A skeleton snake on the forearm: a blackwork tattoo

The skeleton of a snake wraps around the forearm. The skull sits roughly in the middle, and the spine coils above and below it, with rows of ribs on the sides. The background is dense black, against which the light bones stand out clearly.

A forearm is a cylinder

The forearm rotates with your hand, so the design cannot have a single front. The ribs wrap around the limb, and the coils of the spine lead the eye along the arm. That way the snake reads as a moving, three-dimensional form and not as a flat pattern that changes with every turn of the wrist.

The sketch on paper

The gallery has the pencil sketch: the whole snake is drawn into the shape of a forearm with soft shading, and next to it you can see separate studies of vertebrae and ribs. On paper I settle the proportions, the rhythm of the coils and where the bones are light and where they vanish into shadow. Only then do I transfer the drawing to the skin.

Black that creates contrast

The bones are light because deep black lies around them. The form reads from contrast, not from outline. This is the foundation of my blackwork and the reason the close-up photo shows the skull and the vertebrae so clearly.

See more work in the blackwork style. I work in Warsaw at Good Sign Tattoo. To begin, get in touch.