The Push: Shoving the pigment into the skin in a single, fluid line with back and forth movements. The Pull: You'll pull the
One of the most important qualities for a tattoo artist is having steady hands. If your hands shake when you're doing something as simple as writing your name, then tattooing is probably not for you.
Stretching the skin is critical to getting the needle to snap through the skin. If you do not stretch the skin it will bounce away from the needle and will take twice as long to do the tattoo and the final colour will not be as bright.
Move the tattoo gun with your fingers, keeping your hand posted in place as you first begin. This will help you apply even and consistent pressure, making your lines even and consistent too. Tight skin tattoos better, so be sure to pull the area tight as you work.
Most tattoo machines should run anywhere from 7.5 to 8.5 volts when you're designing on the skin, although you can go to nine volts when you're lining the tattoo. Adjust this depending on where you are in the process.
Medium Stroke: 3.5mm. This is widely used by tattoo artists. If a tattoo machine is not adjustable, it most likely will come with this stroke length, or one very close.
A Tattoo needle penetrates 5 layers of the epidermis
That may sound like a lot of skin, but in reality it is only 1/16th of an inch, about 1-2mm. That's pretty tiny. It goes through five layers of the epidermis, through the dermal layer, and into the topmost layer of the dermis.
The tattoo machine's needle aims to deposit the ink in a region of 1.5 millimeters to 2 millimeters below the surface of the skin. You may be asking, why this specific depth? It all has to do with the various layers beneath your skin's surface.
With the needle running, dip into water and drag the needle along a paper towel to “empty out” the buildup inside the cartridge. After rinsing, you can also re-dip your needles back into the pigment to get full-strength pigment.
You will find that you have to dip frequently to maintain good ink flow every 5 seconds or so works for me depending on colour and speed etc. If your ink is spraying out over your client it is probably because of machine set up rather than too much ink (unless you really are overloading with ink).
If the needle is going too deep into the skin, it can cause more trauma and damage to the skin than necessary, which can lead to more pain and bleeding. Another sign that a tattoo is too deep is excessive scabbing and peeling during the healing process.
Running a tattoo machine too fast, rotary or coil results in skin that is beat up and undersaturated. That snagging sensation is actually just the needles slowing down at the top of the stroke. If the stroke is too short then the needles will actually start slowing down before they retract fully in to the tube.
Yes, it is completely normal. The very experienced tattoo artists will always ensure that as much ink is packed to ensure most of it remains. Even if excess ink is packed in your skin, and some comes out with the bleeding, it is perfectly normal and there is no need for you to worry.
If you really want to apply some, it should be done long before the tattoo. This will help keep your skin well hydrated, but you should stop at least four days before your tattoo session. A well-hydrated body will reduce the pain felt during a tattoo session, so Vaseline will help with this coming up to your session.
We recommend making sure your middle finger is against the cartridge instead of the grip. If all your fingers are on the tattoo machine's grip and you're not making any contact with the cartridge, it will be harder to control, as if you were holding a pencil closer to the eraser instead of the tip.
While not likely, there is a possibility that a tattoo needle could go too far and puncture the hypodermis and rupture a vein. Tattoos typically do not puncture regular veins, but there is a higher risk of encountering more problems with spider veins.