Hey, this is Jake with Fireside Tattoo Network,
and you are watching fireside technique.
A couple of weeks ago,
I guess now, maybe a month ago now, I put out an episode
about black shading for color tattoos as opposed to doing black and gray shading
and fully rendering for a tattoo that's going to remain black and gray.
And after that episode, I got a handful of requests
to do an episode on filling solid color.
So I'm going to do something like that,
not specifically filling solid color, but getting good
color blends, getting nice blends from one tone to another.
And we'll talk about getting solid color in there at the same time.
And then we'll also address a little bit of how to how to pack color straight
over the top of that black shading that we did a couple of episodes ago.
So I'm working in right here
on into a tattoo that's probably two or three years old.
There's the piece on his shoulder and chest are existing.
The little piece of the skull
that's popping out from his inner arm is from the first sitting on this tattoo.
And we lined everything.
And we packed in our our blacks.
And now I'm starting to transition
from some of those reds and oranges that are in the existing tattoo to
to the tones that we're going to lay
into the new piece, to the expansion on the piece.
And right off the bat here, you can see that I've taken a little bit
of a different approach than you would in traditional tattooing.
I started with a medium tone, kind of like a copper or a caramel,
and I'm laying more of a brick red on top of it.
So I'm working kind of medium.
I'm sorry. I'm yeah,
I'm working kind of medium to dark rather than working from dark to light.
And you'll see that I'll do that a little bit throughout this
throughout this tattoo.
And I think that I get some of my better blends that way.
Right now, I'm packing in a really, really pale yellow.
And you'll see that all in a little while.
I'll introduce a little bit warmer or darker tone on top of it.
I just feel like that
sometimes it saturates a little better or I get a smoother blend.
If I if I lay the medium or the light tone in first
and then kind of almost glaze or pepper that darker tone into it.
And hopefully you'll see what I'm talking about whenever I get there.
I do like to use the biggest needle configuration possible
for as long as I can, whenever I'm filling color, and also
whenever I'm doing black shading as well.
If if you're a painter at all,
you may have noticed that a lot of times whenever you
whenever you come back to a painting at the end,
after you've been noodling with a small round brush for a while
and you get your big brush back out
and you come back and you try to like soften edges or make marks, you,
a lot of times you end up knocking out a lot of the noise of the painting
and making the marks more simple.
And the painting looks more deliberate, looks more intentional.
I think I get that same effect with tattooing.
I have a tendency to work
to work too much detail in to kind of
I know that if I have a small configuration,
I'll start noodling in there and building
little textures and all those kinds of things way too early. Whereas if I
if if I use a bigger needle configuration, I'll address larger shapes
in a more simple way, which is usually the better way to to approach it.
So right now, I'm trying to get this yellow in here.
And I'm, you know, using a pretty traditional method, just small circles.
I'm really paying attention to the skin.
And that's easy to do in these lighter tones.
As far as as far as paying attention to skin trauma, you can see if it's being
becoming evenly irritated whenever it starts to bleed,
if it looks like it's seeping evenly through from all
from the entire area that you've covered, if you've overwork
something, a lot of times it shows up really, really quickly.
If you're paying attention to it, you have to learn to read the skin.
Now, Right here, I'm starting to kind of push the ink
rather than use those little circles.
And the reason being is that this is where
I'm going to transition to another tone at the end.
So I'm I'm packing in small circles.
The the color that I want more solid.
And as I get to an area that I don't care, that I don't care that it's as solid
because I'm going to layer on top of it,
I'll start to kind of almost like push the machine.
Like I'm trying to pepper out, you know, a traditional black and gray tattoo.
See, I'm still using this twenty seven mag here,
and I'm using it in a tiny little area.
It's amazing, really, how much you can get done with a large needle configuration.
You can get in little areas and kind of turn it up on its side.
Now, here is here's an example
of kind of working that darker tone back in that yellow is in there.
I was careful not to overwork it.
And I went back with a little bit
of a medium kind of copper tone that's in that upper area and just kind of
layered it in there, just kind of glazed it right on top.
And it takes just a very simple little pass to make that happen. Maybe a.
Or two. Most important thing is that you're paying attention to the skin
if it looks like it's getting overworked at all. Leave it.
Don't try to do that. Let it heal and then come back and do it.
Now, I'm going into the into the darker area
and I'm laying a medium green right on top of my healed, blacks.
