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Tracing the arm, marking important areas.

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Fig. 01	Fig. 02	Fig. 03	Fig. 04

The first thing I do is trace the arm out onto paper, showing the existing tattoos and landmarks of the arm, marking out the elbow, ditch, front of the armpit and back of the armpit, top of forearm and wrist. I draw right on that tracing to get my basic layout. I also take a Polaroid of the arm, and I draw a bit on that with markers to keep the drawings in scale to the arm.

I've done at least fifty entire sleeves, so a lot of the format is second nature to me at this point. By that I mean I know when I'm drawing something that will land in the ditch, what it will look like on the arm, how it will move, and what the skin is like to work on in that area. That comes with experience but the Polaroid photos help me keep in mind that the drawing is for an arm.

The first drawings are pretty rough - mostly just to get a layout to show the client. Things I like about it I'll draw over a bit better, but I know not to work too hard on things at this point, it may not fit quite right or the client may not like it.

I was showing Luke a few different ways to color the scales of the dragon.