Stencil transfers to skin, but not pig skin?

Sadly I don't rate using the thermal stencil machine yet, so doing all my stencils by hand with pen.

My stencils transfer perfectly to skin, and the stencils that "fail" on pig skin still transfer perfectly to human skin (frustration, figured I'd try just to see if I messed up: don't worry, not to tattoo and immediately cleaned and sterilised my skin with alcohol/green soap).

The studio is next to no help (they're not great but they're a foot in the door, rarely get any kind of help at all).

I've tried just washing the skin, full immersion and wash, drying it with paper towel, not drying it, a little alcohol, a lot of alcohol, no alcohol, leaving it in paper towel in cling wrap over night, fridge temp/freezer temp/room temp/warmed and every combination there of. I've made stencil fluid, used stencil stuff, speed stick and Dettol. No luck. At best I get a light outline with a bit of bleed, nothing close to the clarity of human skin, and even then parts will be missing.

I have no idea what I'm doing wrong as some people seem to get the same transfer as they do on human skin.

No negativity please, doing the best I can to learn in a studio where I get basically zero help.

The process should be the exact same. Typically you can't get it off of pig...so this is weird.

Take a stencil, put it on your arm. Take the same stencil...put it on pig. At least then you can rule out the stencil, the bonding agent, and the possiblitiy for human error. the only variable would be the bacon.

I wash the pig skin with dish soap and warm water ,then Pat dry ,then spray with alcohol and wipe dry ,I have found using Brut deodorant stick works perfectly on pig skin and fake skin ,you generally have to leave the stencil over night to dry before you can tattoo it ,where in Australia are you ?

That's the brand I'm using, zero effort to get it on human skin and even with a single pen pass transfers solid and clear (I like this stick way more than stencil stuff haha). I usually wash it, leave it for half an hour in paper towel to dry, then alcohol, leave for 10, then stencil. Do you leave the skin in the fridge overnight wrapped/in paper towel/etc? I haven't tried that yet so maybe that's my problem.

I'm in South Australia btw ?

TexasPT said:

The process should be the exact same. Typically you can't get it off of pig...so this is weird.

Take a stencil, put it on your arm. Take the same stencil...put it on pig. At least then you can rule out the stencil, the bonding agent, and the possiblitiy for human error. the only variable would be the bacon.

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Tried that, can get it perfect on human skin, then no dice on the pig. Even tried on me, then adding extra ink, then trying. Still no dice. Same goes for ones that fail on pig, try to put it on mine and voila, perfect. Sooooo frustrating...

Oh, in case it matters, just using standard paper, and either Bic or kilometrico pens as I tried ink liners and even on human skin there was tons of bleed.

Ari Ed said:

Oh, in case it matters, just using standard paper, and either Bic or kilometrico pens as I tried ink liners and even on human skin there was tons of bleed.

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Do you mean your not using proper stencil paper /carbon sheets ? And yes I do leave it in the fridge overnight to dry

Dazza said:

Do you mean your not using proper stencil paper /carbon sheets ? And yes I do leave it in the fridge overnight to dry

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Carbon sheets for the reverse design then pen ink..Im not allowed to use the thermal printer yet (yeah look I'm not even going there) so have to do them all by hand, pen ink works on everything else?

buy a few carbon pencils they are pretty cheap and available at most art stores. save yourself the headache of re-inventing the wheel
you can literally buy 12 for like 3 bucks on ebay

RustDeamon said:

buy a few carbon pencils they are pretty cheap and available at most art stores. save yourself the headache of re-inventing the wheel
you can literally buy 12 for like 3 bucks on ebay

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Does the carbon stick better than ink?

transfers way way WAYbetter. smears smudges and wipes away easier too