Tattoo Timelapse with Christian Marek

Since there are many ways to make a great tattoo, every tattoo artist works a little differently. Take Christian Marek for example. This incredible tattoo artist is based at Renaissance Studios in San Clemente, California and best known for his work in realism—Marek can work in both color and black and grey styles. As a realism artist, he has learned throughout his career how to take a photograph and transfer it to skin through a method of stenciling, shading and color work. The team over at Sullen TV wanted to know exactly how Marek was capable of bringing his color realism to life and decided to document one of his latest tattoo sessions in this episode of Tattoo Timelapse.

Take a look at the video below to watch Marek bring to life this incredible shark tattoo. Through his amazing techniques, he renders a lifelike shark straight from a real underwater scene. This video takes three hours of tattooing and speeds it up to give you the highlights of Marek’s methods, without giving away too many of his secrets. We love Tattoo Timelapse as it gives viewers a chance to see a behind the scenes look at some of their favorite artists in case they can’t always make it out to conventions or tattoo studios. This episode offers great insight on how color realism tattoos are created from start to finish, including both stencil prep and final wrap ups.

If you like the tattoo inked here, make sure to check out more of our favorite underwater pieces, as well.