I'm in the process of getting a tattoo I don't like covered up so seeing this process in your video was very helpful. You're an extremely talented artist and your work is beautiful.
That's actually a striking difference even after a good healing period! At first glance I didn't even really mind the old one so much, but I definitely see where ye were going and like how it turned out alot. Thanks for sharing, brethren!!!
Good info. I'm covering a black tattoo with snow white opaque from intense and it looks a lot lighter. Figure it will fade to a grey wash after it heals which is what i want.
Out of curiosity, why have you not gone a step further with the red (knowing that it will shine up a little again) and nutralize it slightly rather than just unify it? Not with a green, obviously, but maybe with a wash of something cooler?
Colby S I think that could work as well. I was concerned with it getting too dark from a value standpoint but a lighter more muted red could have worked well. Thanks for the comment!
This is great! Sorry if you covered this and I missed it but is it possible to go over black ink with white to lighten it up a bit? I have the same issue with my tattoo.. the background seems to take away from the foreground because of the darkness and I'd like to lighten up the background.
Hi Jake, great video. Better said, great channel you guys! I have a question for you: I'm using a proton equalizer machine with cartridge needles. When I need to use a big needle (like 21 mag or so) it tends to stuck under the skin from time to time, maybe 5-6 times per hour and I don't really know why. I've tried different power input, from 6V to 9V and different hand speed while working. None of it seems to work better. Any idea what could it be? Thanks and keep on!
Joan sanz the equalizer has grip where you can set the right dept...i found that if I use a bigger mag...and I set the needle dept a little less..it doesn't grab the skin (doesn't get stuck)...just turn it all the way in..and then twist the needle out till you get a good dept where if doesn't happen.... when I use for example a 9 mag bugpin I can set it up a so there is more needle exposed and do a feather technique...but withh the bigger mags it's a problem
I need to cover the same red but with orange , do you think I'll get a result like yours ... your ink was more yellow covering the red .... and what if you hit it with the golden yellow color again will it improve it more permanently
you'll be surprised how well you can cover colour with colours, it's colour over black that's the hardest to pull off. I use mostluy intene inks so they all have weird names. But friend of mine had a horrible tattoo i had to rework, background was made up of black and some kind of light midnight purple kinda something. I covered it with Earth witch is a cool blue/grayish kinda colour, but pretty bright compared to what he had, and except for some minor touch ups, the colour is hidden very well ! Why ? i use short taper needles and slowly pack in those colours. Needles are what i think the most overlooked thing in tattoo world. especially cause u can buy everything you want pre-made or in cartridges. nobody seems to know or care what needles do, this is why i think allot of colour realistic artist fail or colour seem to fade or drop out of their work quickly, is because they don't use the right needles.
Only just found you recently, but just gotta say: thank you so much for sharing! I haven't had to cover up much at all yet (beyond a few touch ups on old tatts where the person can't reach the original artist), but this is definitely something to really remember when such issues arise in the future! Thank you!
I have a question I desperately need answers for. I have a gray wash realism sleeve tattoo but it is very light and not st all what I wanted. I wanted a new school coloured tattoo but now I got all this shading with blacks and grays. Is there a way to new schoolize it with the shades underneath? Also if someone experienced was to fix the entire thing, do you know roughly how many hours it would take?
My artist didn't plan my cover up at all. I walked in there with a sleeve idea and two fairly large tattoos that needed to be covered. He's free handed the entire thing on the spot, us just spitballing ideas that fit the sleeve until something stuck. Its fucking incredible.
When I have photos online of it. I won't post until my sleeve is complete. I have around 12, 15 hours to go, and only enough money for another 6 hours.
Hi Jake, as a tattooer I could not agree more on this with you, but what if the customer says that you as an artist are responsible for the art and that you should have done it that way at first ? :) its just seeing it from a different angle i guess. But I was more curious about touch-ups pricing, is it common for tattooers to charge for that ? I guess that in most cases the customer is responsible for bad heals, but no one is perfect and sometimes even tattooers can overwork the skin a bit, what may cause a color dropout. I have my tattoo shop opened for something little longer than one year and I am still trying to figure out how to run it efficiently. I am still a little bit afraid to charge what i would like to so i don´t loose my customers. I also find difficult telling the customers the price of the tattoo beforehand as it may differ by a lot (lets say 1/3 of the price) and they always want to know it :) thanks for the feedback! Cheers from The Czech Republic . Tomas (ps sorry for the grammar :))
Thanks Jake and good timing as I have some old tattoos to touch up and this will help out on a few things I was pondering on. Your tattoo came out excellent but as a full arm piece I think its Dave's turn to go back and touch up. Its looks really cool what he did but the forearm is over powering the shoulder. Hey I'm new to this and its just my opinion so please correct me if I'm wrong? And a big thanks as always!!
Very helpful and informative! Thank you for all you do! I would love to see a black and grey episode at some point. I feel like that is kind of Pandoras Box as every one I talk to seem to go about getting to the finished product in a different way. Thank you again!
would you guys please do a video about realism tattooing? I work in a street shop and it's all we seem to be getting these days, its a trend that will not stop. I would even settle to being pointed in the direction of certain webinars and DVDs. PLEASE help.
The closest thing I have done to realism is the Technique video before this one (Tattooing realistic fur) Doesn't Nikko Hurtado have a realism webinar that is on youtube?
Very good work. The yellow did it's job over the red, but what really made that yellow/red problem/situation resolve itself was putting in the lights and darks on the turtle...just like you said. The two in combination worked so much better than either one by themselves. I imagine over time the yellow will turn to an orange and maybe it does or doesn't by that time it won't matter, if you know what I mean. Again, excelent work, excellent tutorial!
how do you find mixing colours on the skin. For example i had started a fresh tattoo and shaded an area orange there was an area i was trying to lighten on the orange by mixing some yellow over it. However i found it hard to lighten this area with yellow as orange was a darker colour. The question im asking is would you say it would have been better to shade the area orange but shade round the area that needed to be lighter and then put yellow in just over skin rather than mixing the two colours on skin ? If that makes sense. Thanks as always your a credit to the industry man.
Thanks a lot. Yes, If you know on the front end that you would like an area to be lighter, I would allow for it on the front end. It is much more difficult to lighten an area after you have tattooed it
