Original hawk (thoughts from first few days)

[ben666]

Okay so I got an original Cheyenne Hawk in a trade with Johnnychaos (btw great guy to deal with would recommend any day!) Here's my thoughts after the doing 10 tattoos over the last 3 days.

Linework: Okay so I do like lining with most rotaries and finding my way with each ... I've had a Rotaryworks, Roy Richardson and a Neotat ls in the past and have lined with all of them with success.
I've been given various bits of advice on lining with the hawk as many people say they have encountered issues with it snagging and generally not being great for linework.
I feel I'm still finding my way with it but it can put in a decent line if, like me, You're a fairly surfacey type of liner and prefer to sculp lines with a few passes, through for fleshy/fatty areas it is definitely more of a struggle, but then I find the same with any machine if I'm honest!

Colour/shading: Here's where this machine really shines, my new school work requires a LOT of colour saturation, solid fills and blending ... all I can say is wow does the hawk help... initially I didn't know if it would be as good as my neotat for my style of bright colour work with it's shorter stroke but it definitely delivers. The feel of the machine when colouring and shading is much more intuitive and painterly any other machine I've used so far.
I'm a pretty slow worker but I'd even go as far as to say it has sped up my colour work ... which to a slowcoach like me is always a bonus!!!

All in all I love this machine so far...though for linework i'd love a go an the Thunder to see if it is much of an improvement!

[JohnnyChaos]

nice one mate. real glad you like it.

[ben666]

nice one mate. real glad you like it.

Love it matey, got a big T-Tech order too, came in like 2 days and I'm all set.... plus the setup/stripdown times is really quick with bagging etc ... How are ya finding the Neotat dude?