lana.

lana learned at jason's old shop, taught by the same people she still works alongside now. three or four years in the industry, with a break in the middle to have a baby.

her work is solid blackwork and linework, shaded with stipple. heavy black shapes do the structural work, fine line holds the detail, and dotwork fills the space between — it's a harder combination to balance than it looks, because the black will swallow the linework if the weights are even slightly off. getting that balance right is most of what a lana piece is actually about, more than the subject itself.

she works across florals, animals, objects and bolder graphic pieces — anything that needs to read clearly from a distance and still hold up close. that's the test she designs to: a piece that only works up close hasn't earned its blackwork, and one that only works from a distance hasn't earned its detail.

at consultation she'll sketch the balance of black against line before worrying about finer detail, because if that ratio is wrong no amount of stipple shading fixes it afterwards. she'd rather adjust a design at the drawing stage — sometimes going bolder, sometimes pulling black back — than compromise on the balance once it's on skin.

a session with her is steady and precise — stipple shading is slow work by nature, built from thousands of individual dots rather than packed in, so there's no version of it that gets rushed without it showing in how evenly it heals.

currently taking bookings.

see lana's work in fine line and blackwork.