
A series of cat illustrations designed for small tattoo stencils. Created for glitter tattoos, they needed to be extremely chunky and simplistic to be easily visible in small format. The chunky, curved lines also help with the printing process, as they are cut from vinyl material.
The Illustration
For a stencil design, there are a few general rules. There can not be any overlapping shapes – each element of the design needs to be an individual shape, so they can be cut from a sheet of vinyl. All corners should be rounded, to avoid any printing / cutting errors. By smoothing out the sharp corners, you improve the cutting process dramatically.
And lastly, the area of colour needs to be sufficiently chunky / wide to be noticeable. For example… if the stencil were to be used as a children’s tattoo, the area of colour application will be small. So the design has to be chunky, yet easily recognisable.
Drawing Tips
Using symmetry always tricks the eye. By drawing one half of an object, then mirroring it to create the other half, you instantly make a better illusion. By using geometric shapes, you can generate almost anything. If you use Bézier curves, try to use the minimum amount of anchor points to smooth out your curves.