And what we'll get from that is just kind of a deep, dark green
kind of fading into a lighter green.
Guy Aitcheson mentioned something once that I was listening to him
talk about how to think of packing color on top of color.
And a lot of times we tend to think that we're going to cover a color with a color
even when we're doing like cover ups, let's say like I'm
going to pack this color and it's going to cover up this color.
It's not like you set a color on top of another color.
Those colors live together with inside the skin.
I mean, those little particles of ink
are sitting right next to each other in the skin.
So so when you're laying a color on a color, think of blending those colors
instead of like packing over the color, if that makes any sense.
And when I think of it that way, it helps me to kind of
to visualize how these things are blending together.
I'm thinking of small particles of ink, kind of like flowing
into another group of particles.
So so when you're when you're laying
color over black, you might mute the black a little bit.
You can definitely tint it in one way or another.
Like I am right here in the skull.
I'm using kind of an an eggplant color color directly over the black.
And you you can tint it one way or another.
But the black is still living in the skin.
It's sitting right there with that eggplant color.
And so if you think of it that way, then then you're more likely
to to be aware of it when you're laying the black in on the front end.
And then how you blend that, like, for example, how
I blend this eggplant color out of the black.
I want to blend it the same way that I blended the black
so that when I move into the lighter tone, I have the same effect.
So that one blend goes into another blend, goes into another blend,
and that they can be a seamless as possible.
Now, right here, you can see that I'm kind of shoveling again,
kind of pushing the ink instead of scumbling in little circles.
And that's because I'm getting to the area
where I'm going to blended into the next toned down.
I'm going to start pulling my next color right on top of this eggplant
color right here.
Trying to be sure to to wipe regularly and paying attention
to the skin, I want to make sure that it's evenly worked.
I don't have any little areas of texture or anything that looks crazy or like
like it's getting beat up or like it's bleeding profusely.
Anything like that.
I'm trying to get
the best saturation that I can with the least amount of skin trauma.
And so if you learn to read skin, you can do that every time.
Now, I've moved into kind of a I don't know, like a slate blue.
That's a few values lighter than that eggplant.
And and I'm careful as I'm building as I'm building this into that darker tone,
I'm I'm working slowly, deliberately, and I'm pushing small circles.
This is where I want the greatest saturation,
that transition point from the darker tone to the lighter tone.
When I pull my light tone back into that dark tone, I want to make sure
that I'm getting a really nice saturation right there.
A lot of times you'll see like a bright area in a dark area.
And then in the transition area, it looks kind of murky and muddy and almost
like gray, like it didn't make like the two didn't go together.
And and that's the reason a lot of times people will either overwork that area
or they won't work it enough.
And you'll end up with kind of this murky transition
that isn't fully saturated and doesn't look very rich.
So I'm always paying attention whenever I'm putting my light
tone up against my dark tone to overlap those two a little bit
and get the best saturation that I can with the least amount of trauma.
Another thing that I'm thinking of right now is my light source.
So I've got my darks in there pretty well, and I'm pulling these slate blues down
on top of it, but my light is actually coming from inside of the skull.
My brightest light. So I'm trying to keep that in mind.
It's got to be kind of a
like a nuclear green, kind of greenish yellow light coming from it.
So I'm trying to think constantly of how far do I want to push this slate blue?
Where does the green kind of exit that lime green, kind of exit
the light socket and and illuminate the bone.
So I'm always thinking of my light source
and how those transitions would actually take place on those shapes.
Here I am packing that eggplant right over the top of my black again.
You can see how it turns it right there.
It just gets a little more purple and it'll it'll make it look a little richer.
You know, when you get that
when you get that color in there, it'll look a little richer
when it heals as opposed to if you had just left the black in there,
it would look a little bit flat and a little bit out of place.
Right now, I'm introducing that green.
And you'll notice I work in area and I kind of get away from it
whenever I notice that it's getting to a point
that I can't read the skin that, well, I'll get out of there.
I'll move to something else.
I try to be sure that I continue to wipe it.
I don't want to let any blood kind of bead up and sit there.
So each time I'm wiping the area that I'm working
on, I'm looking back to previously finished areas
and making sure that I'm wiping those down and just paying attention to the skin
and all of those areas.
I'm always trying to decide if I can go back into it,
if I can build another layer into it, if I can blend a little smoother.
And if it gets to the point where I feel like I'm pushing my luck,
then I won't I'll I'll I'll let it be and I'll deal with it in the next sitting.
