When you and the customer have chosen the right design, there must be a way to transfer it to the body part getting tattooed. Even the best tattoo artists rarely work totally freehand (that is, to just start tattooing with no guidelines at all on the body). Remember, there is no erasing a tattoo once it is on.
There has to be some type of guide on the skin so you know where you are going and what it might look like ahead of time. In the tattoo trade, this transfer method from the design to the skin is called a stencil and there are many different ways it can be done.
The Ways we are going to cover are among the most popular and it is a personal choice on the tattooist’s part to see which ones work the best for him. The most commonly used methods are drawing on the duplicating carbon, the use of hectograph ink, acetate stencils, the latest stencil creating machines and the simple skin type marker.
First, a word about the design outcome. When drawing a design on paper, it must be remembered that when it is flipped over to put on the skin, it will come out in reverse. This is easily proven by drawing on a piece of paper. Flip it over and hold it up to the light. This is what you will get on the skin. With this in mind, all the designs will have to be drawn in accordance to where they will be placed.  If you want the tattoo to appear in the same direction as the design, the design will have to be reversed or flipped over before the stencils are even commenced.  It is wise to practice doing this on several different designs to understand this principle and to work out your own system of reversing.

Posted on September 1st, 2008 by admin
Tags: custom tattoo, dragonfly tattoos, draton tattoos, feminine tattos

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