... leaving a mark
... on the world is one thing, but on a close friend is another. For those of you who may not recall, my wifee and i went on our cruise this past month with our 2 friends, D&L. L approached me about 2 months prior to the trip and asked me to help her with a design to be used for a tattoo to symbolize our carribbean cruise! i was totally flabbergasted, and so honored to be asked this!
L has a series of butterflies from some of her journeys around the world, and each one represents a specific place she's been. to be asked something like this was so flattering... i immediately began researching butterflies of the region, and drawing outlines of the lil' buggers that could be filled in later with representative images of our (4)some journey! well.. a funny thing happened on the cruise: distractions! fun! drinks! partying! and alllll kinds excursions and other stuff to the point where L and i realized we hadn't worked on the tattoo design "during" the cruise!
we ended up spending almost 3 hours on the 2nd to last day, sharing pictures, images, and discussing what would be great to incorporate into the delicate wings of the butterfly. L and i had taken an amazing excursion to see some ruins in belize... so after some sketches, we decided to incorporate some of the huge 20+ foot palm fronds into the wings. all of us snorkeled as well in different spots, and we wanted to capture that abstract beauty of all the fish. since the male parrot fish was in abundance, we used those colors to create the perfect look! L had the amazing idea of rotating the 'abstract' fish so it's natural fish head snuggles right into the butterfly wing!
finished tattoo is below. L is healing well, and has reported the colors faded a bit as they should, but it's still a brilliant tribute to an amazing trip. i'm still dumbfounded that she asked me to help her out with the design. the tattoo artist out of galveston, tx did an amazing job on the highlights, gradations and minute details.... (real photo of parrot fish shown to highlight colors used as inspiration)
i'm flattered and proud to have been a part of this. just thought maybe some of you would enjoy seeing the results... :)
4 comments:
That is absolutely beautiful. It gave me chills! How wonderful for both you and L! I'm still in the process of my tattoo cover up (not mentioning it on my blog until it's done...parents, might just flip a bit...it's HUGE!).
So, if you want to mention anything about it to me, my email addy is available now at my profile. :)
Anyway, gorgeous, just gorgeous!
*you might consider taking off the "monitored comments"....
yesh, fixed the monitor part...
thanks Shannon. you MUST post images of your work! I'd love to see them. my own wifee now has asked me to potentially help her with a design too!
soooo cool!
Thanks for all your help with this design! It turned out beautifully. A perfect memento of the trip. (We should try to get a less bendy-looking shot, perhaps.)
By the way, the tattoo artist is Chano at Body Language Tattoo in Galveston.
:)
I will post it when it is done. SO I can give both my parents heart attacks at the same time. :) Since we are going to Hawaii next year for Thanksgiving it is going to have to come to light for them at some time.
Lanio- GORGEOUS! I can/will send you images of mine, unless mr. bronxbt wants to for me. :)
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