TexasPT

I think tattoing yourself gets you prepared to tattoo others because you feel the needle and understand how flesh reacts. And it IS different.

However…

Tattooing a practice skin lets you develop skills like putting the needle where you aim, following a line, controlling hand speed to match your machine. I’m glad I used practice skins initially…[Read more]

That’s a lot of ink and it’s looking nice. Especially nice when you can do something that means something to you.

My constructive criticism is more compositional. I think that when you are doing script, placing numbers, or creating a piece that needs to have definite spatial rules (like on a clock) that you measure twice and tattoo once. I’d…[Read more]

not a separate forum but a “members only” area. When you go to teachmetotattoo.com you’ll see the tab for members there. It’s just the book split up into smaller tidbits so you can find what you want quicker I guess and a couple videos.

Thanks

Buy a $15 machine and learn to tear it apart and put it back together. Learn how to make it go fast, slow, long stroke, short stroke, hard, soft, etc. Make it run poorly…then fix it. Have it run well…and then unscrew something until it sputters or quit…remember what made that happen and how to fix it. Buy springs for it…see how different…[Read more]

Good luck. I think it’s a great concept. I know many professional artists HATE these schools. They are even boycotting one on Facebook right now.

One thing I can say is that “trade schools” are a foundation. I went to a mechanics school, spent $9k, got job placement…and then really started learning when I was in the real world. Use it as an…[Read more]

Nice job, Viper.

constructive criticism:

Looks to me that maybe you didn’t get the color in all the way on some of the flowers. Might just be the angle. I’m still working on slowing down and getting a clean saturation.

Really great looking piece, though. Like Kitchen said, the branches look really great.

Looking good Viper.

No telling what it was from here in front of my computer. If it wasn’t your equipment chances are he is applying something to the tattoo with dirty hands or is leaving it exposed to bacteria without being mindful of keeping it clean. People tend to forget a tattoo is an open wound initially and should be cared for as such.

I use bacitracin for…[Read more]

Yesterday I took the third stab at this tattoo. :) It has been a great learning experience for me.

I darkened up the outter band violet and even blended in a little light violet working in. The heart was covered again with red in efforts to hide old lines. So far I’ve used blood red, red, and bright red and if nothing else I have at least gotten…[Read more]

Using my limited experience as a guide my initial guess would be you are just working too fast. Look on the left side of the star where it is a nice, smooth, dark blue. That is where you were really focusing on getting the color up against the edge. As a result, you got the ink in. The larger areas, where it is spotty…those are where you…[Read more]

contact screw is fixed on my shading machine but with the shorter spring I can get 90* onto the spring. With the longer spring it was more like 45*.

Kitchen is right…practice skins are really nothing at all like the real thing I’ve found. But if you use Vaseline to wipe with…it will come clean. Inkcraft.biz has some softer skins that are much better than the ones that have the tiger on them.

post a picture of it all cleaned up. That’ll help.

If you are just adding a machine, why not just buy the stealth for 20 bucks less? That site had hardware so you could rebuild if necessary. (this, I think, is a HUGE advantage over buying something you hve to trash if it breaks) If you need all the other stuff then it may be a better deal to get the kit.

Joe Capobianco uses rotary at times. I think I saw a clip of Mario Barth using one, too. There are actually a lot of guys who do. Doesn’t mean it is right for you…or wrong. I’d say try one and see if you like it. I want to pick up a cheaper one just to try and see what I think.

Mark

That is about what I got out of my reading too. Yesterday I took apart the shading machine and replaced the long .18g front spring with a shorter .20 spring. I was able to run it a bit faster but the hit stayed soft and I kept a short throw to smooth stuff out. I decided to rework the bird on my thigh because it came out very light and the…[Read more]

I know it covers it in the book…but maybe I’m unclear.

My liner has a “notch” where the front binding screw goes. I actually run the front binding post about half-way between the left and right side of the hole. I also run a short “liner” spring…wouldn’t this be considered cutback?

To get a shader as a cutback would you just run a shorter…[Read more]

It probably took about an hour and a half…give or take. Finished the lily quickly but then she wanted to add swirls. Took us a while to come up with swirls she liked so we drew…erased…drew…erased. :)

Good practice for sure and another great area for me to work on more. Lining it my biggest challenge when the lines are over two inches or…[Read more]

I was sent this picture today. This is six days out from tattooing and it is almost completely healed. I’m real happy with color and highlights. I need to keep working on blending but overall not bad.