20-plus years after my first couple of trips to the local parlour, I am now looking to get some fairly serious ink to a custom design to celebrate my 40th year.

Sadly, as I possess all the artistic ability of a stunned weasel, I have nothing more concrete than some inspirational ideas and a number of samples and images from which I am hoping a good artist can piece together the vision in my head and etch it into my body.

I have already had one recommended artist take a look but ultimately turn down the commission. I now have a consult booked with the team at Sunset Tattoo and will probably take a trip to Seventh Day to see if they have a take.

If neither of these works out, does anyone else have any recommendations - hopefully based on first-hand experience? Auckland preferably, but could travel further for the right result.

I am looking for someone who could take some ideas inspired heavily by M.C Escher's "Transformations" works and ultimately come up with two separate companion pieces - 1 for each lower leg. They would be black only and fairly bold, so not looking to work in colour. These are definitely fairly complex but I have seen plenty of real-world examples of similarly (and more!) complex and ambitious tattoos to be confident it is doable.

....failing that, a good local artist to take a commission and come up with designs that could be turned into transfers might also be an option?