Kent said I found him on Instagram before he found me, but I think it was the other way around

Kent said I found him on Instagram before he found me, but I think it was the other way around. I don’t get many clients from Instagram, but I appreciate it when great people find my work here.
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Either way, he reached out to me earlier this year to create a Nordic piece featuring Yggdrasil and two Ravens on either side to balance it out. Something he had been planning for a while.
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We talked a few times before I jumped into his drawing sessions but I had a pretty clear idea of what I wanted to do… leaving the Ravens for last, since I’ve drawn so many, how hard could they be to incorporate…
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I spent quite a few hours on two different tree concepts in the weeks leading up to Kent’s session block, and in the end, one was the clear winner. But it had a lot of overlapping lines where knotwork would emerge; and looked quite messy at this sketch stage. Without the over/under knotwork lines showing clearly how it is weaved. When I showed Kent, I am sure he was wondering what I was thinking. Cris-crossing lines going in every direction. Haha, good thing he trusted me.
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I set out to draw the ravens, and that’s where I got stuck… 6 different concepts and I still didn’t like how any of them flowed with the design. I had one concept as a back up, and they would have looked good, but wouldn’t have the same flow as the tree that I was looking for. So the night before, and the morning of the session, I got up at 6 am and set out to create the final ravens… it reminded me of my school days, finishing a project just hours before it was due. But it all worked out, like I knew it would.
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Kent’s second tattoo, 3 days in a row. I had food poisoning on the final morning, so we got a bit of a late start that day, but everything worked out great. Kent sat like a champ, and we were able to create this amazing tree.
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#nordictattoo #ancientmarks #vikingtattoo #Yggdrasil