Traditional Nordic or "Viking" types of tattoos are generally tribal and utilize several different symbols from Norse mythology. For his first tattoo, Henry wanted to honor his Nordic/Scandinavian heritage, but wasn't sure of the exact symbology he wanted to carry, other than that he knew he wanted a Raven, which are considered Odin's messengers (Hugin "Memory" and Munin "Thought").
He let me figure out the other symbols to add, so I created a design also featuring Yggdrasil, the World(s) Tree that would wrap around his upper arm and provide a place for the flying Raven coming in to land, plus a sun/moon eclipse combination. We've got the outline in, next we will fill with black ink to complete the tattoo. In the future, if he wants to continue building his sleeve, it should be super easy to add additional symbols.
Here are some photos of the drawing (minus some of the roots), and the very freshly tattooed outline stage-- you can still see some of the purple stencil.
