Spider

missing a few parts on that friend. A simple lid, even one that may twist on, is not going to get that thing to the pressure that is needed to be an effective unit. Two things are needed to sterilize, heat of no less than 121 celcius and pressure of no less than 12psi…the highest i have ever personally seen an autoclave run was 132 celcius and…[Read more]

The gov needs to get more OUT of the tattooing industry! Not more into it. My stance is that yep, stupid untrained people will cause infections, spread stuff and so on. However they never last long, the people screwing others up, and as far as spreading anything, walking around in public these days can do that to you really. Who’s to say that the…[Read more]

Now see I can respect the digital power supplies, but I would never change out my dials, reason being I had one digital power supply, it got knocked off my station and busted, stopped working and like a dummy i didn’t have a back-up. The dials I can fix because that was part of my mentoring, learn to fix your own stuff. And while I now have 3…[Read more]

wb, I’m looking for a competent artist to fill an empty booth in my shop if you know any!..lol.

I gotta say, bagging or not bagging, it is a good question. Sometimes I do sometimes I don’t. And I am not the only one. If you image search you will see that even the best of the best sometimes do and sometimes don’t, clip cord bag is ALWAYS on but bagged machine is not. IMO the difference being that it just gives you a little extra to clean…[Read more]

Could have been a number of things, not enough stretching of the skin, speed too low for the needle you were using, tube too tight around the needle tip no ink flowing, not enough ink to flow from the tube, trying to be too light in the hand… The biggest thing I have seen from new peeps is stretching, Not you standing up to relax your joints…[Read more]

I can’t load the image here, but if you goto http://www.darkcarnivalink.com, goto artists, then Spider’s portfolio, on there is a Koi cover up. The Koi was done over a very dark black panther with oranges, reds and yellows. It was a successful cover up because I changed the original design so that the darkest of the black areas actually became the…[Read more]

Any cover up is a whole lot of talent, especially when it comes to color over black. A good artist will try to match the existing lines to the new one as best as possible and have a good working knowledge of color theory and how colors will blend over the years. there is alot of experiance as well, but talent and skill is primary IMO..

Yeah that seems to be the order of the day, what really gets me though is that there are so many “artists” out there that are satisfyied working from a kitchen, or spare bedroom or what have you. The whole reasoning, “why should I pay a shop I do just fine charging only $20 and I get lots of work!”, ah well, best of luck…lol…this is a career…[Read more]

there are basically 3 types of wraps:
8
10
12
…..
8 wrap coils are by far the cheapest, they are smaller, the heat dissapates less making them run hotter and are generally run at a lower voltage due to them using smaller needles.
10 wrap coils are kinda the middle norm, they work well for a variety of jobs and uses and can be run at moderate…[Read more]

It is very hard to see but from what I do see, I would say get off faces for some time and work on some stuff. The placement with the body style you choose is not going to look good later on. a better placement would have been higher on the ribs where a person is less likely to gain some pounds and make the body of the chick spread. Her face is…[Read more]

ALPwk4a3.JPGBelieve it or not a good graphics program and a pen tablet as so many numerous advantages when starting to design a tattoo. I have used them for years and even now still prefer them over paper or even paint. This was done using adobe photoshop and charcoal brushes with a pen tablet. I now use a tablet to help with getting outlines and…[Read more]

yeah the dropper comes in very handy in my booth, for mixing I use a single 1rl, tear the needle off so i don’t poke myself, then use the loop to “spin” it in the ink cap to mix any new colors or my washes. Tried one of those auto mixers once….ONCE!!!!!!

In a shop I worked at in Texas the owner was such a cheap a….. they wouldn’t shell out the money for a thermal. So we did our own research going from the old Brothers fax machine idea to make stencils. And found that a dot matrix printer (you can get an older one for under 100,) will make a very decent stencil copy. Otherwise you are stuck to…[Read more]

Most back pieces I have done I did the main design stenciled and made sure when I applied the stencil to the area it was drier than normal and very tacky. Lay it slowly if the person (or the piece) is in a curve of the spine or if they have very bony shoulder blades. Depending on the piece you may have the person bend over at the waist placing…[Read more]

I probably won’t get any of the stuff back and just consider it a loss, he didn’t get anything but a handmade lightbox (my cheap one to boot) and some other smaller stuff anyway. I am fully expecting to see his garbage attempts at tattooing popping up soon anyway, I heard he went and got him an ebay kit since he was an apprentice for a whole 2…[Read more]

Update and hint at what NOT to do. The apprentice I had, stress HAD, decided that he couldn’t handle a full time job, paying bills and learning to ink, he dropped out. After 2 weeks he finally gets around to texting me and not even a phone call to say tat he can’t afford to bring back the things I let him use as an apprentice. I snap and use a few…[Read more]

Knew a guy that wrapped a paper towel folded to fit the tube (4 folds works) and taped together. Looked like it gave him a nice cushion. Have you given the fish grips a shot?

Yep it’s an epidemic, from people I know, we got one shop out this way saying 10 grand for a one year apprenticeship with the comment, (try to goto college for less than 10k a year!) BAH!!! I would never charge an apprentice for the learning. My last one was made to sign a 5 year contract, 2 years apprentice, 3 years working for me exclusively for…[Read more]

One mans scratcher is another mans artist. Or whatever. Saying that because the top post is absolutely right. “shops” hate out of fear that they will get less work and actually have to start turning out good customer service, better ink and so on to stay inking. We recently got started on opening a retail location and I started looking for an…[Read more]