Custom Tattoo Designs Galore!

Ever since our recent Half Sleeve Tattoo Design Project, custom tattoo requests have been flying in thick and fast! From custom coat of arms family crest concepts to intricate Skeleton Angel designs our custom Tattoo Design service has really taken off!

Guardian Angel

We recently finished our second Half Sleeve Tattoo Design called ‘Guardian Angel’. This was a really interesting project culminating an a Guardian Angel centrepiece featuring a light side and a dark side. But what really stood out for us was the clients description of which items where positive for him and which items had negative connotations.

Mate, looks class, thanks for all your work. Really happy with it!

Suffice to say we will be writing a full article explaining this project with one of our feature time lapse videos showing the design from start to finish.

Skeleton knights Coat Of Arms Shield Crest Tattoo Design… Phew!

Yep! That’s a bit of a mouthful but each item in that tongue twister of name features in this unique design. A lot of customers come to Dark Design Graphics after finding our Warrior Shield Crest Tattoo Design or our Lion Coat Of Arms Drawing.

Creating Family Coat Of Arms Tattoo Designs is becoming something of a speciality for Dark Design Graphics with this work in progress being no different… …except featuring two family crests… and skeleton knights…

Skulls & Skeletons

You may have noticed that each tattoo design project mentioned so far features skulls or skeletons of some kind. Well this next project has a twist, looking closely at the Concept design below you may notice that this angel is not all that she seems! Half skeleton, half flesh this is one design you won’t want to miss!

Where there are tattoos there are bound to be skulls and nothing helps artists, illustrators or designers better than high quality reference pictures like this awesome set of 54 free Human Skulls reference pack from Media Militia.

Enough About Tattoos!

If you have recently visited the Dark Design Graphics Facebook or Google+ page, you will have noticed a huge Boulevard Nights Pomade Vintage Style Logo Design cover image. Boulevard Nights Pomade packaging design is a continuing branding project for a Tucson, Arizona based hair company. After seeing our recent rockabilly tattoo style logo design we were asked to create this vintage style product packaging.

Let me thank you for the great creativity and skill for this lengthy project.

With a website on its way, T-Shirts, Product Labels and posters to come we will be taking you through this project with thoughts from the printing companies themselves, our clients and an idea of how many concepts got thrown out with this one in our next Logo Design post!

Get To Know Us

So there you have our latest round up of current projects, finished projects and things to come from Dark Design Graphics

For more information on any of the services we offer at Dark Design Graphics please like, follow and subscribe to us on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. You can also keep up to date with out latest designs via Tumblr.

For regular posts straight to your inbox just fill in your email below!

Share and Enjoy

Customers of our Custom Tattoo Design service often contact Dark Design Graphics unsure of what information we require to create a unique tattoo design for them. We get a mixed bag of briefs from hard to understand to sometimes literally one line of text. Thankfully we received one of the most detailed briefs we have had for this half sleeve tattoo design.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

We Know What’s Best

A detailed brief should not read like instructions. The aim of a brief is to give the designer as much information about what the client wants as possible.

Because its only a half sleeve if I have too many things or if you need more then take sh*t out or just add stuff in. You know what is best dude.

In this case the customer created a list explaining each feature he wanted in his tattoo design from a Spitfire fighter plane to a warrior helmet. Although not strictly necessary the customer explained the significance of each of those items. While we do not ask customers to explain the significance of their tattoo designs, there is nothing better than designing a deep and meaningful tattoo.

It is open to debate whether knowing the significance of your project really helps you to create but for me knowing why my customer wants something helps me to decide what features to emphasise, how to style my design and to be honest creates a much more enjoyable project.

Research & Reference Resources

Research is the first step to designing a tattoo as mentioned in How We Design A Tattoo. With my customers excellent brief I could work through each item mentioned researching composition, style and compiling a collection of reference images and resources for the Half Sleeve Tattoo Design.

When compiling my research I use Dropbox to share my ideas and collected images with my customer. As Dropbox allows you to share folders with people I also ask the customer to add any ideas, images or update their brief if they want to add useful information on their design.

Hand Reference Image

For this half sleeve tattoo design project I took a couple of photographs of myself for the Wizard Of Oz Character in my design. Although slightly blurry I was very happy with how the reference image above turned out. I also took a few more of my face for the design but I will not be showing them because frankly they make me look like a bit of a nutcase! But please feel free to click on the image above and download the full size picture for your own designs, I will be interested to see what you come up with.

Conclusion

This turned out to be one of the most interesting tattoo design projects I have done, with a well explained brief, an interesting background to each feature of the design and a customer who worked with me in each step. There is a great sense of fulfilment when you end up with a happy customer, especially when this half sleeve tattoo design had such meaning to the client.

