Okay, I’m compiling some images and ideas together to send to my artist so he can design me a piece for my back. This is my back as it is now (and it’s a really horrible picture but the only one I have – firstly it was when the ring was fresh hence the redness, also the angle of the photo and the way I was standing with my shoulders pulled forwards makes my shoulders look huge and my hips look small – in real life my hips are much wider and shoulders not that big, and my lower back tattoo looks much bigger in relation to the circle than it does in that pic) – http://img02.picoodle.com/img/img02/3/2/21/f_back2m_97e9184.jpg. I am wanting the gap in the centre to be filled, with stuff coming up the sides of the ring and then a little bit of detail on shoulder blades and possibly above the circle. Also a bit of detail coming down around the side of the lower back. The whole idea is to get my back looking a bit more feminine, and also it will be my first colour tattoo, I want it to be fairly vibrant, but want to stay away from citrus colours and pastel colours. I like deep, rich colours. I’ve toyed around with lots of ideas but I think, with the space I have, I am going to have to be generic and have something in the way of a floral design. My other tattoos have a lot of meaning behind them, while this will be for merely decorative purposes, so I don’t want there to be too much to take the focus off the meaning of my black tattoos. Here is a small sample of some of the inspirational pictures I’ve selected so far (none of them are perfect or anything I would actually want but together are the closest kind of thing I can find to what’s in my head).

http://img37.picoodle.com/img/img37/3/2/21/f_oybbfloralbm_0fbd84c.jpg
http://img26.picoodle.com/img/img26/3/2/21/f_flowercoverm_026223f.jpg
http://img32.picoodle.com/img/img32/3/2/21/f_np0tgardenom_69ceadd.jpg

They’re the best ones that reflect the sort of style I like. I want to avoid it looking too ‘busy’ however, but at the same time I dislike things like black swirls and fillers like that. I do like vines and leafiness though. However, at the top, on my shoulder blades etc, I don’t want it to be particularly flowery, because I don’t want to add too much detail to my shoulders for fear of making them look quite wide. I’m not sure how to explain it but I’d like some sort of vintage, flourishy detail up there, that isn’t black swirls etc, but that ties in and connects to the rest of the design, coming off the vines probably. Does any of that make any sense whatsoever? And same goes for the sides of the lower back tattoo but I would like a bit of colour+flower detail down there, then more ‘flourishy stuff (??)’ to the side. But the most part of the floral detail would go in the gap and the bottom half of the spaces to either side of the circle. But I would still like a small amount of colour detail to go on the sides of the upper part.

Ahh, does any of this make sense? It’s really difficult to articulate what’s in my mind. I’m trying to get a clearer way of explaining it together before I send it all off to my artist. Does anybody have any advice? Or any pictures of anything you’ve seen that you think sound like what I’m describing (in particular the stuff at the top which I’m not sure how to describe and can’t draw myself). Or even any little thing you could scribble down that you think sounds like what I’m rambling on about? I’ve never used my artist to design anything for me before so I’m new to this! And I’m really scared I’m going to give him the info and he’ll spend ages drawing up something that I hate. (In that situation, do artists tend to charge per design, and what’s the sort of price? I haven’t asked him about cost of all that!)

Sorry for the ramble – well done anyone who made it to the end!!!