You know, and even if you're doing a one sitting tattoo, it's always better
just to schedule a time to look through it and bump through stuff
then rather than to take the chance of overworking skin.
So I'm using a little more of a yellowy green there.
To me, greens, when I first started tattooing, they were the most difficult
color for me to to get in there, really fully saturated.
I don't know exactly why.
I feel like there's
a lot of white mixed in to them and they looked kind of splotchy.
But really, you want to make sure that you're that you're trusting yourself.
I'm trying to read skin irritation and I'm trying to to kind of feel
feel the ink go in the skin, if that makes any sense.
And and even if it looks splotchy,
I know that it's in there, or at the very least,
I trust myself enough to leave it alone and look at it later
rather than just to continue to pound over it.
I used to just pound over and try to get greens
looking fully saturated, and then they always just
look more and more beat up and then they never healed well.
And it took me way too long to learn just to get them in there as best you can
and and leave them alone. And usually they're pretty solid.
Notice, whenever I move
to the back side of this leaf here that I change the temperature of green.
I went to more of like a seafoam
kind of I think this is called Melon something, Melen.
It's not as yellow, It's more of like it.
It's mixed down with more white.
A lot of times I see people that are
that are feeling an object and they're using the same color
and they're just adding white or black to make it lighter or darker,
play around with using different versions of that color.
You know, I mean, use
use a yellowy green on one side of it and then maybe a seafoam green
on the other side of this leaf.
And see, I mean, always paying attention to your light source.
And if you have a warmer light, then you're going to use the warmer green.
And then when you get away from the light source, move to your cooler green,
make sure that you're, you know, that there's a method to your madness. But
but I do think it's important to try to get away
from using the exact same local color through the entire object, whatever it is.
All right. Here's the most tricky area to feel solid to me
right here in the bend of the arm is very easily overworked.
There's a lot of little blood vessels that are really easy to like to burst.
And they'll turn all purple on you and they'll start bleeding all weird
and they'll swell.
And so for this, I'm really slowing down,
slowing my hand down, and I'm paying attention in my off hand.
I hope this makes sense.
I'm paying attention to the vibration in my off hand where I have my ring finger
kind of placed down right there where I'm stretching.
I'm I'm feeling for the vibration in the skin.
And if you pay attention to that,
you can tell that you're getting a good saturation before you even wipe.
It just feels like it's going in there solidly.
Try to see if you can notice that feeling at all.
I don't know if I'm if I'm just inventing that, but it makes sense to me.
And I feel like if I feel the vibration in my off hand
and learn to recognize what that vibration feels like, whenever the ink is going
in solidly, that then I'll I'll recognize it all the time.
So you can see as I move
down here, you can see if you look back up into the bend to the arm there,
how it is kind of busted and swollen and looking crazy.
That was just a single pass.
So I left that thing pretty, pretty flat, pretty plain.
I'm going to let it heal.
And then I'm going to come back and noodle into it
and build a few textures here and there.
But I would rather just get a base layer in and and try
not to cause too much trauma.
Can't see it anymore.
It kind of zoomed out of the way,
but it was definitely looking a little swollen,
a little beat up up in the bend of the arm.
All right. And the reason I included this has nothing to do
with filling solid color.
But don't be afraid to pull your liner out at the end of your sessions and
and build your textures, whether you're, you know, doing color line work or
something like this, or whether it's just a matter of getting that liner back out
and making sure that your fills are going all the way up to your lines.
A lot of times, you know,
people get in a rush and they pull and they zip through
and you'll look at the work when it's healed.
And you can see these little bits of skin
that are between the line and between the fill.
And you might think that no one notices that, but but your eye picks that up.
And it's better just to take the time to let everything kind of sit for a minute.
Look back through it with your liner. Pick out a few lines here and there.
Make sure that your fills are bumping all the way up to your lines.
So I'm blending these things out and here you go.
Here is kind of a close up of the
of the tattoo, the part that I worked on today.
And you can see it looks like it has pretty good saturation.
Some of those greens are still a little bit irritated.
So they look a little
they look a little inconsistent.
But once they heal down, they should be fine.
And here it is with the original tattoo up on the shoulder.
And you can see why I chose to stick with these lemony colors
and these greens and these cool tones at the bottom
to help offset all those reds that were at the top.
That's it. Hope you guys liked it.
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