I really appreciate everything mate, I think what you have done is amazing, couldn’t be more pleased.

For more information on Custom Tattoo Design from Dark Design Graphics please like, follow and subscribe to us on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. You can also keep up to date with out latest designs via Tumblr.

For regular posts straight to your inbox just fill in your email below!

Share and Enjoy

My brief for this project was to create a realistic drawing of St. George fighting a dragon. Greyscale shading with a red Saint Georges cross and maybe red dragon fire. After two previous St George tattoo designs created in one particular style it was quite a relief to to be asked to create a realistic drawing.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

A Realistic Drawing

While not a realistic drawing in the sense that is often meant with pencil drawings (I mean how do you draw a realistic dragon?), I knew exactly what my client meant. As with all projects the first step is research and for this project in particular I was looking at muscle groups of different animals. My thoughts were how would a dragons muscles work, from neck to body, legs, tail and wings. In the end, as the drawing developed and different features moved about the design, the dragons leg disappeared all together.

Drawing A Horse

There is no shortage of horse reference pictures out there and after collecting hundreds of possible pictures, each with a horse in a different stance. I finally came up with the sketch above. The horse drawing you can see is actually an amalgamation of the different reference pictures. The things I looked for when collecting these images were body position, muscle definition and high contrast light and shadow. While I often end up using only one reference picture I found parts I really liked out of a few and decided to incorporate them into one design.

As explained in my previous article Drawing With Guidelines my sketches often serve a few different purposes being guidelines for the shading as well as layout references.

A Sample Drawing

Creating a sample drawing for my customers is generally not needed but with my concept sketches getting increasingly messy I decided to do a sample of how the final coloured up tattoo design will look. You may notice that the image above is not the same as the final St. George tattoo designs below. Sometimes when creating layout sketches, shading guides and lightbox designs you forget that other people may not actually understand how your final drawing is going to look.

I was a bit skeptical when I first made a query with dark design graphics but Alasdair’s professionalism and skill quickly brought me round. He kept updating me with each design process looking for my feedback, when I suggested a change he fulfilled it perfectly all the way to the final design. He took the image in my head and pictured It perfectly and more! Can’t wait to get it done, would recommend this website to anyone whether it be for your first tattoo or your 100th!

For more information on Tattoo Design from Dark Design Graphics please like, follow and subscribe to us on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. You can also keep up to date with out latest designs via Tumblr.

For regular posts straight to your inbox just fill in your email below!

Share and Enjoy

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Drawing With Guidelines

My concept drawings are often rough ideas of the layout for the design, this means they never look particularly pleasing to the eye but take up a lot of time and paper. Instead of just using these concepts for feedback from the client I often use it to mark out where I am going to put shadows, tone, colours and other drawing techniques that customers generally are not very bothered about.

Drawing A Flag

In this case the part of the design which needed the most concepts, corrections and guidelines was the flag being held by the two lions. In the image above you can see a guideline sketch with lines marking out where I am going to add shadow, ink and any other features when completing the final design. Guideline Sketches in most cases are solely for my own use. This means they often look messy and confused, as long as I understand them it does not matter. You might actually be able to see this Drawing Guide being used in the Time Lapse Video above.

Concepts, Reference Images And Guidelines

Being that this image is for my own use it meant I needed to create a concept for my client to view. But also I needed a reference image, not for tracing but to put down my own idea of where the light would be coming from. With all these sketches being created it meant that for this particular part of my design I would end up drawing four reference images just for the flag. This does not include layout sketches piecing the design together, in all a lot of flag drawings.

Flag And Lion Coat Of Arms

I have only talked about the amount of sketches and concepts I have created for one section of my drawing. For the whole Lion Coat Of Arms each section was meticulously planned, sketched and put down on paper to make sure the design would come out looking exactly as I and hopefully my client wanted it.

This is an example of the amount of work that goes into creating a custom tattoo design. One of the most exciting aspects of designing a custom tattoo for a client is trying to put down on paper what is initially only an idea. As people are often mentioning a tattoo is for life. What customer is going get a design they do not like tattooed permanently onto their skin. This is why it is important to make sure that each design created is exactly as the customer wants.

For more information on Tattoo Design from Dark Design Graphics please like, follow and subscribe to us on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. You can also keep up to date with out latest designs via Tumblr.

For regular posts straight to your inbox just fill in your email below!

Share and Enjoy

After noticing our recent Warrior Crest Tattoo Design we were commissioned to create a Spartan Helmet Logo Design to be used for T-Shirts, apparel and profile pictures. The Champion HQ is a Youtube Channel dedicated to computer game videos, tutorials, how to’s, funny clips and informational videos.

A few years ago I decided to turn my gaming hobby into something a bit more productive. Ever since, I have striven to make my channel pleasing to all kinds of gamers. I am open to any new game or suggestions and I always try my best to make quality videos.

