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Dragon Koi
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Description: Japanese is one of my favorite styles of tattooing.. and anything dragon really gets me stoked. This follows the story of the Koi swimming up the yellow river. Its said they turn into a dragon once the journey is complete.. thus the hybrid of the two. In this piece I gave the water the black and grey treatment.. so that the colored subjects are pushed into view even more. Also i used complimentary colors in the dragon and flower to bring the two apart. This piece is about 5 hours of work. I used a 15 mag for the background (remember a bigger mag equals smoother shading than a smaller mag and with less time and damage). Everything else was done with a 9 mag and a 5 round shader.

Artist: Orrin Hurley
Location: Leg