Feb 11To Be or not to Be...Tattooed that is. For me its not – don't like the thought of needles and I've seem people with dainty daisy tattoos that have grown with their expanding size into huge chrysanthemums :o) But the right tattoo can look very attractive and this book has advice on choosing and designing them whether its for yourself or a client. With the current burgeoning market for tattoos as a way of marking ones individuality there is a demand for artist who can design them. This book is a great starting point. It's spiral bound - really useful in art books and so helpful not to have pages spring shut when you're working – and contains a huge wealth of information from the history of tattoos and the influences on it as it develops from classic onto Japanese influenced, tribal style and the skull and crossbones macabre type.There's some useful information about design including how to avoid distortion and how best to do foreshortening – those tiger designs springing out so stunningly utilise this method. In the section on Style the authors cover people and animals, Japanese style writing, realistic and cartoon styles, biker style, line art – and many more.The tattoo I most remember was a childhood neighbour who had been in merchant navy and had the classic “mum” banners and anchors over his forearms. The classic section covers these along with other traditional naval favourites. As well as fabulous illustrations of real tattoos there are some helpful “how to “ projects to get one started.The book ends with advice on designing for the body parts – avoiding the pitfall of the daisy into chrysanthemum I mentioned earlier. If you are going to do tattoo design its important to learn all the pitfalls to avoid ending up with “bad” tattoo design.For anyone interested in tattoos – whether design or simply history this is a very interesting book.
