Need help packing in color

Tattooedlife · 11 Nov 2014

after foing a small skull and poison bottle on my leg, I tried packing in a light blue for smoke coming out of the bottle with a 8 round shader, and tried packing black in the bottle with a 7 mag. Neither of the colors held, the black came out grey and the light blue just barely packed in. They was both raised ink, sorta like somebody painted them on, is this from not going in deep enough?? Thanks for any help

GLink · 12 Nov 2014

What ink are you using?

I use cheap Dragonfly rotary machines for packing colour, they work a treat as they hit pretty hard at 8volts.
Use a stacked mag and instead of sweeping your needles across the skin try making the tiniest of tight circles.
Set your depth to around 1.3ml and keep your angle at around 40°.
A nice slow hand speed is the key and wipe every 10th circle, if your doing it correctly you'll see a nice thick line where you've packed the colour...Just repeat the process until everything's filled.
Doing it this way will allow you to one pass the area to be filled without chewing up or causing trauma to the skin.

Hope this helps

TexasPT · 12 Nov 2014

stretch...then stretch more.

also, when you have your machine set up with the volts you'll be running, bog it down on your thumb. Does the needle still extend pass the tube? When I started I was so afraid of tearing up skin I wasn't even really getting into it.

Patch72 · 12 Nov 2014

Check your needles ain't damaged to,that's sound advise from GLink

Rising Star · 12 Nov 2014

Pictures? Pictures talk a 1000 words and will be of much more help. How is you machine set up for packing colour? What coils/springs/hz/duty etc is it running at? I like to pack colour at around 90 - 95hz.

Do you know how to tune / set up machines? Just asking as I dont know. Also, stretch like Mark said - Stretching makes the world of diffrence

Tattooedlife · 12 Nov 2014

I have Kylin machines, I did crank the amps down a little, and yes when I touch top of the bar and slow down the needle it still comes out a nickles width.I use Eternal inks. I tried a small section last night with a 8rs, with a tighter skin stretch, it actually came out good, a little blood but I bleed everytime I get one. Give it a few days to heal and see how it does, it wasn't like a piece of painted fur, like the first time I tried it, lol. So hopefully that's a good sign

hYSobe · 12 Nov 2014

colour/solid packing is about getting it in while causing as much less trauma to the skin as possible, only go over one piece of skin 2 times MAX!

if you're putting in light colours like blues, yellows, light greens, you literally have like 2 chances, if you keep trying to put it in after 2 passes it starts to weep/bleed a little more so it gets real muddied up.

i normally get mine in 1st time lately with my hawk and aslong as i put for example a light blue in and it goes in first time it tends to not bleed much atall

get a really good stretch (so there's no skin bouncing), moderate speed (depending on your machine) consistent angle (what works for you normally more upright doesn't have to be perfect or an exact angle you can pack with 45 degrees or 60 degrees)

cant help without pictures

Tattooedlife · 12 Nov 2014

How do u post a pic on here??

Ink sponge · 12 Nov 2014

Get a premium membership that's a good start.

Tattooedlife · 12 Nov 2014

hYSobe said:
colour/solid packing is about getting it in while causing as much less trauma to the skin as possible, only go over one piece of skin 2 times MAX!

if you're putting in light colours like blues, yellows, light greens, you literally have like 2 chances, if you keep trying to put it in after 2 passes it starts to weep/bleed a little more so it gets real muddied up.

i normally get mine in 1st time lately with my hawk and aslong as i put for example a light blue in and it goes in first time it tends to not bleed much atall

get a really good stretch (so there's no skin bouncing), moderate speed (depending on your machine) consistent angle (what works for you normally more upright doesn't have to be perfect or an exact angle you can pack with 45 degrees or 60 degrees)

cant help without pictures

Tattooedlife · 16 Nov 2014

Just a fast update. Just re-did my colors, used a different needle and everything came out great. Also invested in a jewelers loop to check all my needles

Deviantdan16 · 31 Aug 2016

GLink said:
What ink are you using?

I use cheap Dragonfly rotary machines for packing colour, they work a treat as they hit pretty hard at 8volts.
Use a stacked mag and instead of sweeping your needles across the skin try making the tiniest of tight circles.
Set your depth to around 1.3ml and keep your angle at around 40°.
A nice slow hand speed is the key and wipe every 10th circle, if your doing it correctly you'll see a nice thick line where you've packed the colour...Just repeat the process until everything's filled.
Doing it this way will allow you to one pass the area to be filled without chewing up or causing trauma to the skin.

Hope this helps

hi mate. can i ask do you use curved mags or flats? and do you always have this set up for all colour work or do you set it up differently for more complicated color blending?

JP · 1 Sep 2016

not sure you'll get an answer on this one mate, the thread is 2 years old... There was a problem with the server not too long ago and the site was down for a little while, during that the host lost around a years worth of posts so some of the stuff you'll see are quite old unfortunately

GLink · 3 Sep 2016

Deviantdan16 said:
hi mate. can i ask do you use curved mags or flats? and do you always have this set up for all colour work or do you set it up differently for more complicated color blending?

Hey bud.

I still tend to use this method...I always tend work with curved mags. For blending colours these days I layer colour.

Lawnz90 · 21 Aug 2021

I watched a video somewhere said If your inks are very thick. And eternal colours tend to be. Mix a drop of which Hazel. And promotes healing

Need help packing in color

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