Will someone please remind me....

...that the painted man isn't allowed to drink anything Wednesday and Thursday nights? We weren't able to do his fill in the other night because he had been drinking. He had a couple beers and that kills your clotting ability... not that I was planning on causing major amounts of blood loss, but still. It messes with you and can be bad. So it's going to be more practice until I can do fill this weekend. I'm thinking alphabets.

New equipment synopsis

The machine operates well. There's a 2 step process for changing the spring instead of the 1 step process the other machine I've worked with used.

Fake skin is not a good thing. It seems like it would be OK to practice lining, and I can see where that would be a big hurdle for people to get over, but in my case, I need something that lets me do fill in. Even a one-off outline for testing the skin didn't turn out perfect, but it's certainly fixable with fill in.

The only problem is the skin doesn't fill in. You've got to use vaseline to lay down line with and it works OK for lining practice, but the fill in on the skin is shit. The skin has a tendency to soak up vaseline as well, and I thought that might be enough to keep the ink from dyeing the skin immediately. Didn't work. As a matter of fact, until I scrubbed the fake skin with my brush cleaner from my painting kit, it was a smeary black blob.

It is unworkable for fill in. But I can see where it would be handy to test outlines, maybe some small shading placement as long as you don't care what the finished product looks like. Tonight I fill in the painted man's leg.

A couple of links and some information....

Just to get started, there's a couple links I'd like to point out, and then some information.
First, there's Star Tattoo, home of Chris Partain, the man who did my dolphins. Superior Tattoo is where I purchase my equipment. There's a wealth of information on tattoos at the Tattoo Archive. Huge amount of art at TattooArtists.org. A great source of information can be found also at Tattoos.com. The Penn Museum has an online exhibit on body mods that's worth a look. Links will be added to the sidebar as necessary.

Information:
Most of what you'll see is practice skin. Not being licensed, I'm very aware of the fact that I can potentially be charged... Well, here's the text of the law:

2-38-208. Violation for operating without a permit or with a revoked or suspended permit. —

(a) Any person who does not obtain a permit as required in § 62-38-202 or whose permit has been revoked or suspended and who continues to tattoo or operate a tattoo establishment commits a Class B misdemeanor punishable only by a fine of five hundred dollars ($500).

(information brought to you by this link )
As you can see, not being licensed can cost me $500 here in TN. There will, however, be some real skin. That will be pointed out. [ ahem ] Documentation is being kept by the blog owner for all real skin. The NM law, since I may move back (who knows) can be found here. I won't quote it, you can read.

You may see the same design several times. It may be that I end up doing the same design 30 times to get it as perfect as it can be. You won't have to comment that you hate a color scheme or a design repeatedly. I can learn the first time. Since I'm teaching myself how to do this, I better be able to learn, right?

Special thanks go to my partner, my painted man. He provided me the tools and the beginning knowledge. He's an unending supply of support for me, and I don't know what I'd do without him.

Photographs are taken with a Fujifilm A350 digital camera.