Geometric inspired sleeve from a coverup

I had a good client and friend of mine approach me for a cover up a while back.

For those you of you that don't know, a cover up is when you cover and old tattoo with another tattoo. It's not an easy task and you can often see really bad cover ups that are probably worse than the work their covering, kinda sad really.

An in progress shot

Anyway he'd had his microphone tattooed a few years back which wrapped around his arm. It can be pretty difficult to break a design that spirals around the arm, you have definite areas on the arm where the design cuts across and breaking this while not making it too obvious can make things a headache.

I racked my brains for ages, we went over different ideas but when it came to sketching them out I wasn't really happy with how it worked on the arm.
There's a lot more at stake when designing for a cover up.

If you can't beat them join them. It might feel like a bit of a cop out but in the end we went with a direct coverup of the existing offender (microphone and cable) and followed their line spirally around the arm. To compliment it we added some dotwork geometric mandala type designs, breaking at each spiral where the coverup was. The idea was to counter the heavy dark spiral around the arm with lighter more sparse dotwork without making the cover up the absolute main focus of the project.

I sent him a rough idea superimposed on the images he sent me

I've gotta commend the dude, he came to me with an idea of a sleeve with lightening striking on a stormy night, I really wasn't feeling it and after some sketching and brain storming he was open to go with my idea. It's really important to trust the person tattooing you, not only with applying the tattoo in the skin but with ideas for the design, placement and flow on the body. Ask any tattooer, clients like these make our lives so much easier and enjoyable.

If you don't trust your tattooers ideas, don't get tattooed by them, either you're too stubborn and won't listen to someone who has expertise in the field and you'll go somewhere else and get a tattoo by a 'yes' man (or woman) and probably regret it. Or, you've got a gut feeling the person isn't right for the job and end up finding someone who is.

Finally done (he sat like a champ on that elbow!)

I'm not saying it was the best solution but it was the best I could come up with and I'm really happy with the result, it suits him and works with his physique, which is pretty important for me when designing a sleeve or large tattoo.

Hope that made some sense.

Peace Out