now on to the pig skin!

[keyamon]

progressed on to pig skin now.. it's a bit grim but far closer to human skin..
only problem is that it dyes, so you cant wipe it totally clean and can't remove the blue stencil... no matter how much you scrub! So the tattoos tend to look a bit scrappy.
I have struggled with it a bit, but these two I did tonight I'm "fairly" happy with and felt I was starting to feel a bit more comfortable with the machines.
my lines and shading are getting a little bit better... still need a lot of work though.
wish I had some coloured ink!

I've got two more images ready to try tomorrow

[bladesftp]

hey keyamon looking good

you aint called johnnychaos over at ink trails are ya?

[keyamon]

yeh I am tis a cool site isn't it. loads of good advice.

[webslinger2k]

looking good for a starter mate - impressed. Keep us updated with your other practices, intrigued to see you grow as a tatt artist

[Nikki]

love the left one matey. yup as webby stated keep us posted.

[casio]

nicely done m8, must say i think the star looks much better than the fairy but your doing well with the shading

[webslinger2k]

I could point you to a tattoo shop in my area which has been going for 20 years and the guys's stars and other work I have seen is worse than that, by quite a distance.

Sad, but true.

[casio]

its not the one in carcroft is it the one thats over from the asda cos the star is considerably better than alot of the work ive seen him do

[B B Leo]

looking good m8 keep up the practise

[MercuryRises]

I could point you to a tattoo shop in my area which has been going for 20 years and the guys's stars and other work I have seen is worse than that, by quite a distance.

Sad, but true.

I'll agree with that, I've seen many "professional" tattoo's that are a lot worse than those two.

[keyamon]

thanks guys.. and yeah I'm coming to realise there are a lot of really dreadful tattoo artists out there, it's pretty shocking. I know I wouldn't think of tattooing anyone unless I was 100% sure we would both be happy with the end result and I'm pretty picky so it's going to a quite a while yet. (plus I don't have anywhere suitable to do it anyway)

I was going to do some more tonight, but my pig skin had gone off cos someone turned the fridge off!! it didn't look nice. damit. but strangely actually smelt better! lol

Anyway I used the time to work on a couple of designs for my next practice. some bigger pieces and a bit more interesting, I'm hoping to start that Tuesday and will post up pics when I have some.
Also got an old 24pin dot matrix printer now which I can use to print out the stencils rather than tracing by hand which saves a lot of time.

[keyamon]

started a more complex pic tonight. the blue is obviously from the stencil which I'm now able to print out
the lines didn't go down as well as I'd have liked after the last two above. I was using a smaller needle and think I should have maybe stuck with the same size as before


started to do a little bit of black shading, but it's late so I've left it there for tonight, shame I can't scrub off all that blue.
I think the bottom section is looking a bit messy. the stencil wasn't very clear at all there and I struggled to visualise where I was supposed to be going.
But I think taking a step back and looking at the picture and photo I can see where I need to go with it.
Hope it's ok in the fridge till tomorrow

[webslinger2k]

still coming along nicely there mate - i think you could end up making a good tattoo artist.

Got any mates that are willing to let you practice on them?

also - gotta ask, where on earth do you get a pig skin from? Lol.

[casio]

butchers m8 i got some years ago from a fella on pontefract market,

gotta agree though your coming along nicely and i can see that your improving from one tattoo to the next my bet is though that your going to be tattooing your m8s by the summer and charging by christmas

[keyamon]

I get the pork rind from Morrisons. get about 3ft cut up how I like for around 70p
they have some on the shelves, but I ask for it and the butcher brings out a few strips so I can pic the best.

I kinda feel like this one has been a bit of a step backwards to be honest.

here's a bigger pic, I've sorted out a lot of the lines and done some shading.
there are bits of it I'm kinda happy with, but the majority is a bit crap IMO.
Was really struggling with mixing the graywash I seemed to use far more ink to water than I've done before, but after a couple of dips it would still come out clear.
also tried a 9Mag in the lower section and it was a bit big really and with my bad lighting I kinda made a mess.
switched back to 9RS and cleaned it up a bit..
I think it might look a lot better if you could wipe the pigskin clean!This is after I've had it under the tap with a pan scrubber on it!!

Not sure whether to just bin it or maybe throw some colour on it. hmm

I think I was maybe being a bit ambitious, and definitely need to practise shading on something less convoluted.
But lining it was fun at least



I have a queue of mates, and mates of mates, wanting me to tattoo them lol.
and 3 crazy people who have said I can practice on them!!
and my bass player wanted to come round tonight and get me to freehand sketch out a full sleeve of a dragon coiling round his arm he wants me to do for him.. I just laughed.
I'll be doing my self first and I'll have to be a lot better before I think I'm good enough.

[Argyll]

I'll agree with that, I've seen many "professional" tattoo's that are a lot worse than those two.

Jees you should see the one I got on my leg when I was seventeen. it's horrendous!!!

The guy still has a shop in Stirling I'm told. He should be fecking hung.

[keyamon]

I've now been told that pig skin will always look messy and shading wont work as well and will look far darker compared to human skin.
So I guess I feel a bit better about it.

[keyamon]

I couldn't have planned this if I'd tried!!! had a quick go at this image of a devil chick last night.. edited it in photoshop first to covert it to a line drawing and look what size the image ended up!!!!!




so with Satan guiding my hand I gave it a go.
the skin was starting to go a bit off I'm afraid.. smelt a bit rare and very lumpy n flaky in places.. so overall I'm fairly happy considering how quick it went down, the line round her arse isn't great and the wheel needs more work.
but I had to leave it there and it's gone in the bin now.
I also lost the stencil on her face and hands.. both of which I'm not good at drawing, but for freehand I think they turned out "ok"

[WTD]

getting there mate, I'm enjoying seeing you progress, so keep posting up please!!!

[casio]

i dont think that you did too bad with the face m8 it takes years to get good at faces with a pencil let alone a tattoo gun although shes got a bit of an arse on her lol

ive got some flash thats all line work if its of any use m8 just let me know

cas