So homey comes up to me and says, hey J.D., you do tattoos? I say yeah brother, I'm just starting out. He says, "I want this." And shows me a pic on his cell phone. I say, send it to me through email, and I'll take a look at it, see if I can do it. Holmes sends me this:



That's the exact size he sent me. It's so small, photobucket didn't even have to minimize it for the direct link. That's the pic he wants me to copy. No bullshit.

The inner dialogue in my head was screaming, "Are you fucking kidding me? What, you want a fucking blurry blob on your shoulder? Cuz that's what you sent me to copy!"

I told him I wasn't ready to do realistic, but I could try to come up with my own art that I could feel confident tattooing. He said he really wants THAT picture. I said it was too fuzzy and there wasn't much I could do with THAT picture. He said he'd think about it. I thought the whole thing was funny.

Hmm. Something which sometimes works is to print it out then scan it back in (or take a photo) at a higher res. "Fuck off" works well too

Crappy references suck for sure, but they just keep coming. You made the perfect suggestion to him, you might point him in the direction of google. With all the great artwork of Jesus out there I'm sure he can find something better if not a bigger pic of the same painting. But if your not feeling it I would pass. If I feel I won't do a piece justice I have no problem passing it along to someone who can.

if thats all u got, make a trace of it. blow it up to size. fill in details as nessary. u get used to it.

yeah. most of that is big areas of folds which wouldn't have to be exactly the same.. pretty easy to trace up then enlarge. use a face from another reference if needed.
shouldn't be too bad

I'm sketching something over the huge blurry ghost image that I brought to size. The hands and feet are pretty much gone. The face I can make out enough. I'll give this a good effort for my own practice to see what I can do, but seriously doubt I'll be tattooing it. If it was more old school, with simpler gradients, then it would be more forgiving, but soft subtle shading in such tight spots like the face and hands are just too much for my skill level. Plus, he wants this in color. There are a lot of elements in this pic that I just don't see lasting in color. Especially the sacred heart since it's way too small. And he's a darker Mexican dude, so any flesh tones would be really tough. He's got a terrible, TERRIBLE, Lady of Guadalupe on his other shoulder, in color, and he loves it. Since he thinks color can be done, convincing him that black and gray is ideal for his skin tone and longevity, would require me to bash his current tattoo. Me doing this tattoo is not worth me pointing out how terrible his current tattoo is in order to change what I want. It was mo re of a rant, but now I'm curious to see if I can come up with a solid design that I know I can do. Maybe if I can come up with something, I'll show it to him and see if he falls in love with it. If he doesn't, it will have been good practice.