“While those that can’t do, teach…”
Yet another hair brained scheme. Anyone that has ever tattooed will take one look at this and laugh and that’s OK. To any professional, this is a joke, but I feel great about it and loved the process and have a lot to learn.
Everything about this was a first. First time creating a transfer, first time applying the transfer (as is easy to see considering I moved creating a double image), first time tattooing skin.
I had no idea what it was going to feel like. I read that when using a single needle rather than a larger grouping it will hurt more, but I felt that I wanted to give my self a chance to fix my lines later using a larger needle grouping. So I used the single needle. I felt it and sometimes it was unpleasant, but nothing close to what I imagined. That first prick was the bitch of the bunch. The not knowing was more painful than knowing. The result is probably typical of a first time scratch. Nothing smooth, lots of reworking, several locations where I missed the line as I reworked. The biggest challenge for me was the ink did not flow nicely. It either spit out, or did not flow at all. I have so much to learn yet and will.
Three days after the initial first outlining, I decided to see what I could do about thickening the lines. I ended up learning a little about shading. I will continue shading with a proper shading needle as I did this shading with a 5RL needle. I expect the shading to be better with the right needle. I know I should be practicing on something other than my skin, but the practice skin sucks and I can’t learn about depth on a piece of fruit. Due to the natural reddening of the area, it’s hard to tell just how well or poorly the shading is. I will have to wait a good week before the results are clear.
Five days after my attempted shading and line darkening shows two things. I did not go deep enough for the shading and I did not perform proper aftercare. Much of the darker shaded areas have peeled up. You can see in the third image. Damn It! Live and learn.
So I gave it a good amount of time to really heal from the last failure. I decided to go in with some coloring. If your an amateur like me, coloring does not necessarily mean color. It simply means a solid color without shading. The color of choice here was obviously black. I say solid, but in my case, there are some spots darker than others. That is what happens when you are a noob. Alas, it is my body. Oh and this time, I actually drew blood during the coloring… I was beginning to think I may have already been dead. Then I played with a shader needle to add a little depth around some of the areas I failed with before. This time, I made sure I got deep enough to leave some lasting ink. Issue is, I left it relatively light. I can go back. This is a learning experience after all. Now, I have to make sure I do the proper after care. I will come back in a week with a new pic to show how bad or good I did.
