For his first tattoo, this guy wanted an alien eye emerging from the middle of his chest. During our first conversation I tried to understand the effect he was looking for: a clean cut, torn flesh with splashes of blood, or a sort of mutation opening up his chest. We went with the latter: a mutation resembling a wound, no blood, but reddened by this hypothetical bodily modification revealing the eye at its centre.
For the alien eye I took inspiration from the rectangular pupil of goats and octopuses, probably the most alien and unsettling pupils we can actually see in real life on this planet.
A fairly quick tattoo, though quite painful, the sternum is one of the most painful areas to get tattooed.
In the photo and video you can see the tattoo healed for over five months, after a few minor touch-ups.