looooong lines

[NHBB1]

whats your preferred approach? 2" + it gets a bit scary...

I have seen many large pieces though with lines like a foot long with no breakage... most say to start a bit back in the line to continue it if you are running low on ink... but it seems like it takes a bit of precision. thoughts or comments?

[maxauto]

that is the way it just takes practice and repeditiveness.
try a little vasoline on the side of your glove to help it slide on the skin
when making long lines. and take a deep concentrated breath.
you also have to believe that you can do it, dont be worried.
i notice when i double guess myself i am making it worse than it really is,
that goes for any part of tattooing.
practicing long lines while tracing or drawing on paper is a definate help.

[MonkeyBlood]

that is the way it just takes practice and repeditiveness.
try a little vasoline on the side of your glove to help it slide on the skin
when making long lines. and take a deep concentrated breath.
you also have to believe that you can do it, dont be worried.
i notice when i double guess myself i am making it worse than it really is,
that goes for any part of tattooing.
practicing long lines while tracing or drawing on paper is a definate help.

Couldn't have said it better. You can do it! It takes confidence and repetition.

[viva hate]

tracing is a great tool to work on confidence and steady hand movement..

[jadefoodog]

also bigger needle groupings help like use a 7liner or even a 9 instead of a 5

[pudscud]

what is scaring me, as a professional grapefruit murderer, is that it's really tough to practice long curved lines on a grapefruit, because it's hard to get the palm of your hand to rest on the fruit. what i'm gonna do, i think, is practice with an inkless needle on my thigh.


i don't think i'll ever get off the grapefruits. but, shit, at least they smell good while you're inking them.

[jadefoodog]

wish i could say that about some clients

[Joker]

Aside from all of the great tips offered from the others about practice, practice and practice coupled with having a cool head sending signals to your hand...I would like to offer some advice from one of my tattoo heroes (GUY AITCHISON) His approach to most lining is one where he slowly builds/sculpts his lines. To do this he lines almost like he is shading, using liner groups that he purposefully makes just a bit loose (rather than super tight...) This way the needles do not tend to sink too far in and the couple of building passes allow the artist to smooth the lines out nice and tight.

So rather than the one pass line that sinks the needle, he gives the line some passes that run the color in. His thoughts and experience (and my own as well) is that it is harder to get the lines to drop color (not enough depth...) to having it blowout (too much depth...) He claims to have used this method for quite some time and that his earlier tattoos with this method have super crisp lines after quite a few years.

The few drwabacks to this style of lining is the amount of time used to build clean lines that last a long time...a shop that rolls customers in and boots them out as quick as possible will probably not care much for this type of lining. Time is money! BUT...it is about how good you want your work to look further on down the road and what makes you happy as an artist...learn both ways as best you can so that you can do whatever the situation calls for. Need a client in the chair for a typical tattoo...couple of hours and show them the door, use the one run line and clean up flubs with your shader before you put in color. Have a large piece that has various thicknesses of lines and you must get this one peice to be your personal best? Use the slower but cleaner build up method. Explain to your client why building lines is better for them, and if it matters to them...they will not only sit and let you do it, but thank you till their dying days that you know your shit and care about what you do.

There you have it...as I keep telling myself when I do my lines "I am a long way from being done. I will do my best, and if I wobble a bit I know that I can fix it...what happens now is not a complete tattoo but one part of it. Look ahead, find the direction that I will push this line, breath and run it to the end, not too deep, never too deep..."

have a good one and think ink.

[j7899]

To add to what Joker stated, Guy sets his "liners" basically like a shader as to not tear the skin up. So do not try with your normal liner.

[Psycho]

so basicly shade the line in? What type of speed are we talking here on the machine? Would you use a round shader for this or could you also use mags?

[sac4life]

thanks joker for the input. like stated before guy recommends a long stroke which will slow your machine down alto I'm thinking number wise around 105-Hertz but thats just my guess guy never started what numbers his machines run at just a slow long soft stroke.

[j7899]

From what I read it is basically is a shader(with a shader stroke length or near it), using loose spaced liners a 3 for smaller lines and a 5 for a little larger. You first line your initial line, then you go over it in very small circles, finally you sharpen the edges in a jetting motion switching off which edge you sharpen not sharpening the opposite edge.

