When Ray took me to Spider's and I met Erik, I talked briefly to him on what I wanted. He gave me a pile of dragon drawings to look through to kinda give him an idea. Many were too ugly, vicious, or cartoony.
In the end I picked this guy. He originally had a castle and moon behind him, but I figured that was too much. I wanted something simple for my first tattoo, not too much detail. So we whited-out the background and just had the dragon. We Xeroxed it down to the size I wanted. I figured this would be it: the dragon that would grace my shoulder for an enternity. Because I didn't have the money or guts to go right then, I took the picture home and posted it in front of my computer. For 5 months I looked at it, and in the end, I decided it wasn't what I wanted. Good thing I waited! I recommend doing that if you are interested in getting a tattoo. Pick the design you think you want, and stare at it for a couple weeks - months. Just to make sure thats the one you want.
So I started looking for another design. I really like the tribal look, so I started dearching web sites and tattoo books for a tribal dragon. Nothing really called out to me. But one day I was going to sit down and draw, looking through my Windstone book at dragon sculptures when I saw it. It was a griffen originally but he was the perfect posture and look, everything I wanted, except it wasn't a dragon. I could fix that. I drew some sketches of the griffen in dragon form and posted those on my board and in my notebook. I loved it and even after waiting a couple months, I still loved it. Here was my future tattoo. Kinda sorta.
