself form dark blue to light blue, and even from blue to yellow in the eyebrows. It was in this session that I discovered that the spine, with little muscle directly over it, can be a sensitive spot.

Japanese Backpiece Tattoo: Pearl of Wisdom

Flames and the Pearl of Wisdom

In the next few photos, I am condensing multiple tattoo sessions. Greg didn't take photos at each session (all of these photos at the tattoo studio are by him) but thank the gods that he took some! I, of course, was completely oblivious to documenting the experience.

I don't know how many tattoo sessions actually took place between the last photograph and this one, but there's obviously been quite a bit of progress. Not every session was really worth photographing anyway. Due sometimes to my having a good or bad day, or Greg's tight schedule, or just the type of tattooing he did that day, some sessions showed more obvious and photogenic progress than others.

Artistic Touches

Now the direct connection to the cherry blossoms at upper left is clear. The dragons body has been placed "underneath" them. Although not quite visible in this view, the swirling wind on the shoulder has wisps that overlap these as well. The blue scales of the body each receive their own detail, as do the green belly scales. But also notice how the overall three dimensional gleam of the body is beginning to take shape in the strip of light blue on the scales just to the left of the belly scales. The horns are finished as is the purple pearl of wisdom. The flames behind it are coming from the claw which clutches it.

Japanese Backpiece Tattoo: More of the Body

Really Starting to Look Like a Tattoo 
Another major section of the tattoo, the claw, leg, and flames on the left are now done. It's also interesting to see how the transparency of the wind over the middle of the body is taking shape.

A Word on Pain 
Although Greg is working on trying to complete sections, he has to move from place to place as one part of the skin becomes too sensitive for continued work. In general, the first half of the session was done in places that were more sensitive. The second part of the session was a welcome relief, with tattooing in some other area that was usually pretty far from the first.
Nuance 
I am still amazed that each scale is individually shaded and that they also flow as a group to show the shiny light blue gleam of the twisting body. The claw is also tinged with yellow. You may also have noticed by now that I don't show any photos below, say, the hips. The tattoo obviously extends further down. You'll just have to take my word for the fact that I've made a good decision on this one -- for everyone's sake.

Japanese Backpiece Tattoo: Almost Done

Pretty Much There

This photo was taken right before the last tattoo session. Only a few claws and one long blue whisker remain to be done. Greg will also go over a few spots done in previous sittings.

Finishing Touches 

He has now put some of the finishing touches on this back piece -- the kind that set him apart from other artists. Grey wind from the swirling shoulder region has now been extended behind the coiling body of the dragon, filling it in. Cherry blossom petals in the wind of the claw echo those from the wind on the shoulder. Small patches of dark shading have been added behind the horns and lower body, at various points, to create a bit of a backdrop and to "pop" the design a bit.

At this point the transparency over the middle of the body has had some grey wind added to it. Because the backpiece was planned as the largest and most significant part of a body suit (which has yet to be thought out) Greg is using some caution in how much he really fills in the blank spaces. We may need those later to link to other panels of the body suit.

Japanese Backpiece Tattoo: Completion

It Is Finished

For all the research, planning, and visualization, I really could never have envisioned what the finished piece was actually going to look like nor what the tattoo process was all about.

It's transformative, in many different ways, and not something to be entered into lightly, no matter the size or placement of a tattoo. To look at tattoo magazines, web sites, calendars and coffee table books you'd think that everybody who is tattooed is heavily tattooed. But this is not the case. Although one in ten people in the United States has a tattoo, only a small minority get this much ink.

Although I did not take note of the actual number of tattoo sessions, my best estimate is that the entire tattoo took about 50 hours of tattooing, spread over some 15 to 18 sessions, over the course of a year.

Will I finish the body suit that I had originally envisioned? Very likely not. Tattooing really does entail more pain (and healing periods, and no soaking in the tub, and Lubriderm by the case) than I would like to endure. What I wanted from a tattoo -- whatever that was -- I got.

While the majority of people who get a tattoo do not regret it, there are certainly some that do. Of those that do, the majority of these regret their tattoo primarily because of "the name" in the tattoo or poor quality. Suffice it to say that there is nothing that I would change about mine.

Japenese Traditional Tattoo Art

Tattoos are becoming very popular now as they are more accepted and it is less of a taboo to have a tattoo. This means that standard designs such as butterflies, flash tribal and dragons are now very common. This has led many people to look for alternatives that have meaning and still look beautiful.

A Japanese tattoo would fall into the category of unusual. It can be hard to find a traditional and authentic Japanese tattoo and you will most probably have to pay more to have one inked on you. Learning about the Japanese tattoo is helpful in deciding whether this is the tattoo for you.

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