Cover Ups and Restoration

Ink Your Bones

Tattoos by Barbara Guran-Eubank (406-212-2164)

Restoration and Cover Ups

One of the most challenging aspects of Tattooing is restoring or covering up old tattoos. As the skin ages, tattoo inks migrate or blur. Re-inking can repair many tattoos while cover-ups present many other challenges. A cover-up is a process of tattooing over top of an unwanted tattoo.

Often design limitations become a factor in cover up work as do colors and an individual’s interest in a new design. What I do is sit down with a prospective client and discuss all options and interests such as desirable themes and colors and the theoretical outcomes of the process.

Sometimes even if a tattoo doesn’t look faded, a person may no longer want the tattoo on them for whatever reason. Here is an example where the style of the name did not fit the client and she wished to have it re-worked.

Name before Name after Close up detail of cover-up

Here’s another one that is currently in progress. My client didn’t like the mako sharks that were originally there, so we re-drew them and added some turbulent water to cover the old. She should have one more session to add a little bit more water to the right side to balance the design.

Before- Sharks and tribal After first session outline and shading After second session, color laid into

of new design and partial restoration new Mako sharks and central vortex.

of existing tribal.

After fourth session, waves and After fifth session, final restoration of After Final session with a little

water completed. color in tribal Pattern. more water added on right side

for balance.

Here is another that I am currently working on. This client had gotten this fairy as a cover up when she was pretty young and

it did not turn out as she had hoped. She had lived with it for about 8 years before coming to me. We decided to cover up the

mass of the old fairy with her favorite flowers—lilies and tulips and then add a new fairy and some butterflies and dragonflies in the clear zone. As you can see, we still have quite a bit of coloring to do!

Before—Ugly Fairy! After 1^st day outline After 2^nd day—first color

Here is another that the owner had some previous tattoos on her forearm and wanted to complete a lower sleeve. She wanted to

keep the stars and the wing, but wanted to cover up the Celtic knot design. She brought me what a drawing of what she wanted

and then I worked with her to size it and come up with more pattern in the lotus flower to cover up the old Celtic piece. So

sometimes you can do a cover-up combined with enhancements to give you a completely new feel to old tattoos!

Before-stars Before-wing and After-stars included After-lotus cover-up After- Sleeve detail

Celtic in new design with original wing intact

Here is one that the original tattoo to be covered was pretty small, but she wanted to have a larger tattoo to cover it up. In this one, she originally had small paw prints that we covered with the wings of an Amy Brown styled fairy. It will take one more session to complete the coloring.

Paw prints before Amy Brown fairy partially colored

Here is one that the owner originally wanted covered up, but we decided to enhance the original scarred design and turn it into

a tattoo of new delicacy and beauty with paisleys! We still have one more session to complete the color…

Here is another that wanted to cover up initials under a cross in which we used with flowers and ferns.

Cross with initials before Cross with flowers and ferns after

Some cover-ups are smaller, but no less important to their owners!

Here are some examples:

An Anheuser Busch icon that has been transformed into a wolf and stone tablet design.

Anheuser Busch before Wolf after

A small star made into a butterfly.

A moon and star made over into a Fu Dog (the business card shows the scale of how small this is).

Moon and star before Fu Dog after

Restoring tattoos can mean just going over the original design and colors and re-inking, or can involve that plus adding more. Here are a few examples of before and afters: