Pics are broken for me….

Now they work, thanks 🙂

I am one of those people that really hate tribal but as far as tribal goes looks pretty ok to me!

Not for me. Not that I’m any can-a-sewer.

@Shuketi 120962 wrote:

Are you indirectly saying they suck? :/

Even a very well done tribal is really shit :/

I vote for “they suck”
Im not sure what the intended purpose for sharing such things is. Are you just screwing around or what?
If its just for fun i say keep it up. The lines are terrible. Everything needs to be smooth and flowing.
Practice.

Well Shuketi, welcome to the world of tattoos. Opinions are like assholes in the way that everybody has one, and in here you have assholes with opinions which makes it doubly smelly.

Here, there be monsters.

If you like to draw tribal, then go right ahead and draw tribal, but you will honestly not find much love for tribal in a tattoo collectors’ community like ours. Tribal tattoos are “out of fashion” as far as that can be said about tattoos, and we are (most of us) very much tired of seeing prime canvas space wasted on poor designs and worse workmanship (which seems to most often follow said poor designs). You should expect to see more of these views in the future, but never let it stop you from doing whatever you like.

Your work needs a lot of work, as has been stated already. If tribal is to look good, it needs to be extremely sharp. The lines need to be perfect, the forms properly concentric / parallel / offset, the flow organic and smooth, and the filling 100% even.

Looking at your first link, the circles are rough, but you’ve got a good size ratio going between them. The line next to the circles tapers rather nicely at the top, but then the taper back down to the bottom is uneven and in one place it stays at the same width for too long. The teeth on the squiggly bit look like the teeth of a saw-blade, with a very sharp and distracting edge / change of direction from the swirl. It’s just not flowing well enough.

The second link again doesn’t flow well enough, and you’ve brought the white lines down too thin. Even on your paper you can see the black has bled a bit and almost filled the space between, and it would be even worse after a couple of years on skin. The thick middle-bit is distracting because it is so much thicker than anything else in there.

The third link is actually a pretty interesting concept, but like the others it could do with a bit more flow and more equal widths / ratios between things.

I don’t know what you’re using to draw these, but you need to do a lot of practicing of drawing very fine and very even lines. I would recommend putting the ink to rest and start using rather hard and sharp pencils. All lines must look like, and preferably actually BE, drawn in one continuous, smooth and equally thick stroke. Any breaks in the line drawings will show, just as they show in your links and just as they will show in a tattoo.

Just keep drawing. Work, work, work. Practice, practice, practice.

Oh, and put on your dragon-skin flame-proof suit 😉