🌟 Three Tips for Tattoo Cover Ups 🌟
✨ Go Darker: If you’re looking to transform an existing tattoo into something new, be ready to go dark. Lighter colors will not cover darker colors. The word coverup is a bit of a misnomer since the pigment particles are not deposited above the ink but at the same depth or layer. Best you can do is dilute the darker particles with lighter ones. I’ve tattooed white over black and once it healed, it was just a slightly lighter black. More sessions will help, but I’ve found diminishing results with each pass. After the third go, you’ll not see much change.
✨ Use Texture: Textures with varying values (darkness/lightness) will hide something better than a solid field. Black on top of a tattoo will make the existing ink darker than the new black on fresh skin, so after one pass, you can usually still see what was originally there. Using texture, the darker and lighter spots can camouflage the varying values of the first tattoo. In this tattoo I used the bumpy texture of godzillas skin, but feathers, fur, scales, bark, stone are just a few examples of textures that work well.
✨ Divert Attention: Artists use certain elements and principles to guide your eye around a composition. In the above example I used contrast and color to call attention to the areas to the right and upper right of the old tribal sun. Secondary to those focal points are the light blues to the left, making the viewer skip right over that less interesting shoulder area where the old art R.I.P.s
✨Coverups can be a challenge but I’d rather look at them like a fun puzzle or a mystery to solve. The best ones are so clever that they don’t look like coverups at all. 💥💉💥
See Cover Ups Part 2
