Artistic Process: Loki's Children... the Fenris Wolf and Midgaards Serpent

Some projects completed and others started this past few weeks. I have people ask if I don't get bored doing the same style all of the time... but seriously, how could you get bored doing stuff like this???

Although I work on a lot of larger projects in the studio this is balanced by a lot of smaller pieces done by hand when travelling. As every person's body is different, every project is very individual. I also have many people asking when I will be travelling to their countries to get a piece... however I only work using hand tools when travelling, so the cost of a flight to Copenhagen is often cheaper than the time needed to do any larger coverage using hand tools. I have been estimating that more than 20% of my clients are foreign and more than 20% of my tattoos are done using hand tools at the moment. 

The Vikings weren't afraid to travel, you shouldn't be either :-)

Enjoy!

Continued Rouven's Dragon project from Germany.

One dragon covering the chest, back and arm down to the wrist

Third visit

Henrik's first tattoo... Fenris on the ribs :-(

Finally completed after some touching up of the lines.

Fenris's tail knots into a triskel and then continues into a serpent which he is doing battle with.

This is to represent Gliepner, the third magical chain used to bind the beast

Kim's Fenris wolf from Møn's Klint is a variation of this theme where he is also doing battle with Gliepner represented by a serpent. We finished this design with some hand poked rune magic from the Galdrabök. A "Seal of Solomon" on the hip circled by the wolf's tail

Keefer's leg sleeve from England

It's taken us 4 visits over about a year to complete this one. Keefer has some excellent work from artists such as Xed leHead, Jondix, Boff and Erik the Viking amongst others, so I was really honoured (and a little intimidated) to have gotten such a prime piece of real estate.

The original idea was 2 dragons... one up, one down. He was thinking of having the down dragon with the head on his foot... unfortunately this would have been a much smaller head and the dragon would have already started with a very thin body to cover such an area. So instead we opted for the second head on the calf with the tongue stretching down onto the foot ending in a Celtic Mandala.

Here is a piece I started on Tony about 6-7 years back... before the economic crisis. Unfortunately owning a small business he had to put his employees needs before his own personal wishes, so it has taken us a while to get it finished. Just shows what can be done on a limited budget with a little patience

This was a very early piece using multiple dragons with different scales, before this I had been mostly using single dragons. I posted this piece on Myspace after the first visit to show the artistic process... however I then had some home scratcher on Jylland copy it (very badly) The funny thing was that the scratcher actually finished his copy before I finished the original... yet another reason to take your time :-)

Finished up Carsten's Thor's Hammer with 3 interconnecting dragons

Continued on Sebastian's triple dragon sleeve... his first tattoo.

Added Staggered Spade scales to the largest dragon, Тетрис scales to the second and will be setting a rune text in the third

Start of a new dragon sleeve from Germany... from neck to nails.

We kept the body thick and simple as there will be a more ornamental design in it than the regular scale patterns I use

Continued JD's torso project from Holland.
The dragons will continue onto the back where they do battle with Thor, but first we must bring 2 other dragons up the arms which will be knotted into the composition

And the back again :-)

Minimalism... One dragon, one serpent, no scales.

Finished for now, but he already has plans to get another with scales on the other arm.

I never do cover ups...

Although my work is done using straight black ink, the dotwork technique means that there will always be space around the dots that the former design can be seen through. However as Hanna is from Greenland and her name was so faded I was happy to get the chance to do a Tupilak design on her.

Jean Louis is a Belgian baker and has a collection of larger pieces from his travels. A Celtic Lion on his right chest and shoulder... a three legged triskele from the Isle of Man on the center of his back... and now the start of a Welsh Dragon on his ribs.
Stay tuned :-)