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Ink
Your Bones
Tattoos
by Barbara Guran-Eubank (406-212-2164)
Restoration and Cover
Ups
One of the most
challenging aspects of Tattooing is restoring or covering up old tattoos. As the
skin ages, tattoo inks migrate or blur. Re-inking can repair many tattoos while
cover-ups present many other challenges. A cover-up is a process of tattooing
over top of an unwanted tattoo.
Often design
limitations become a factor in cover up work as do colors and an individual’s
interest in a new design. What I do is sit down with a prospective client and
discuss all options and interests such as desirable themes and colors and the
theoretical outcomes of the process.
There are many
possibilities for covering up or re-working tattoos and even restoring color!
Come in and see me and we’ll talk about it.
Restoring tattoos can
mean just going over the original design and colors and re-inking, or can
involve that plus adding more. Here are a few examples of before and afters:
Bear Paw Before—faded Bear Paw
After—Restored to original color
Name Banner
Before—faded and bleeding Name
Banner After—Writing sharpened and
new
color and shading added
Sometimes a client will
want an existing tattoo re-colored, PLUS want to add more to it as in this
example:
Tragedy and Comedy
masks— Tragedy and Comedy
restored with Fire and Water
Faded before Yin Yang
added in behind
Wonder Woman symbol
before Wonder Woman symbol
restored with
Golden
Lariat added
Colored snowflake
before Snowflake
recolored with
Dream
Catcher added
Here’s another
example of getting a tattoo touched up and having the colors altered from the original
rendition—
The client wanted the
neck more defined on the angel, plus the colors softened up on the wings:
Angel before Angel after
Sometimes even if a
tattoo doesn’t look faded, a person may no longer want the tattoo on them for
whatever reason. Here is an example where the style of the name did not fit the
client and she wished to have it re-worked.
Name before Name after Close up detail of cover-up
Here’s another one
that is currently in progress. My client didn’t like the mako sharks that were
originally there, so we re-drew them and added some turbulent water to cover
the old. She should have one more session to add a little bit more water to the
right side to balance the design.
Before- Sharks and
tribal After first
session outline and shading After
second session, color laid into
of
new design and partial restoration new
Mako sharks and central vortex.
of
existing tribal.
After fourth session,
waves and water completed. After
fifth session, final restoration of color in tribal
Pattern.
Next we are planning on adding a little more
Water
on the right side to balance the composition.
Here is one that the
original tattoo to be covered was pretty small, but she wanted to have a larger
tattoo to cover it up. In this one, she originally had small paw prints that we
covered with the wings of an Amy Brown styled fairy. It will take one more
session to complete the coloring.
Paw prints before Amy Brown fairy partially colored
Some cover-ups are
smaller, but no less important to their owners!
Here are some
examples:
An Anheuser Busch
icon that has been transformed into a wolf and stone tablet design.
Anheuser Busch before Wolf after
An asymmetrical sun
made over into a tropical flower.
Sun before Flower after
A moon and star made
over into a Fu Dog (the business card shows the scale of how small this is).
Moon and star before Fu Dog after
A Capricorn symbol
with star made into a field of Montana wildflowers.
Capricorn and star
before Montana wildflowers after
A faded heart and
scroll pattern gets a new life with a Zuni design.
Before After
Here is an example of
a faded military tattoo covered into a black panther.
Army Tank before Black Panther After
Sometimes people only
want a partial cover-up, as in the case of this name. We can come up with a
design to take out the offending part that integrates with the remaining
tattoo. As the new band fades a bit, it will look like it is behind the snake.
Linda before Snake with band
After
Here is another that
wanted to cover up initials under a cross in which we used with flowers and
ferns.
Cross with initials
before Cross with flowers and
ferns after
Some cover-ups are a
little more drastic when they cover a large area.
This tattoo covered a
large portion of the upper arm and shoulder
as it wrapped around the circumference of the
area.
The image to the left
is a tattoo placed overtop of the tattoo above. I worked with the client to
find out what he wanted to achieve with a cover up and then designed a cover up
tattoo that represented his interests in Pool and the Iron Cross design that he
likes. The new tattoo achieved two things. First, it covered a large area where
the original skull was using the eight ball.
Next, the flames camouflaged the outline of the original tattoo. I had
to cover a large area of the shoulder to make the cover up work, adding
symmetrical elements to the design.
Next, we applied color.
Here I used a
combination of dark opaque colors to cover the old tattoo. The process has
taken several sessions over a period of months, with each session about 3 to 4
weeks apart. This allows healing between sessions and the client and I can
evaluate the progress and make changes to the design as needed. It will take
one more session to finish this tattoo.
