Tattoo Artist Assignment 4

Artist Reflection: The strongest technical aspect of my work is my ability to shade my tattoo and picture together. I feel i did a pretty good job of shading my tattoo into my models arm. Though the darkness of the shade is not perfect, I find it covers the end of the tattoo and gives it the impression that it wraps around the arm. A technical aspect that could be approved, would be my ability to shape the tattoo to the models arm. I found it difficult to warp the tattoo to the shape of the man's arm. I probably should have shaped it larger to cover up more of his arm.
                             The easiest part about this assignment was finding the model arm that I wanted. I didn't want a super muscular arm, but the arm of an everyday common man. Other easy parts of the assignment was the shading. Because of the type of picture that I used, the lighting mixed very well with the tattoo when I turned everything to black and white. The most difficult part of this project was the warping of the tattoo. It was pretty hard to make the tattoo to look like it was wrapping around the arm. I had many trial and errors when doing this. The first time I did it, I erased too much of the tattoo. So I had to stretch it out. After I did that, I cut again, but it was still too short. Finally after the third time, I was able to wrap the tattoo around my models arm pretty well.
                             I demonstrated this assignment by using many of the tools photoshop has to offer. I brightened highlights by using the dodge tool and darkened the highlights using the burn tool. Using the warp transformation ,I was able to shape and wrap the tattoo around the models arm. I erased some excess tattoo on areas not on the body. I rotated and changed the size of the tattoo to give it the most realistic look I could. If I were to do this assignment again, I probably would do multiple tattoos. Maybe give the model a half or full sleeve. I'd probably shade the tattoo with more precision as well.