Honestly Karl for first attempts these are pretty good, considering you just started (very quickly). I can see your lines are a bit shakey, but that's improved so much since then. Your mag shading looks a bit scratchy, is that what put you off of using them? Personally I love shading with mags. I've never really done it with a liner.

This is so good to see Karl & thanks for sharing. This was a hugely ambitious project to take on at the stage you were at, but the design & placement of these parts looks really good, especially for someone with no experience with this kind of large scale design. You do have to have huge ambition early on though. I'm constantly pushing myself & some of the first realism pieces I did were hard, but I just kept doing them. Kept showing myself that if I got my head down & gave it my best, it would work out. And it always did. I can see some areas that could use a touch up, but sure your clients will let you do that! I try to touch up healed areas as I start new parts nearby. Its so good to have a trusting client for a big project like this. You can learn so much in the process & normally see how you improved from the start to finish.

Thanks for sharing these again @Karl Hubbard You did show these in your intro, but lots of time has passed since then! Its good to see the different styles you're into. And in our call you mentioned loving doing trad, so you definitely don't have to give up on that to pursue realism right now. I know artists who do two clearly different styles. Finding a place where you can combine the two styles can be where it gets really interesting. Its why I love comic art. It often still has bold outlines, but bright colours & realistic details.

@Rodney Idol looks good! Only thing i'd say when tattooing something like this on an actual client, is I always give it a squint test. Squint your eyes, just to see how much of that detail will be readable later, once its healed a few years. This is more about reference, but if you can bump the contrast on your reference photo first (so more light & dark areas), you'll have a much bolder more readable tattoo. If Its helpful I can make a post about editing reference photos. And thanks for sharing!

@Karl Hubbard yeah great talking to you guys. The little guy just wanted to get involved! 🙂