How to start sketching up ideas for your tattoo sleeve

If you have a style in mind just start sketching out all your ideas for your sleeve.

Just start filling a page with ideas and imagery that follows the theme and style you have chosen. You will soon get a feel as to what sort of imagery you would like on your tattoo sleeve.

Using a tattoo sleeve arm template

Using a tattoo sleeve arm template you will be able to sketch ideas straight onto that, either digitally or just using a pencil.

See my post on how to design a tattoo sleeve using a tattoo sleeve template and Flash Art.

Sketching the placement for your tattoo sleeve

The next step to sketching your tattoo sleeve is to decide on placement of all your elements you have chosen to include in you arm sleeve tattoo design.

Some important rules to follow when deciding on placement for you sleeve design are:

• Negative space. Use your negative space as part of your overall design. If you are designing a traditional tattoo sleeve, you will be using many individual elements and smaller filler elements such as stars. Your negative pace between each piece needs to flow nicely and be somewhat evenly throughout your whole sleeve design.
• Organic Shapes. To make your tattoo sleeve design flow I would suggesting incorporating organic shapes as your main elements or as a backgroud and stay away from too many straight lines in your design. Organic shapes can be altered to suit the shape of your arm such as flowers, vines, clouds, ocean.

See my post on how to design a tattoo sleeve using a tattoo sleeve template and Flash Art.

Adding decorative elements and filler to your tattoo sleeve

Once you have decided on a layout for all your main elements you may want to add some overlapping imagery to give your tattoo sleeve a more dynamic feel. This is usually done by adding flowers such as roses, mandalas or other decorative pieces slightly behind some of your main elements. again being aware of the negative space. Be careful to keep a nice feeling of balance.

Designing a tattoo sleeve background

Now that you have all your elements layed out you might want to include a background to tie your tattoo sleeve all together.

Some popular tattoo sleeve background ideas are:

• Waves
• Clouds
• Colour Gradients

You would want to to choose a theme for the background that works well with your chosen elements. Lots of waves may be disorientating if all your elements are land based creatures or something. 

Backgrounds often have a softer edge to them so your main elements pop against them. Other backgrounds use high contrasted solid black areas to give a dramatic feel. Other sleeve design such as traditional tattoo sleeve designs don’t usually incorporate a full background.

Getting your design tattooed

Once you are happy with your finished layout and design talk to a proffessional tattoo artist. They will be able to advise on things such as cost and timing – how many sessions it will take to complete to the design.