This is a design I’m doing for a friend. He wanted a tattoo where you can see the koi’s transformation to a dragon. If you don’t know, in Japanese culture, the koi tries to go up a waterfall, and if it does, it becomes a dragon. I mentioned to him that Japanese mythology also came up with a koi dragon, which actually shows the upper face changing to a dragon, the fins changing to claws, etc.
He didn’t really like the look of koi dragons, so I came up with this because he wanted both the koi and the dragon to appear on the tattoo. I tried to make the koi the center of the piece so I added rays coming from it.
So hopefully he likes it and if not, back to the drawing board!!! LOL
Christopher Buendia 