Getting Tattoos

How It’s Done

Tattoos are nothing more than ink deposited under the skin. How it gets there is another matter all together. The following will be an overview of how modern tattoos are applied and how tattoo artists achieve the desired effects.

Once the tattoo gun is set up, cleaned and disinfected, clean sterile needles are installed in the needle tube. The needles are not hollow, and are approximately 1 inch long, and soldered upon a needle bar.

For outlining, a single needle is used, or 3 needles soldered together. These are just examples, 2 needles up to 15 could be used to create a line. The tube, which the needle bar is inserted, acts as a guide, and an ink reservoir.

The needles are then set for the proper overhang from the tube tip. Now that the gun is set, and the client has been prepared, the ink is dispensed into disposable caps. This prevents contamination of the ink from one client to the next.

The ink is not reused for any other tattoos, and any excess ink is thrown away. The gun is turned on, and dipped into the ink cap paying care not to damage the needle tips. Ink is sucked into the tube tip reservoir.

The gun is then ran momentarily next to some paper towel to clean out the excess, and now tattooing will proceed. Outlining is usually the first step in the process of applying tattoos.

The needles extend into the skin approximately 1/16th of an inch, depositing ink in the dermis region of the skin. The skin is stretched tight with one hand, while the other operates the gun; power is turned off and on via a foot switch.

The stretching of the skin is vital to providing tattoos with smooth clean lines. The artist moves his gun forward, or to the side. This keeps the needle against the back of the tube keeping the lines straight. The machine is slightly angled back and the stenciled lines are followed until the design of the tattoo is completed.

The next step is shading. Shading of tattoos is done many ways, for example a square tipped tube is installed on the gun, and a flat set of 6 needles is installed. The needles are very slightly fanned to help keep them from wobbling in the tube.

With the skin stretched the artist will start at the darkest area of the tattoo, and move toward the lighter section all the time lifting the needles further out of the skin till the needles loose contact at the end of the shading.

Sprayed water can also be used to dilute the ink as it goes in to give a lighter gray or washed appearance. Coloring of tattoos is achieved by using the same needle set up for shading or a round set of needles in a much larger grouping.

The skin is stretched and the artist will move his gun in small circles until an area is covered. While inspecting tattoos, when the skin is stretched, the artist should not see any missed areas, if so he will have to carefully ink the missed areas, then when the skin is released the colored areas will look smooth.

When coloring a single pass with the needles is desired for tattoos, heavy scabbing could occur, lifting much of the ink out of the skin, leaving spots with no color. At this point, when the tattoo is finished, it’s the customer’s aftercare that will make or break the tattoo.

The artist will apply a antiseptic cream to the tattoo, and cover with a bandage of some sort. The bandage must be left on for 2 hours, to keep dirt out of the wounds as they scab.

Then the bandages must be removed, and the area washed, gently, as many times a day as possible. Afterwards, healing tattoos should be covered with a water-based lotion (not Vaseline).

Avoid soaking tattoos in water; chlorinated and salt water especially. And do not pick the scabs. Picking the scabs off tattoos may pull ink out of the skin, thus ruining the tattoo.