Research themed tats FTW!

This is a draft of a sleeve design commissioned by one of the faculty from my M.S. program, Dr. Matt Gifford. He had seen a tattoo design I drew for my roommate Jonathan and asked for a drawing that he could comment on, direct, and then bring to a tattoo artist. The (obviously not-to-scale) salamander is one of his study organisms, Plethodon jordani, and the tree is a hemlock with his daughter's name carved into it.

He really liked the design, but I have yet to hear if he's followed through and gotten it. My favorite part was seeing how excited his wife was with the idea of him getting a bicep half-sleeve: actually 100% super-stoked.

Two years later. . .

. . . I'm finally posting again! Not that it really matters seeing as this is more a personal endeavor than something to please a fanbase. I went to Panama, attended two weddings (one of which I officiated), got a Master's degree, got a tattoo, and moved to Salt Lake City. I have a stash of new art that I'm going to post, and though it's tempting to dump it here all at once, I'm going to spread it out like before.

I'll start with the tattoo.

This is a line drawing I did last April of Paraponera clavata, colloquially known as the bullet ant. It's purported to have the most painful insect sting so, not wanting to miss out on an opportunity to better know my study organism, I had my advisor sting me with one. If you want to know more about that experience you can ask me in person.

I wanted to go for a style that was realistic but used solid lines in place of true shading. It's based off of several of Alex Wild's photographs (http://www.alexanderwild.com), and the specimen that I kept.
In order to commemorate the finishing of my degree and the experience of the sting itself, I brought my design to Golden Lotus Tattoos in North Little Rock and had it cover the location of the sting:

The design had to be enlarged and simplified due to the intricacy of the lines, and the shading (that I didn't ask for) doesn't follow the pattern of any particular light source, but all in all I was quite pleased with the outcome.