I love this, its really neat. The picture is a little big but its a really nice composition. I'd love to see more vectors/tattoo designs from you.

Thanks, 'neat' was the effect I was going for :)

Yes, this pic is as big as the FA uploading guidelines will permit, but the good thing about large images is that they can be scaled down to the desired level of detail, whereas smaller images can never gain any further detail from scaling up.
I like to upload vectored lineart as large as possible because it shows off the greatest strength of vectors; how it maintains smooth curves and crisp edges at any level of detail.

Because of the high contrast two-tone shading, this sort of image would be ideal for a tattoo... although with so many large dark fields I think this one would be quite painful to have 'filled in' once the lines were inked.

On the one hand, I would love to get such a tattoo... but the thing that stops me isnt the pain or the cost, its the permanency... Im something of a perfectionist, and given enough time I find more and more faults with anything Ive made, things that can be improved, which is simple enough when dealing with a digital image where I possess both the vector and layer maps, but not so simple for ink-stained skin.
Simply put, Im worried that after a while I would become dissatisfied with some minor aspect of it that would nag at me forever, since I would be unable to do anything about it.

I understand completely what you mean. I'd gladly design tattoos for friends, but designing my own is another matter- in fact, I won't do it! Hehe. I'd love to get some tribal/stylized tattoos but I intend to commission them or make my sister design them (she's ten times the artist I am).

I love vectors, I don't like doing them, but I can appreciate them. My friend has one of the machines that can cut out the vector in vinyl so I'm often designing things, tossing them his way and having him vector it and then we print them off to stick on our cars, cases, tackle boxes, tool kits etc. Its quite fun!

I dont natively draw in vectors... I find the tools too awkward for that, but Ive found a program that traces standard image formats to produce excellent vector lines, so I run most of my inked work through that to tidy it up and allow me to scale it before moving onto colouring.

That machine you describe sounds cool; if I had access to one Id probably use it too :D

Tribal tats... hmm, I feel they are getting a bit too commonplace these days, like any significance they might have is diluted by mass appeal... I just know a lot of people with tats, being in the navy, and I dont have much in common with most of the people who get tribal tats. Then again, if its furry-ized thats a different matter altogether, Im just not sure how that would be for what seems like a bunch of random curvy pointy shapes designed to say "look at me, im a badass because I have a tattoo".

Haha oh yeah I totally agree with that about generic "tribal" tattoos. What I meant to say is that I'm interested in tribal native american tattoos. Something with a southwestern tribe appearance or alaskan/northern tribe appearance. Somewhat similar to your avatar, but basically totem heads of animals that are important to me. I'd also consider the more stylized generic ones if it formed the shape of an animal rather than just the basic designs. I'm also interested in somewhat realistic tattoos. One of the first tattoos I want to get is of a bison. :)

That program that you're talking about to do vectors sounds AMAZING. I'm sure my friend with the vinyl vector cutter would love to hear about it. Do you know what its called? It sounds fantastic because I HATE plotting vector points in PhotoShop, which is why I throw my inked designs at my friend. Hehe.

Its called Inkscape, and the particular operation is as easy as : one click with the selection tool on the image to select the whole page, then selecting 'trace bitmap' in the path menu and selecting the appropriate options. Amazingly easy.

Inkscape is also free! get it here http://www.inkscape.org/

Thank you so much! I'll pass it on to my friend and see what he thinks of it. :)

updated this image.

Oh wow thats really cool! I love it!

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