Matthew was looking to cover up some old tattoos he had on his chest and clavicle areas. They were pretty dark and a variety of different styles.
He brought in a couple of really bad ass images of Japanese Samurai masks with Asian Dragon illustrations that I thought might work well. After I did some of my own research into Samurai masks, I drew up a fairly complicated design based on that concept. But first we had to pump some white into those old tattoos to get them to turn a bit gray, so that the new black ink going over them would stand out more.
He says, "For a while now I have been wanting to do a cover up of some old tattoos-- an old sacred heart and some terrible tribal ones on my shoulders. To cover this, I knew it was going to take an artist who specializes in cover up work. I started Googling and found many artists out there who do cover ups, and judging the outcome of their work, it was evident not all artists are truly skilled in this type of tattoo work. I came across Victoria's website, and when I came across her personal thoughts, I knew she was the one. Her intro and her explanation alone took 20 minutes to read; Victoria knows what it takes to truly cover up old work. I took in a few pictures that I had, and we talked about the layout and the design."
Here are some pictures of the drawing, before, and very fresh outline, gray shading and various color stages.