Hold a piece of paper against the skin of the spot you want tattooed and eyeball approximately how large the design should be, or use a measuring tape to determine the exact size.
Sketch the tattoo design on a sheet of blank white paper using a regular graphite pencil. Do not worry about shading or coloring at this time, just focus on making correct line work. Use your eraser to correct any mistakes and be sure the entire design is exactly the way you want it before moving to the next step.
Trace over all the pencil lines with a thin black marker, do not worry about shading or filling in any area. If certain areas of the design require thicker lines, do not change markers, simply trace over the specific line multiple times until it is the correct thickness.
Erase away all the pencil lines once all the black ink has dried completely.
Flip the image over and place on a lighting desk or on a well-lit drawing surface. This is to ensure the black lines show through to the other side.
Copy the black lines onto the reverse side of the paper, either in pencil first and then marker or just with the marker if you are confident you wont make a mistake. It is important to achieve this reverse image because it is to be this mirror image used to make the stencil. A stencil must be in reverse for the tattoo to appear frontward on your skin.
Place a sheet of stencil paper over the reverse image once it is finished and tape the edges of each sheet together so there is no movement during the stencil tracing.
Trace the reverse image onto stencil paper using a tattoo stencil pencil. Stencil pencil lines are extremely difficult to erase and it is advised you start over on a fresh sheet of stencil paper if you make a mistake.
Remove the tape and give the stencil to the tattooist for application.