Done by Patrik at Blue Lotus, Eskilstuna Sweden.
I can’t help but look at this and feel utter disappointment in the artist. All-black tattoos are something I just do not understand. Especially something like this where it is not even a silhouette. And even though there is a large place in the cold dead cockles of my heart reserved for just hating silhouette tattoos, even a silhouette would have had more visual interest in it than just a black expanse of wasted skin space. Think of all the ways a really skilled artist could have made that forearm pop, and what bold and awesome designs could have been there instead of this giant slab of nothing.
Now I’m not saying that black is bad. Black ink for tattoos is very good, it gives richer contrast to the value scales of tattoos and makes them bolder while it also helps them stay dark with age. And blackwork tattoos can be really intricate, interesting, and dynamic with the play between negative and positive space in the tattoo design. But all black? That’s a waste of skin. There are so many cooler ways of using heavy black for a half sleeve. Just look at the exemplary blackwork and stippling tattoos done by Gerhard Wiesbeck, dark with a liberal use of black ink, but still interesting and never flat or boring:
