Please help

Hello, I just joined this website. I started tattooing 3 years ago and stopped because of safety reasons also do to moving. Recently I started tattooing again, I have prior knowledge from what I knew but I constantly look at videos, look at this website, ask for advice from tattoo artists as well since there’s always more to know. I can’t seem to get sharp solid lines one time. I’ve been practicing on people who allow me to work on them for free. My tattoos for the most part aren’t bad but I have to go over the lines twice almost and it seems to take up more time and I can’t seem to ever get it right. I use very little Vaseline, I usually run my tattoo pen at 7.5 volts and usually the needles range depending on tattoo but I generally use a 5 or 7rl and I try not to go too deep into skin. I will start a tattoo after prepping it, start the line and when I wipe away some of the line is there and in some cases the line doesn’t even show up. I don’t want to dig into someone’s skin either. I practice on pig skin a lot and my lines come out perfectly but it just is completely different when I do it on regular skin. What am I doing wrong? There are some examples below

Hi and welcome !
To me this is mainly due to the experience of tattoing, forging up your understanding of your tools and human skin.

What machine, ink and brand of needles do you use?

Also, how is your stretch? Do you know how to position your clients into naturally stretching positions ?

And about depht, how do you usually manage it?

A first thing i could tell you is, instead of washing away, you can dab your ink. You'll have less dirt all around your tattoo.
Just dab, twist your towel while it's on the skin, and get it away. After that, look at your ink saturation inthe skin and ask yourself if you need to go slower, deeper, run your needle quicker...

Peace,

DKJ

DKJ said:

Hi and welcome !
To me this is mainly due to the experience of tattoing, forging up your understanding of your tools and human skin.

What machine, ink and brand of needles do you use?

Also, how is your stretch? Do you know how to position your clients into naturally stretching positions ?

And about depht, how do you usually manage it?

A first thing i could tell you is, instead of washing away, you can dab your ink. You'll have less dirt all around your tattoo.
Just dab, twist your towel while it's on the skin, and get it away. After that, look at your ink saturation inthe skin and ask yourself if you need to go slower, deeper, run your needle quicker...

Peace,

DKJ

Click to expand...

Thankyou! I really do appreciate the answers.
So I use to have a coil machine back then and I had run into so many problems with them it may have just been cheap though too, so I paid over $300 for this stigma tattoo pen, I use the stigma needles that come with it. I did use hawkins ink but ran out and have been using the stigma ink and for the most part I try to get them into a good stretching position.
For the arm tattoo I didn’t and that’s possibly what could’ve messed me up too. I don’t think the pen should be sideways whilst tattooing but I didn’t know what position to get him in.
With depth, the problem is I could never tell. I don’t experience tattoo blowouts so it’s not that deep but I could never tell. When I start tattooing I try to get a good stretch and lightly press as I go.
I was reading through the training manual and it says to don’t press the skin let the needle do the work but I feel like the ink won’t go in if I do that. Thankyou so much for answering again it means a lot and I really am trying to get better and want to know what it is that I can do to be better