Help on my first tattoo!

MAG20 · 8 May 2021

Hi, I've been learning for the past months and practicing on fruit and fake skin, today I ventured on my first ever real skin tattoo on my husband (forearm). And nerves aside, I was feeling pretty confident... until the first wipe. I had done several lines and none were taking in the ink.
I'm using a pen machine, 11RL on 6.5v (voltage at which I felt comfortable when practicing) So I stopped, adjusted to 8v and slowed my hand speed; and changed to a 9RL to go on some of the thinner lines. Things looked better. Lines looked darker and more solid. But then on some areas the needle seemed to "get stuck" on the skin! I had to pull out completely and go in again.
Now I'm full on nervous thinking I f**ed up, and feeling a bit lost about what to do next, the skin is sore so I don't want to go at the lines again. I rinse and wipe off, wrap and call it a day.
Now, how long should I wait before I can go over the lines? Should it heal completely? Thanks for any advice!

MalligaMallan · 8 May 2021

Yes, wait till it healed completely. Like 3w or a month, just to be on the safe side.

Next time you have issues, don't change everything when you get issues because then you won't be able to analyse what helped and what didn't.

To me it looks like you first of all have a big stretch problem, I suspect you didn't stretch at all actually, and if you did, you may have stretched wrong part of the skin (=not where you were tattooing). Secondly it looks like you have a big depth problem - you hardly even penetrated the skin. Changing to a bigger needle can make that even harder as it increases the resistance from the skin (compare it with penetrating the skin with one sharp needle or with one blunt hammer).

Show us your practice sheets, that can help us to advice you if you're even ready to tattoo human skin yet.

And next time you tattoo human skin - don't panic. You can just put the machine away if it doesn't work out the way you want, the sky is not going to fall down on you ?

This tattoo will be easy to go back to and continue the practice when you're ready for it - no harm done! It's much worse to go too deep ?

MAG20 · 8 May 2021

MalligaMallan said:
Yes, wait till it healed completely. Like 3w or a month, just to be on the safe side.

Next time you have issues, don't change everything when you get issues because then you won't be able to analyse what helped and what didn't.

To me it looks like you first of all have a big stretch problem, I suspect you didn't stretch at all actually, and if you did, you may have stretched wrong part of the skin (=not where you were tattooing). Secondly it looks like you have a big depth problem - you hardly didn't go in the skin at all. Changing to a bigger needle can make that even harder as it increases the resistance from the skin (compare it with penetrating the skin with one sharp needle or with one blunt hammer).

Show us your practice sheets, that can help us to advice you if you're even ready to tattoo human skin yet.

And next time you tattoo human skin - don't panic. You can just put the machine away if it doesn't work out the way you want, the sky is not going to fall down on you ?

This tattoo will be easy to go back to and continue the practice when you're ready for it - no harm done! It's much worse to go too deep ?

Hi! Thanks for your reply

Regarding stretch I did stretch, maybe not enough? I thought the skin was pretty tight...
Regarding depth, yeah I think I was a bit "afraid" and went on too gently. The second time with a smaller needle and less hand speed I pressed a bit more.
It's true I probably should have adjusted one factor a time... so I can notice variations.
Most of my practice was on fruits because I can't get any decent fake skin here (all I have is the cheap, stiff, horrible fake skin and I used it only for my initial lines) and I didn't take any pictures...

but I never had this problem! I always thought I should be careful of going in too deep and feared blowouts once I started on real skin... I guess I was too careful to the point of not going deep enough.
I will definitely wait for this to heal and go at it again...
Thanks again!

MalligaMallan · 9 May 2021

The result is a good proof you didn't stretch (enough) even if you felt you did ? The snagging is likely also a result from too little stretch. The skin is kind of like a canvas, only difference is it's placed on top of some flesh and bone, and that you can't make it flat. If you have too little stretch and push the needle, the skin will be pushed together, if you get what I mean:

That's why stretching is so very important. If you tattoo the other direction, like in B, it will be easier to "avoid" the bad stretch. Or it won't affect your tattooing so badly.

