Monday, June 8, 2009

Tattoo tutorial for a Maori / Kirituhi design in 5 steps

Hi!

Today I will show you another example on how I draw my Kirituhi / Maori tattoos.
I always use A3 size paper of 200 grams/m2. My tools are good quality H2 and some B1 and B2 pencils. For the final tracing and fills I use a "Paper Mate" marker with a tip of 1-2 mm.
This marker will not smudge when I erase my pencil lines, as many others do.
If you wish to order these markers, just follow this link and search for "paper mate"

First I make a rough outline of the area I will cover.
Then the fern shapes or koru are made in a flowing line and pattern and between these shapes I make some interesting fills and patterns.
When the fill is done I trace the image with a steady hand and erase all pencil lines.
Finally I scan the design and remove some dust and clean it up a little.

Here's a small photo impression of some stages of the design process.








The final piece looks like this.

















Any questions, comments or reactions are welcome!

Kind regards, Mark