Cthulu Abstract

A while ago, awesome tattoo artist Mark Blanchard approached me with a request for a Cthulu-inspired bio-organic theme. I decided to make this tattoo a challenging experiment in creating atmosphere through positive-negative value contrast.  In order to create a look resembling mist or water, I opted to follow a foreground-darker/background-lighter rule incorporating lots of untattooed skin as a value tone, instead of the more common light-on-dark solid color motif.  Achieving the end result took some adjusting and a looser approach, achieved through a layering process that you can see by clicking the 'detail image' link.

By Nick Baxter