Both directions are fine to use for a more experienced tattooer though, neither of the directions are wrong.

Fruits are unfortunately very deceiving to tattoo on, pretty much anything you do looks good on fruit ? And of course stretch practice is completely impossible. It sounds like stretch is what you really need to find out how to do.

Look at videos about stretch, there are plenty. A guy called Jono on YouTube is great at explaining, look him up.

When you stretch, don't try to stretch to big areas at a time. And imagine the surface having to become very taught, like a drum you're hitting with your drum sticks ?

(And try a 3rl with lower machine speed instead of those fat 7-9rl's ! Much less resistance from the skin. But the others on here will SCREAM now ?)

DKJ · 9 May 2021

What Malin said, but it's better not to go to deep at the beginning, that way you can safely go to the correct depht.
Wait at least 3 weeks, because if you come back before you're going to damage you bf's skin.
Imagine you had an open wound, and the day after someone is tattoing you over this wound: that's what happens!

Could you give us more details about your gear: machine nrand and type, ink, power supply.... Someone may know this gear and relate.

Peace,

DKJ

MalligaMallan · 9 May 2021

Jono's channel:

https://youtube.com/c/JonoSmithTattoo

His video on stretching:

He's got a lot of good videos, take a look in his playlist "Tattoo How To & Reviews".

Tmatrix540 · 9 May 2021

By no means do i have anywhere enough experience to advise on anything at this time but I had a very similar problem when I started using rotary pen , lines were always solid with coil liner but never near as good with pen I found I had to put a lot more down force on the pen and slow hand speed and concentrate on stretching like 1 inch at a time to get lines thicker only thing I could think for this reason is the difference in weight , ps totaly agree with malligamallan Jonos channel well worth a follow

MAG20 · 9 May 2021

MalligaMallan said:
The result is a good proof you didn't stretch (enough) even if you felt you did ? The snagging is likely also a result from too little stretch. The skin is kind of like a canvas, only difference is it's placed on top of some flesh and bone, and that you can't make it flat. If you have too little stretch and push the needle, the skin will be pushed together, if you get what I mean:

View attachment 25885

That's why stretching is so very important. If you tattoo the other direction, like in B, it will be easier to "avoid" the bad stretch. Or it won't affect your tattooing so badly.

Both directions are fine to use for a more experienced tattooer though, neither of the directions are wrong.

Fruits are unfortunately very deceiving to tattoo on, pretty much anything you do looks good on fruit ? And of course stretch practice is completely impossible. It sounds like stretch is what you really need to find out how to do.

Look at videos about stretch, there are plenty. A guy called Jono on YouTube is great at explaining, look him up.

When you stretch, don't try to stretch to big areas at a time. And imagine the surface having to become very taught, like a drum you're hitting with your drum sticks ?

(And try a 3rl with lower machine speed instead of those fat 7-9rl's ! Much less resistance from the skin. But the others on here will SCREAM now ?)

Thanks!
I will definitely check stretching videos, your graphic really helped! I feel that is exactly what was going on with the needle "getting stuck" in the skin and not sliding...

MAG20 · 9 May 2021

DKJ said:
What Malin said, but it's better not to go to deep at the beginning, that way you can safely go to the correct depht.
Wait at least 3 weeks, because if you come back before you're going to damage you bf's skin.
Imagine you had an open wound, and the day after someone is tattoing you over this wound: that's what happens!

Could you give us more details about your gear: machine nrand and type, ink, power supply.... Someone may know this gear and relate.

Peace,

DKJ

Hi! thanks for your reply.
I'm using a blackbird pro short pen, Viking Black liner ink, Bronc Hummingbird power supply, yellow dragonfly cartridge needles.
I'll definitely wait 3-4 weeks to go at it again... for the sake of my marriage

Help on my first tattoo!

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