According to this chart, white would be the last color to be put in a tattoo. Brown before yellow, etc. When a color is tattooed as mentioned before, thousands of tiny holes are being punctured into the skin and the color goes down these holes to stain the under layers of skin. These holes are all open when working, so one color can actually flow into the holes of another color and stain it differently. Bad mixtures are the result of this. If a dark color is used first, a lighter color can’t really change it but if a lighter color is used first, and then a dark color over it, the dark can change the light color, staining it dark. When a dark to light sequence is followed, this overpowering condition disappears. Before tattooing color, it is good to mentally line up the color sequence that is going to be used beforehand so no mistakes are made and some order is maintained efficiently without stopping and thinking about it.
Tattoo colors can be mixed with each other in a cap and/or blended together in the skin for even more variation of tones. Remember though, not every great artist uses hundreds of different colors, and a piece of work should not be evaluated just on the amount of different colors that it contains. A tattoo with 18 assorted colors can look really spectacular, but so can a tattoo with three or four colors. The trick is proper color placement to get a certain effect rather than random selecting and placement of color just for colors sake.

Posted on September 2nd, 2008 by admin
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Depending on where the tattoo is located, (some on the left side, some on the right) and what the tattoo looks like, you may need two stencils of the same design. On acetate, just engrave both sides, having both a left and right image. Before randomly applying a stencil, give it a couple of turns and try different directions to see which way the design would look its best. Try to be a little artistic and spend a little time shuffling the stencil around.
Skin has wrinkles, scars, stretch marks, lumps, cysts and all kinds of surprises in store for you. Stay away from all the problem areas and work around them if you can. Don’t tattoo moles. Avoid working on heavy scar tissue because it doesn’t heal well. The same for pimples and hickeys. Try to incorporate these blemishes into the design whenever possible. You can actually get quite creative here if you wish. For example, in a butterfly or leopard, a mole can sometimes be hidden as one of the spots.

Parts such as fingers, hands, faces, heads, necks and feet are poor places for a tattoo. Besides being culturally unacceptable, these places are most prone to infection anyway and should be avoided. Even if a customer begs you, make up your ethics beforehand and don’t get talked into doing these things.

Posted on August 20th, 2008 by admin
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Five needle liners, with one exception, are made exactly the same way. Obviously, you will use a five needle jig when tacking them and the five needle head on the needle bar jig and will use the #5 holes for tightening, but the basic process is the same. The exception is the way the five needle group is placed together. The odd needle is in the center of the group. Put them together with your fingers and work them into proper position in the five needle jig before tacking. 14 needle round shaders are done as shaders on shader bars. Use the appropriate jigs. Single needle liner bars are done quite similar as three needle liner bars with a few differences. Only one good needle and two filed bad ones are used. The two bad ones act as a support for the otherwise good but flimsy single needle. When placed in the needle jig, line them up on the shelf just like the regular three needle and tack it. When you remove them, separate the needles slightly in your hand and with a pair of cutters, clip off about 1/4 inch of needle on each end of the bad ones, which leaves the good point sticking out about 1/4 inch from the other two.

Posted on August 12th, 2008 by admin
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This chapter requires some careful study since it covers a simple but important process. This process is putting needle bars in tubes and adjusting the tube, bar and machine for proper tattooing. This will become second nature after awhile. Never, ever rush this process because if you’re not paying cióse attention to what you are doing, the needle tips are going to get all damaged. You are going to have to do this every time the tubes and needles are sterilized and the machine has to be put back together. If business is good and proper sterilization is done, you could be assembling machines several times a day.
Tubes and needles should be sterilized the fírst thing in the morning, assembled and wrapped in clean tissue until needed later in the day. Since this process is done for every tattoo (sterilization, assembling the tubes, needles and machines), it is easy to see how a person would rush this process, especially if people are waiting. (In this day and age, you have an obligation to every customer to be sure that this procedure is done correctly).
The key is to be absolutely familiar with the correct assembly process and make it a point to concéntrate every time the tubes are assembled.
New machines bought from suppliers should arrive properly set-up, but the tubes and needles are not sterile. They still have to be disassembled and sterilized. They should be studied to get familiar with a properly set-up machine. It is a good idea to buy at least two machines in the beginning. This way one will be already assembled from the manufacturer as you take the second one apart. This will be a good guide in case you forget how they go back together. Hopefully, any confusión here will be avoided with the information presented in this chapter.

Posted on July 25th, 2008 by admin
Filed under: Setting Tubes | No Comments »