[Joker]

As far as Guy's approach to needle groups, he makes his own. When he makes his liners he will make regular tight liners that he sets into the tightening jig firmly, thus keeping them real tight for typical lining and fine detail lines.

When he makes his SCULPTING liners he does not push the needle groups into the tightening jig as firmly as with his standard liners...this leaves the tapered end of the group a little bit loose, ALMOST like a round shader group but still tapered.

Now, I buy premade needle bars with needle groups already soldered on...until I get familiar with making my own. What I do is carefully eye loupe all the needles quickly when I get them. Rather than look for bends, burrs and other flaws that junk the needle, I scan for tightness. (before I use any needle set, I carefully eye loupe them for serious flaws...the first scan is just to find loose liner groups and seperate them from the tighter ones)

Since most premade needles are mass produced you should be able to score some that are just a little loose in the standard box of 50 that most suppliers sell. I take the liners that seem to spread their tips out and put them in a sculpting liner bin, seperate from the tight liner bin. At the time of the tattoo I consider what the art requires and what the customer is comfortable with and if I need a loose liner for building lines, I take a loose tipped one and either use "as is" it or gently run a STERILE razor between the needles to get a bit more spread. When I run the razor in between the needles, I do not flex the needles apart by force, I just gently push the razor until I feel a small amount of resistance and pull it out. I constantly check my progrees as I go and I stay very carefully away from the tips so that I do not damage them. I am still wanting a taper tip to the needle group and not a typical barrel shape like a round shader...but it will be loose and not tight.

Yeah I can go on about this forever...

Anyhoo, I personally have not used round shaders to line...BUT I have gone up in liner size to sculpt lines! I take my typical liner machine that will neatly push a 1-3 tight liner into the skin and I open the gap just a hair between the contact screw and the spring...rather than a "dime" gap, I space it between the "dime" and the "nickle"...this will slow the machine just a bit and give a harder hit. I then choose a nice tight 8 liner needle bar and use it to sculpt the line like a loose 5 liner.

With the larger size of the tight 8 liner and the weaker nature of the "adjusted" liner machine (slower and more gap at the regular voltage of the power unit) I can build some nice lines. You might even be suprised just how thin a line can be by using a tight 8! The good news is...it would take alot of effort to get the 8 liner to sink too deep into the skin....you would really have to try hard to get it in and push deep. I noticed that it feels very much like a shader hitting the skin with some nice vibration, rather than the zipp of a regular liner.

The whole idea is to skim the area not sink the needle and gently work lines like shade...enough speed to run, enough stroke to hit and enough needle spread to not sink too deep into the skin. If you can color or shade, you can build lines this way.

One last thought on why this method seems to make neat lines...I think that the artist doing it KNOWS that they have some time to get the right result. The artist feels that they can blow through getting the lines of the transfer down quickly...without messing up the transfer too bad and without running the needle in too deep. So the artist gets some soft lines down, rubs away all the extra ink and the transfer guide and takes time to really get some nice lines down without all of the worry. I think it helps calm the artist down.

When working with tight needle liners, the artist knows that there is little room for error...the needle goes in deep enough that all ink is in the skin for better or for worse...one time! Go too deep and the ink spreads or a blowout happens... OOPS! Get a hard squiggle line...OOPS! The hand slips beacuse the skin is slick or the curve is tight...OOPS!

But a builder of lines has the mental picture that the needles WILL NOT go too deep to cause damage to skin or the under skin blowout smear will not happen later. The artist also knows that they will have a picture line guide down pretty quickly and that the transfer smearing or coming off is not that big of an issue...hell they did the line and can fill it to be some really awesome lines...at their leisure.

That is my take on why building lines seems to be a great way to get the feel of doing lines down...you are building your skills while keeping your headspace clear of the garbage and you are expanding on your arsenal of methods to do the best tattoos that you can!

Good luck, keep it clean and have one hell-of-a time pushing ink!

[Psycho]

Awesome post. On the same note can you use a mag to sculpt lines also?

[j7899]

Awesome post. On the same note can you use a mag to sculpt lines also?

The only mention of sculpting lines with magnums in Guys book is when making large lines 1/4" or more but still use a loose 3 or 5 to sharpen the edges.

[Chopper]

Joker, Fantastic post, i learnt a great deal of theory off that ... may just have to practise, you can never know too much, or learn too many techniques. Thanks bro

Regards,

Rob