Oniwakamaru

This is one I've been working on the last year at a fairly regular pace and don't think I've posted here before, so I'll just skip some of the progress shots and reports and get to it...

It's one of those unique, wonderful, and surprisingly more common situations where a client with no tattoos comes in that has done a fair amount of research on their own and decided to do a very large scale cohesive Japanese style piece for their first ever tattoo.

When we first spoke at our initial consultation, all he brought in was a printout of this amazing and well known image from Kuniyoshi, and told me that's what he wanted, and it was going to be a backpiece...

...pretty much a dream scenario as a tattooer.  He'd done his homework, brought in a single amazing piece of reference, understood it's meaning and connected with it on a personal and aesthetic level.  He told me that's exactly what he wanted, but I was free to tweak it if I was so inclined.  Doesn't get any better than that.

As I looked into other images of Oniwakamaru tattoos (the childhood name of the famous warrior monk Benkei, who's history and exploits I won't even get into here, but you should really click that link and get a sense of why he is such a famous and respected warrior) it became fairly clear that this Kuniyoshi image was by far the most used reference point (and for very good reason).  There are several backpieces of this exact composition, and my idea was to base it off of this print, but do it slightly different and change the dynamic a bit.  In the original, the giant carp is curled downwards, swirling under Benkei, who is upright lunging down with a dagger from above, positioned in the opposite direction.  The interaction of the subjects has a very yin yang type balance to it...together they form this very flowing perfect circle of action.  

My idea was to try and streamline the interaction...have everything rushing down in one direction, trying to add some velocity and movement to the composition.  I tweaked the fish so instead of swimming back underneath him,  it is powering downwards, head up, and Benkei's legs are firmly planted around him as if he's riding him down the river.  And the dagger instead of being perched high about to strike, is in line with the downwards diagonal flow kind of trying to emphasize that forwards motion and show some control on his part...like he can kill him whenever he feels like it.  Not that my take is in anyway better or more interesting than the original, it's just my attempt to put a slight tweak and new direction on a classic image.

As far as the tattooing...

The first session (shown in the first photo above) was his first tattoo experience ever, and he sat for I believe a four or five hour outline...quite a welcome the world of being tattooed.  He did great and was/is highly motivated to keep it going and push forwards.  The initial piece was finished in less than a year, and as soon as it was, he wanted to start the back ground.

Over the last few weeks we've been drawing on the frame around the main piece with the goal of going onto the arms once it's done.  We started under one armpit and are going down that side, across the butt and up the other side (and not too far down the thighs for now as he's planning on more images and going down the legs eventually)...

The last session, we outlined up the rest of his left side and across the top of the shoulders and even got to some shading.

Even though we'll be going onto the arms we've decided to cap off the background around the shoulders like that so that it can be a stand alone traditional looking piece until we dip down and start the sleeves.  And in hopes it will look complete as a backpiece and ready to be photographed for a very special museum show on Japanese tattooing (which I was incredibly honored to be invited to be a part of) that will be coming up pretty soon and I will be providing more info on when I get some free time...