Digital Concepts

In my previous article how to design a logo I explained how I always create sketches for my concepts and ideas. But as I already knew the basic layout of this Spartan Helmet Logo from the previous tattoo design I only needed the one rough sketch before I began working on concepts Digitally. The benefit of creating digital concepts is the simplicity when it comes to making changes and edits, essentially when working on a concept using programs such as Adobe Illustrator you are already working on the final design.

A Spartan Helmet Logo Design

When creating a logo design for apparel and T-Shirts one thing to keep in mind is how the design is going to be printed. The actual design needs to be suitable for printing depending on the technique used. With this project the print process had not been decided on so I created a design that would fit all print techniques and was versatile enough to be printed with a limited colour palette.

I came to Dark Design Graphics after seeing what he could do on a YouTube video that he posted. All I needed was some form of logo / emblem that my channel could go by. After we discussed what the emblem should be based off of he got to work right away. During the time that the logo was being designed he kept me well informed on the progress that was being made, always making sure that I was pleased with what he had come up with. In the end I could not be happier with what I received from Dark Design Graphics. The quality was truly outstanding and I would recommend them to anyone needing designer graphics.

For more information on Logo Design from Dark Design Graphics please like, follow and subscribe to us on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. You can also keep up to date with out latest designs via Tumblr.

For regular posts straight to your inbox just fill in your email below!

Share and Enjoy

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Instructions For A Custom Tattoo Design

Not long ago I was asked to create a cover up tattoo design for a Police Officer based in the State of Missouri, USA. The brief included such keywords as elegant, bold, serious, traditional and masculine. With an emphasis on a warrior style tattoo design and based on a family crest tattoo or coat of arms. Perhaps the most interesting part was the idea of the “Thin Blue Line” incorporated into the tattoo design.

The Blue line stands for the Law Enforcement Officers. The top black part stands for The good. And the bottom black part stands for the bad. All together, the Blue Line (Law Enforcement) separating the good from the bad.

Elements Of A Warrior Crest Tattoo Design

The idea of using a Family Crest or Coat Of Arms Style layout was inspired. With this I would be able to incorporate the key ideas mentioned in the brief. For the warrior element I chose to use a Spartan helmet, if that eye slit is not serious enough what is! The shield’s shape is actually partially based on the Police Badge with the mentioned blue line divide as a representation of what my client does. The heraldic ornate patterns around the design are inspired by my seriously old fashioned wallpaper. I may in fact put some high resolution photos up for grabs as it is really useful, unfortunately the one below was taken with my phone camera.

Family Crest Tattoo Design

While researching this tattoo design I decided to look into my own family crest, there are a few websites dedicated to family names, family history and most importantly family crests and coat of arms. This gave me the idea of Family Crest Tattoo designs, mainly because I want one myself! Coat of arms and family crests can be found with a search of your family name through My Family Silver and House Of Names among others. With the link to your personal crest I will be able to create stylized Coat Of Arms Tattoo Design unique to you!

Thanks for everything!  Your an awesome artist and I will definitely recommend you to anyone needing a design done.

I will be creating my own family crest tattoo design in the days to come, to see how this one turns out follow Dark Design Graphics on Facebook and Twitter and to see more of my Tattoo Design Time Lapse Videos subscribe to us on Youtube.

Share and Enjoy

Rockabillybelle is a small home run company providing rockabilly inspired tshirts and accessories. Rockabillybelle was born after noticing the Market for rockabilly items in the UK is few and far between and therefore we wanted to start our range and keep prices low so that all belles could afford to have something great no matter what. In the near future we also hope to have maternity inspired clothes, as our own belle is currently pregnant and it’s been a struggle to find rockabilly clothes that fit without breaking the bank. We pride ourselves that the majority of products are made by our own fair hands.

A Rockabilly Tattoo Style Logo

When asked to create A Rockabilly Tattoo style Logo Design I had to admit I knew very little about what ‘Rockabilly’ was. The first step for this project was research, and lots of it! The aim of my research is to gain a better understanding of what my client is looking for in their designs. Apart from rockabilly music I learnt there is a huge following of the fashion, styles and of special interest to me Tattoo Designs. These designs and the following they have gained was great inspiration for this project.

Sketches, Concepts, Ideas

As with all projects the next step was creating concepts and getting my ideas down on paper, to see more about the process I use take a look at How We Design A Logo. With this project the ideas just kept on coming. Three full A2 sheets of sketches, concepts and ideas and with constructive feedback from my client an idea is chosen.

