Moth Tattoo Design

I knew that I wanted a tattoo design that truly captured both my line work skills but also my use of space especially where with tattooing, space work and placement is very indicative to the design as a whole.

I was looking at various moth designs and found that i wanted to pull from the realistic/ haunting eyes that various moth wings have adapted to deter predators. I visualize this design to have a similar purpose.

Goals: • Choice heavy use of line/ texture to fill up space. • Realistic/ deterrent "eyes". • Anatomically looks like a moth.

Began sketching a general anatomical outline of the moth, making sure to take note of correct placement of wings, head, and legs.

Outlined and emboldened the overall shape, adding the eyes texture inside to the top two wings.

Added the eyes to the bottom two wings, this is where I played around with the paisley style shapes and started adding a more dotted/ movement focused texture to the wings.

Next, I took into consideration how moth wings "stripes" are pointing towards the eye, so I filled in the space on the top wing with spikes / specs pointing towards the eye on the top wing.

The Top Wing / Head and Body

Using a rendering brush, I went around the outline of the top wing. I then focused on bringing the eye, and textures outlining the edge of the Wing. I wanted to emphasize the fluidity of this moth and that its nuance shows in the texture.

I played around with circles and other shapes along the usage of space, switching between both the pen and eraser. This created a lot of depth and really solidified the design! I finished it off by giving the inside an almost alien or celestial feeling to the Wing!

I moved onto cleaning up the eyes and head area. I decided to switch up the design on the head of the body because I feel it took away from the wings, which are the focus. I added a fuzzy like texture to the tops of the eyes. In the last photo you can see that I made use of the space next to the wing by adding a half moon and some dots to line the head.

The body was fairly simple to refine, as I liked the heart design and it worked with the shape of the moth very well! Mostly this section was about getting the right flick to the swirl in each heart.

The Bottom Wing

The bottom wing was fairly simple to render as I quite liked the design I had going. I decided to take out some of the dots I had scattered around the wing, and opted for symmetry / balance which worked out in my favor in the end!

I believe this project was a great start in the direction my ability is taking me. My skills are showcased here that I work best with heavy line design and the usage of space. I feel empowered to keep designing and working with texture! Thank you for following this journey of mine as it was a liberating experience.