Tatuaggio tutta manica in bianco e nero, contenente un drago orientale giapponese, tra gli artigli tiene un teschio, intorno fiori di ciliegio, onde e sullo sfondo un tempio. realizzato dal miglior tatuatore italiano, Jerry Magni, Bergamo, Milano, Brescia, Como, Lecco, Mantova, Crema, Cremona.

Japanese Style.

is not one of my specialties, nor is it among the requests that excite me the most.

I appreciate the tradition and style of some (very few) Oriental artists, but I find it repetitive and not particularly stimulating, although it stands the test of time.

I believe that artists should have the freedom to interpret each subject with their own style.

A dragon can be drawn in a billion ways. Considering the artistic evolution that, especially in Italy, has taken place in the last 750 years compared to Japanese tattoos, relying on a prepackaged style, that by the way does not belong to our culture, is a bit trivial in my opinion.

Therefore, as I always do when I get this type of request, I explained to the client that since the request was not exactly in line with my style, I would have preferred to do something more personal or be able to reinterpret that style my way.

After evaluating my portfolio and some of my old Japanese style reinterpretations, the client decided to opt for the second option, to keep faith with what he had in mind.

Pencil drawing of a oriental dragon, done by Jerry Magni, one of the best iItalian tattoo artists

An Interesting Challenge

Once having set the direction to take, I got to work trying to reinterpret the client’s requests as best as I could and at the same time create something reminiscent of the typical oriental style but with my personal touch.

Starting from a very fast sketch, drawn with a felt pen directly on his arm, in order to establish both the dimensions and the positioning of the various elements, I then worked on paper with pencil and ink.

The design took approximately a week, also because of a couple of elements that didn’t convince me that made me decide to redesign everything from scratch.

Fast as the Wind

The work was completed in just three sessions plus a final session for some minor adjustments, thanks to the configuration of the design but also to the client’s excellent resistance.

I am very fast with black and grey, even more so if it’s a design that is more defined by lines than by shading.

During the first session I tattooed the entire outline, which took a long time but I certainly did not intend leaving the work unfinished.

Given the effort required to apply the stencil and given the guy’s resistance, giving up wasn’t an option.

The second and third sessions were dedicated, respectively, to shading on the forearm and arm.

One last half hour session was dedicated to a few tweaks and to increasing contrast.

I believe this is the first time I’ve completed something this size in just three sessions, but the credit does not only go to me but also to my patient’s stamina 😀

We are both more than satisfied with the result, and I must say that I wouldn’t mind doing more work like this in the future 😀

Below you can find all the stages of processing and an explanatory video.

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5AYqX7efiM[/embedyt]