This girl from Kenya, now living in Milan, saw the back I’d done for her friend (47-7-4K) and asked him to bring her to me for her project. Her idea was crystal clear—she had a photograph of a leopard she wanted to cover her entire back with.
When a Photo is Inevitable
In cases like this, when someone wants something hyper-realistic, relying on photographs is inevitable; it makes no sense to recreate what already exists.
I suggested other approaches, other possibilities, but it was obvious she was in love with that photo, so I didn’t push further. Instead, I offered some tweaks to make the image more personal and give the tattoo some soul, so it wouldn’t look like a lifeless picture slapped onto her skin.
From a Small File to a Living Tattoo
The image she gave me was a digital file downloaded from her phone, small and low-resolution.
Working with contrasts, Gaussian filters, step-ups, and various refinements to fix the graininess and obtain a large, sharp enough image was a hell of a job. By comparison, adding negative-space vegetation and lowering the ears, which looked too far back (making me suspect it was AI-generated), was a walk in the park.
Tattooing on Black Skin
She initially wanted colour, but I advised against it. Having spent two months in Brixton, London, tattooing hundreds of people with dark complexions, I’d learned that colours don’t hold up well on dark skin, especially light colours. So I suggested sticking to blacks and greys, with a few white accents, which, no matter how dark the skin, if handled right, can still pop.
The work took just three sessions, fairly short ones, thanks to my experience and her skin tone that doesn’t allow for much technical virtuosity.
The result is a stunning back piece with a leopard in extreme close-up that looks alive, with two eyes that speak.
Here below you will find pictures and video of the working process, and a video with the final result, one month after healing.
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