# Ribs and sternum turn one tattoo into several sittings > Ribs, sternum and the inner arm are the places a long tattoo gets broken into short sittings, and that changes what gets designed for them. August 20, 2026 · https://justog.club/stories/the-spot-that-hurts A plain front-facing torso, drawn as flat contour with no shading and no detail. Over it sits a red wash — darkest across the ribs, the sternum and the inner upper arms, fading to nothing over the outer arms and the upper back. Three labels sit beside the darkest patches: RIBS, STERNUM, INNER ARM. It reads like a weather map, because that's the job it's doing. ## Why does a design's placement change how long a tattoo takes to finish? Because some areas can only be worked for a short stretch before the sitting has to end. A large piece over the ribs or the sternum, done in one unbroken session the way a calf or a forearm piece often is, isn't how that placement gets worked. It gets broken into shorter sittings, spaced out, with the artist and the client both watching how the area is holding up as they go. The design has to be plannable in pieces — sections that read as complete on their own partway through, rather than a single continuous pass that only makes sense finished. ## What does a design actually have to do differently for a short-sitting area? It has to be built from parts that can be interrupted between sittings without looking unfinished. A large panther across the back can be drawn as one continuous form because the whole thing gets worked in a run long enough to see it through. A piece across the ribs is more often composed as a sequence — a cluster of smaller motifs, a border built up section by section, linework that completes in stages a client can absorb one sitting at a time. This is a compositional habit, not a rule about subject matter: the same swallow or dagger works over a rib cage, drawn differently. ## Is this the same as saying the design has to be simpler? No — smaller and staged, not simpler. A rib piece can carry as much detail as a back piece; it just carries it in a form that can be approached in sections without one section depending on the others being fresh. Fine linework and heavy shading both survive this treatment. What doesn't survive it is a composition that only makes sense as a single unbroken gesture — a long flowing line meant to be laid down in one pass loses its point if it has to stop and restart across several visits. ## Does anyone own the idea of a diagram like this? No — composing for where a piece can be worked in short sittings is shared craft knowledge, not a design anyone holds. It's built up the same way the classic swallow or the dagger through a rose was: across generations of artists solving the same problem and passing the solution along. What's owned is a specific artist's specific diagram — this exact wash, this exact set of labels, this exact torso outline — and reproducing that stroke for stroke is copying a particular person's work. Choosing to place a long piece across the ribs rather than the back was never ownable to begin with; nobody licenses a location on a body. ## Does a garment print need to worry about any of this? No — printing removes the constraint the diagram is describing, and that's worth saying plainly. A shirt goes on in one pass; nothing about it gets broken into sittings. What carries over is the staged, sectioned habit tattoo artists developed for these areas — a different answer to the same question [a single marathon sitting solves by not stopping at all](/stories/the-appointment-that-took-nine-hours). That habit prints just as well as any other. ## Do the same areas that need short sittings also need designs that survive movement? Often, yes, and the two constraints tend to compound rather than cancel out. The inner arm and the ribs both flex when the body moves — the arm at the elbow and shoulder, the ribs with breathing — [which is a separate design problem from the sitting length, one that a joint piece has to solve on its own terms](/stories/where-the-body-bends). A design drawn for one of these areas is often answering both questions at once: what can be worked in short sittings, and what still reads correctly once the surface under it moves. ## Who decides where a long piece like this actually sits? Nobody but the person wearing it, and it's a genuinely practical decision rather than an emotional one. Some people choose the ribs or the sternum precisely because a longer commitment, taken in stages, suits how they want to build the piece — [the same territory a multi-year back piece works from a different angle](/stories/a-back-piece-takes-years). Others avoid those areas for the same reason a shirt buyer picks a print they can commit to in one go. Neither is the more sensible choice; they're answering different questions. ## Does a print like this reproduce well? Yes — a graded wash like this one is simpler to print than it looks, because it's a single colour changing in density rather than several colours meeting. The red runs from full saturation over the ribs and sternum to nothing at all over the shoulders, which is one continuous gradient rather than a set of hard-edged shapes, and a single-colour gradient holds its transition cleanly on fabric in a way a gradient between two different hues rarely does. The contour line and the three labels stay flat black, which is the part actually carrying the information — the wash is the illustration, the line and the type are the read. ## How do I get one made? Describe the placement question at [JustOG](/) — where the design would sit and what it has to answer for on that surface. Pick a direction, drag the crop frame, see it composited on the real garment, and it's made to order and shipped. Designs other people have published are in the [shop](/shop). Three labels, one wash, and no face on the diagram at all.