•   Black ink goes in much easier than colors.
•   You might have to run a shader a little faster than an outliner.
•   Grey shading a Japanese sky is gaining popularity. This is accomplished by having a cap filled with black ink diluted with distilled pure water. The more water, the weaker the tone, creating a light, washed out grey effect. Another way of achieving this grey effect is by using undiluted black in the machine, and using distilled water on the skin. You basically wet the area (using a soft brush) before you sweep across it. This is a good way on larger pieces such as the back. Practice this, like in any technique, elsewhere to perfection before doing it on a customer.
•   Single needle and outline needles are used to make fine hair and wispy effects. Dotting effects are also achieved by this method.

•   Shading or feathering also work well with some colors too, especially red and brown.
•   On human figures, use brown or tan shading to show form, curves or muscle bulges. Use the natural skin tone as a highlight and shade to enhance the natural skin.
•  Most of the commercial design sheets have designed shading on them. It is an individual matter to change shading by adding or subtracting to suit one’s artistic tastes. This should be done anyway to put an individual stamp on each tattoo.
•  Just like the outliner, the needle bar loop must be snug on the armature bar nipple. The shaft of the needle bar cannot come in contact with inside of the tube.
•  When you change shader needle bars, you will see a series of grooves in the tip. File these out before putting in a new set of needles. A good tool for this is a specially designed mini file available from Spaulding & Rogers Mfg., Inc. By doing this, it doubles the life of the shader tip.
•  When moving the needle bar shaft up and down manually, it should feel smooth and free. If you feel a rub, correct it. The needles may be off to one side and not parallel to the tip or not spread correctly. Another rubber band may also correct this problem. Needles may be bent slightly down to hug bottom of shader tip. Never bend the needle bar.
•   You may also wish to experiment with a round shader. These are also available from your supplier and hold as many as 14 needles. In appearance they resemble an outliner with a large tip. They have advantages in that they are not prone to cutting the skin up too bad and they can put in a lot of ink at a rapid pace. You will not get the shading effect with the round shader that you will get using a flat one.

Posted on September 2nd, 2008 by admin
Tags: fairy tattoos, girl tattoos, tattoos, tribal tattoos

Filed under: Outlining