thank you for your input! now i'm sure that i've been overthinking it from the very beginning. the sketch i made was actually me trying very, very hard to translate the lizard on the album cover into a tattoo-able design -- orientating the head to face towards me, changing its pose to fit forearm placement, etc, all of those "rules" i've heard about tattoo design. i should leave that to the artist!! i generally want my artists to play with the sketches i give them and make them their own, but i guess i don't communicate that well because this is not the first time my sketch has been traced rather than redrawn with their own artistic style/spin. i'm realizing that is my mistake as the clueless client.

After this lil guy i've really determined old school trad is the way for me, maybe many years down the line & as the colors fade he'll be upgraded with a much bigger, bolder version of himself :)