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.
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.
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.
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