A Dynamic Logo Design

These designs were going to be used for T-Shirts and apparel amongst other things so keeping the illustrations versatile was a must. Inked and Drawn up using Adobe Illustrator, I kept the designs in the vector format for future variations. Keep up to date with Dark Design Graphics and the Rockabillybelle page as I will be working with them to create some more stylized Rockabilly Tattoo style hand made T-Shirt designs and with my new found love for everything Rockabilly, I literally can not wait!

Our beautiful logo was designed by Alasdair at Dark Design Graphics. Whilst looking at this website we just new this was the place for us, his drawings take your breath away. When our logo was being designed and examples were being sent for us to view we didn’t need to imagine anymore, Alasdair was bringing our Rockabillybelle to life right before our eyes. We can honestly say he couldn’t have been more helpful, even when at the last minute we thought of another change to the logo, he was more than happy to accommodate. We have no doubt in our mind that Dark Design Graphics was the right place to go not only for our logo, but future projects.

We hope to be keeping belles rockin for many years to come!

Share and Enjoy

This was one of my first fully complete illustrations using Adobe Illustrator along with my Mask design (article coming soon). I love VW Classic cars and lovingly took this one apart… …never to be put back together. But luckily I decided to do this vector Illustration before all that and now have it available and ready for print at the Dark Design Shop with free delivery till Christmas! This Open Edition VW Beetle print is available printed on high quality fine art paper, acid free providing a textured appearance for a top quality look.

This classic beetle print is one of my older illustrations designed following one of my favourite illustrator tutorials – Retro Car Vectors. This was also one of the first tutorials I did and although a lot has changed in Adobe Illustrator since doing this illustration, it is still one of the most useful tutorials and really helped me gain a better understanding of the techniques used in vector illustrations.

Get Your Beetle Print Here!

Share and Enjoy

Sounds fun doesn’t it? Well once in a full moon you get a logo design project where you can just let loose! There are a couple of reasons we are called Dark Design Graphics and creating ‘dark graphic designs’ like this is one of them. In this article I will explain a bit about how we made the heavy metal graphics and using textures in Illustrator.

MechWarrior Unit Logo Design

The name Antares literally means ‘Rival to the God of War’ it comes from ancient Greek (anti-Ares) and was given to a red supergiant star (or Alpha-Scorpii). With information like this in hand it was obvious what Antares Scorpions had in mind when they asked for an aggressive and powerful design which would incorporate a Scorpion and have a representation of the red supergiant star. Part of the brief also explained they would want a variety of colours and effects for variation on the forums and websites. Creating a Dynamic Logo was something I had recently done before and creating a dark, aggressive and powerful design, well, that is just me through and through!

Using Textures In Illustrator

After agreeing logo concepts and tracing my drawing in illustrator (read more about the logo design process in How To Design A Logo), it was time to starting ‘colouring up’ the design. Bearing in mind who I was designing this logo for and going for a really gritty, industrial feel I decided to use some grunge, rust and metal effect textures. There are many sources of free to use textures around the web and I will be posting a few of my favourites soon.

Using Textures for logo designs is often frowned upon for a very good reason. Making a logo design simple and versatile involves making it easy to print and dynamic enough to be placed anywhere and still look good. With this design we decided to ignore this and just go for the full impact. This design will be used on websites, forums, blogs and via social media so at the end of the day it can be as detailed as needed. But just in case I will keep my intact illustrator file so I can make adjustments for future uses.

Who Are The Antares Scorpions

The Antares Scorpions are what’s called a ‘Merc Unit’ in the world of online gaming, a group of online MechWarrior players who play matches for money! Yes I know, I thought my job was fun. As it turns out they don’t play for real money which actually makes my job much better

Share and Enjoy

Finally, after a lot of hard work The Dark Design Shop is Open!

Limited Editions of my Cross Hatched fine art prints including the Colosseum and the Durham Cathedral set. Also featuring my Skull and Snake Tattoo design and Jungle Beats poster with many more to come!

VISIT THE DARK DESIGN SHOP NOW!

Giclée Prints

A giclée fine art print is a high resolution, high quality, specialist print created on a large format printer. This printer uses special light-fast inks that with the right care means your prints will last for up to 30 years without even beginning to fade.

The premium quality giclée paper used in these prints is Heavy Weight (315gsm), Acid Free, High White paper providing excellent long lasting colour and superb quality prints.

Limited Edition And Open Edition Prints

Limited Edition Prints have a limited print run, ensuring that your high quality prints are more valuable. Each limited edition print comes with a certificate of authentication with details about the original drawing, edition number and signed by me. Each limited Edition Print will also be signed at the bottom with the name of the drawing and an edition number.

Open Edition Prints do not have a limited print run and are generally used for my digital drawings and poster designs, whilst still giclée printed on top quality archival paper.

VISIT THE DARK DESIGN SHOP NOW!

Share and Enjoy