It has been a while since the last time I've done any illustration work. Recently I've created a new awesome piece that I would like to share with you. It is a koi fish illustration inspired by my tattoo. Read this post to find out more about my tattoo and see how I created the koi fish illustration based on my tattoo.
Final Illustration Preview
About My Tattoo Artist - Daemon Rowanchilde
I always wanted to get a tattoo ever since I was a kid. Finally, last year I decided to go ahead and get a tattoo done. After hours of Googling, I found Daemon Rowanchilde of Urban Primitive. Daemon is an amazing artist who has been in the industry for long time. He has done work for movie, fashion, illustration, and tattoo design. I particularly like his Energy Wave style/technique. Visit Urban Primitive and Daemonology to see his work.
Tattoo Research
Then I spent couple days on researching tattoo design. I found the koi fish very meaningful and decided to use it as my main design subject. Koi fish tattoo symbolizes "courage, aspiration and advancement".
According to Japanese legend, if a koi succeeded in climbing the falls at a point called Dragon Gate on the Yellow River, it would be transformed into a dragon. Based on that legend, it became a symbol of worldly aspiration and advancement.
Tattoo Sketch
Below are some of my concept sketches. It is a koi swimming upstream toward the sun.
I asked Daemon to incorporate his art into my design and he did this design which was used as the tattoo stencil. The floral and wave patterns were done free-hand during the tattooing process.
Finished Tattoo
The tattoo took 2 painful sessions to complete (6 hours each). Below are the photos of my finished tattoo.
Illustration Sketch
Based on my tattoo, I did the following sketch. The sketch was done on the returning plane from a Chicago trip (I was too bored). I did the sketch in about 30 minutes.
Tracing
As usual, the sketch is scanned and imported in Adobe Illustrator for tracing.
Here is the complete vector art in outline mode (over 2600 paths in total). The tracing process took about 12 hours.
Coloring
The artwork was then filled with color and gradient. The images below are different color themes that I tried. The coloring process took about 20 hours.
Texturizing
Then I imported the elements in Photoshop in separate layers. The texturing effect can easily be done by setting your layer blending mode to Dissolve. I used the Brush and Pencil tool to make the grungy background. Read my Vector Polishing tutorial to see the details of the techniques. The polishing process took over 10 hours due to the large file size and numerous layers.
Inspiration
The koi fish idea was taken from my tattoo. I made the fish tail a bit abstract so it can connect with the water wave.
The sun is also inspired by my tattoo design. I added a waterlily flower behind to make it look like kind of a flower and the sun.
The symbol on the fish head is the initial of my name and my girlfriend.
The flying mushrooms are a combination of jellyfish and mushroom.
The other design elements are mainly inspired by aquatic plants.
Related Article: Finding Inspiration From Your Environment.
The tentacles, the fish scales, the textures on the bottom left corner…I love it! It’s refreshing to see line art at its awesomeness. Do you have any tips or resources you would recommend for beginners on how to trace and colorize using gradients in Adobe Illustrator?
Awesome Stuff!
Very interesting. Thanks for sharing.
Great illustration and great tattoo as well. Thanks a lot for sharing.
Don
This is a a really nice illustration man, loving the texture tips as its something I have never really got my head around. This blog gets better every time I visit, keep up the good work.
Wow, really nice job on this one. Quite detailed..
Excellent Post , really loved it, its amazing that so much details can be drawn on a Adobe illustrator !
regards
Joshu
Your work is a huge inspiration and really is beautiful, I would love to have the time to do something as detailed and concentrated with colour. I think you’ve inspired my next project. Thank you!
Love the vector work. Extremely detailed with a terrific choice of colours. Thanks for posting it.
O.O WoW das sieht richtig super aus :D
My eye caught this illustration while scrolling through your site and hell, some nice work man! I also liked the fact that u told us how much time it took to actually trace it n colour it all, at least I don’t feel like I’m alone now,
people trully underestimate the endless hours that can be spent on one piece…
Keep up the site n keep up the artwork, will definately pass by some more.
喜欢你们的设计与技术，常来看看
Amazing work Nick! I love the flying mushrooms. Original too, something that’s hard to come by these days.
Thanks for telling about the time it took you, it sounds just about right. Now it’s time to convince the clients…
Very inspirational illustration. Kudos for the guts to have such a giant tattoo done. It looks beautiful.
Amazing work! Im a huge fan of yours! :)
Very nice work. I think I’m going to give that a go. Not sure what else I can use apart from a fish??? It could look nice just in shades of the same colour. Good stuff man!
the detail in this design is truly amazing
I’m very interested to know your method of importing your vector objects as layers into Photoshop. For very complex illustrations I’ve done (such as this one: Revolution2009) I’ve always had a tough time with that. The struggle is if you export you .ai document as a .psd document, you tend to get alot of paths, objects, etc. merged together as one rasterized layer in the final .psd and almost have to put all the objects into their own .ai layers in order to get them to come out well!
That is really amazing !
This is a beautiful piece of artwork! This is dedication and passion for your craft. As a minor vector artist myself, I take enormous delight in all the details, shades, gradients, and shapes. There is so much to view, yet your focus is never distracted away from the koi fish. Wonderful!
Very inspirational illustration. Kudos for the guts to have such a giant tattoo done. It looks beautiful.