Skin not taking ink?

[Alie K]

I am using original neo tats, 7 liner and 7 and 11 curve mags for the shading. I normally run my colour packer anywhere from 10 to 11.5 volts when colour packing, but on her even 12v just does not get the colour solid. I have the long stroke for colour packing (3.5?) and I usually set the needle about .5 back into the tube, and for grey shading I use my standard stroke with the needle almost flush.
And yeah, her last sitting took 2 and a half hours, and I only charged her $125. I am normally $150 an hour, but I feel that this should have been almost finished by now, and we are only less than half way through.
I dont feel it is my machines or needle setup as I have never encountered such issues with getting ink into skin on a regular body part. Its not like its someones rib-cage or stomach, its just an arm. I dont understand why I am having such issues, its like tattooing a rhino I swear!

Sometimes slowing down can make a big difference. When you run your machines so fast, especially if you have thicker ink, you are essentially making more holes in the skin than ink that is going into them. All that leads to is irritation, and especialy with thick tanned skin, slowing down can be good. Are you trying to get rich color into her tanned skin? How dark is she? Color will not look as vibrant on darker skin, so if she's really tan, don't get yourself crazy trying to get super bright color into her. That's just how it is. It always looks more subtle. As for when I color, I rarely run my machines faster than 8.5 for coloring, though sometimes I set them around 9.8 but it depends on my technique that I'm using as well as what ink. In a way, going slower has made me faster - I feel more efficient.

$150 is pretty standard here in Edmonton, its a town full of oil money. Anything under $125 usually gets you an apprentice or a kitchen magician. That being said though you can check out my stuff www.facebook.com/bombshelltattoo.ca if you want!
She is quite tanned, but her skin just feels thicker than normal. Maybe a hot damp towel around it for half an hour before we start? Has anyone tried anything like that?

For Edmonton, $150 isn't bad at all. Here in Toronto, the rates are from $120 in the little shops on the outskirts of town, to about $200 in the downtown core. I know people charging $180/hour as junior artists because that's the shop rate. Especially if the shop is on a very busy street for foot traffic. You start undercutting, and pretty soon you'll have a brick thrown through your window in some places. I've also worked in towns where the shop rate is $70/hour, but here is the difference:

Town with $70/hr rate: 2 bedroom townhouse = $645/month
City with $150 - $200/hr rate: 2 bedroom townhouse = $1,800+ /month

I'd tell this client to stop tanning if she wants to get tattooed - do you know if she exposes her fresh tattoos to the tanning bed? That sure doesn't help matters. She technically should be waiting longer than 2 weeks to go tanning after a getting a fresh tattoo. She might not be doing that. Even if she 'claims' to be doing that, she might not be - she could be embarassed to tell you that she is messing up her own stuff.

So does it work best to stretch along the line or against the line ??? Just as reference it's a good study.

As far as that drawing goes, I've used those principles when stretching and it works quite well. Say, on the area just above the knee - it stretches quite fantastically in a north/south manner to allow for the bend of the body part, right? So, if you try to stretch the skin in that direction, it will stretch a lot, and you'll have to work harder to get the pigment in. If you stretch east and west, against the grain so to say, you'll get a tighter stretch with less work because the skin is working with you better. With this in mind, you'll see that the lines on the front of the knees go east and west, which is the way I would stretch. Try it! Even if you are just stretching your own skin to draw on yourself with a ballpoint pen.