Neo-Traditional Tattoo Rose

My first neo-traditional art piece. I really hate the style of neo-traditional (Ed Hardy/ Sailor Jerry) but it is popular in the tattoo world. So like all other popular tattoo traditions, I had to learn it. I used mechanical pencil to outline my lines (which took about 10 minutes) and then a black .25 micron over those lines. After I had my line work established I used Copic markers to color my bold gradients and web (which took about an hour and a half). Normally American traditional is colored with water color (much easier) but I do not currently have any, so I used what I had and it still turned out the way I wanted it.