Small ROSE

thinking i should have picked a different design for this size rose...
and of course i had to freehand a lot of it... i gotta stop doing that.

can't see nothing, shading is ridiculous/useless keeps darkening it,
maybe its just beyond my skills idk

i see 2 paths:

add color, try to brighten it up, bring out detail/form

or

go in with a real dark black and accentuate the darkest parts and hope detail/form shows.

it actually looks little better than in the photos

thanks as always

Couldn't you use some white highlights to make it pop a bit more? I have no experience so I don't know it was just an idea I had

it makes sense... and sounds good...

till you get to the part when you say you have no experience and don't know,
so you may just be talking out of your ass...

but not a bad idea my friend...
and you will often catch me talking out of my ass as well...

photos dont lie

When you don't know, make something up haha but no I've seen people use white for highlighting so I assume it would work. I mean if it goes in alright at least it could define the edges of the petals or something

head wrote:photos dont lie

didn't catch that which photos lie about what?



as for the white, it seems like an option to try but i try to get feedback from someone with experience who can guide me before going with my instinct... i also like to understand stuff better, know what to expect, etc...

thats why i stick around this forum to get solid advice and direction from seniors whoever/wherever the hell they are... as well as all the other good stuff...

Whay needle config did you use?

It's cool that you've done this, shows good skills,  but with the natural ink spread over time I suspect it'll fill in quickly.

A lot of small stuff 'i've seen has relied on crisp lining and solid colour, not so much shading. Tough for me as I'm an obsessive shader, confidence issue I think, but too often I shade the fuck out of a piece and just kill it...even big uns

Personally, I would not add more black to that piece at this time. You can maybe go back in with a single needle liner after everythingis done to accent or clarify in some places, if you feel it needs it.

I'd go straight for colour next, unless you intend for it to be a black and white design. "Darkest to lightest" and white is always going to be the lightest. Think about where you might want to use white and maybe a light pink for the most extreme highlights, and stay off those spots of skin when you colour. Darker will strike through lighter, and while you can use that to advantage with black shading striking through dark colours, you'll want your highlights to be clear and bright to give a design that small some "pop".

Watch your needle depth and angle as well. Keep the needle close to vertical on the skin for detail that you want to stay crisp, and if you don't run any deeper than you absolutely have to, it won't be as inclined to spread, so work off the tip of the needles. If you run too light and don't go deep enough, you can retouch that later, but if you run heavy enough to go all the way throughthe dermis, it's going to spread for sure over the years.

I was told early on that high level detail isn't really possible in a section too small, that you rely on clear lines and colour to make it look good. But that isn't 100% true. Years after I was told that, I saw a really teeny unicorn that had been done in jail. It was so small that a small ladies watch covered it completely, with some to spare. But if you looked close, you could see the details. Hooves, the spiral to the horn, eyes, individual hairs of the mane and tail, and lots of colour. You actually needed a magnifier to see everything.

I eventually got to talk to the person who had done that tattoo (when her sentence was up) and spent a few drinks and some flattery to get her talking about how she'd done it. It had been done with a sharpened pin wrapped in thread (with some seriously scary stuff for ink and no sterile setup at all, for obvious reasons), no machine. She explained how she used the taper of the needle to her advantage. I don't want to hijack your thread or your rose pic, reset818, so we'll just say that the important part to it for what I'm saying here is that if you run the needle just deep enough that the thinner tip of it penetrates the dermis layer, but not the shaft of the needle, it is possible to get clear lines that are actually narrower than the thickness of the needle. If that makes sense? I mention it mostly because it's a trick you might need for getting colour into some of the smaller corner of your design.

If you go deeper than that, you get the shaft of the needle depositing ink and get a line about as wide as the needle itself. And of course, if you actually go deep enough to hit the subdermal or subcutaneous layer which is largely fatty tissues, then it's going to spread, sometimes in unpredictable ways, so we avoid that.

I agree with Whippet in wondering what needle configs you used? For a design that small and detail that fine, I'd usually think a single needle liner and at a guess maybe you used a round shader 3 or 5?

Anyway, I like it! And I def give you a gold star for having the cojones to tackle a piece that small and detailed. It's coming along pretty dang nice.

reset818 wrote:

head wrote:photos dont lie

didn't catch that which photos lie about what?



as for the white, it seems like an option to try but i try to get feedback from someone with experience who can guide me before going with my instinct... i also like to understand stuff better, know what to expect, etc...

thats why i stick around this forum to get solid advice and direction from seniors whoever/wherever the hell they are... as well as all the other good stuff...

you said that it looks better in person...by me saying photos don't lie means thats if it looks bad in a photo it looks just as bad in person

the liner if far too big for a design thats small , the lines will spread and close up

i used a 7rl.

a while back on this forum it was discussed that i should try using 7 and stop using 3 or 4 that i was. the seven was worked way better for me and used that only since.

fadedink, i see what your saying with the single needle, going in perfect to do the ultimate details, thats actually what i was after, a while back first using 3 or 4s . but i need working to develop more skills to use <5 needles and fine line cuz its harder.
even tho i started tattooing using one fat needle gun i always sculpted real simple shit.
i get what you're saying tho from here on i gotta be precise with everything. i may pull it off... thanks for detailed gameplan.

Lou you are definately right about liner too big for this design, says captain hindsight.

Wow, you did that with a 7? You have a good hand. Doing good.

All the tattooing I've done has been with single needle liner, flat 4 shader for shading and colour. Sometimes a 3 needle liner to go back and add a little more weight to the critical lines of a design or to "work distraction" in the early stages of cover-ups. It's just the way I was taught.

In my current "reboot" I am trying some of the things I haven't used before like heavier liners and round shaders and magnums. So it's really neat to see a small design worked tight with a bigger liner than I'd usually think of.

I like your rose. I think that when you get a bit of colour in it and maybe a highlight or two to establish the lightsource, it's going to be a nice little showpiece.

Loulou wrote:the liner if far too big for a design thats small , the lines will spread and close up

I agree, for small pieces recently I have been using a 7 bugpin, they give a really neat sharp line, only thing you have to watch is the needles are very fragile and easy to damage with them being so thin, another good option would be to use a 1207 or 1205 long taper, the 7 gives a surprisingly thin line.

Does anyone find that long taper give a more variable weight of line, as slight depth difference puts more or less width in?

Whippet wrote:Does anyone find that long taper give a more variable weight of line, as slight depth difference puts more or less width in?

Yes, you can use the taper to your advantage.

There is no specific needle that should be used for a specific design as long as it works,, your needle choice for this design doesn't.... too thick.... white would work to stop the black closing in and making the rose looking like a black blob in the future.

Dmerit wrote:There is no specific needle that should be used for a specific design as long as it works,, your needle choice for this design doesn't.... too thick.... white would work to stop the black closing in and making the rose looking like a black blob in the future.

thats exactly sort of what i was thinking....

and thanks youall

If you blacked out double or triple inside lower petal lines, then worked in a bright light blue over your greywash and open areas, and highlight a few tips with some white depending on your light source should help it pop a bit and define the lines. Blue will cover best.

thank for all the tips I'm gonna keep them in mind and post when I finish. i guess I gotta bust out the white for the first time. gonna be interesting I'm for sure gonna use a smaller needle and be as precise as I can. and plan ahead

I was gonna make the Rose pink but its gonna sit on a red heart so now I'm thinking about it some more cuz contrast. Blue would work but still prefer a girly pink reddish Rose...

Im still waiting for my colors to arrive... ridiculous