How To Tattoo Choosing The Correct Needles For Lining & Shading! + Do Not Make This Mistake!!!

hey everyone welcome to this video and today's video is all about giving you the confidence to select the right needle for the right job now not only are we going to be taking an in-depth look at needles i'm also going to be sharing with you my personal needle preferences for when i'm tattooing and i'm also going to be showing you a massive mistake which loads of people make especially when they first get into tattooing when choosing needles now to see if this video has made sense to you i'll put a little quiz together at the end of it so see if you can answer those questions before i actually give you the answer if you do get them right drop your comments in the box below to let me know as always guys to get the most out of this video i strongly advise that you don't skip any part of it just set 10 minutes aside and watch it in its entirety with all that said guys let's not waste any more time and get straight into it okay guys so let's start with the absolute basics before we get into the juicy stuff and quickly explain what all the numbers mean on the needle package and also take a look at exactly what book pins double zeros and standard needle gauges are as well as explain what the taper is so on any self-respecting needle package and any needle that's actually worth using you will see what looks like some random numbers and letters in this example we have 12 1207 rl this will be exactly the same across the board for standard needles and needle cartridges so let's start with the 12. this is the gauge of the needle meaning the size of the diameter across the needle's thickest point by the thickest point i mean the part just before where the needle starts to get thinner and ground down to a point now twelves are considered the standard gauge in the tattoo industry and as well as being called twelves they're also often called 0.35 this number being 0.35 millimeters so now we know what the 12 is let's look at the next number the zero seven this number simply means how many needles there are in this configuration so in this example we know there's seven needles in this grouping and finally the rl means round liner so this tells us how the needles have been arranged so in this example with being a seven round liner the needles will be arranged in a very similar pattern to this so so far super simple stuff 12 7 rl tells us you've got standard 12 gauge needle there's seven of them and they're arranged in a circular pattern to form a liner now people often get confused as soon as they move away from the standard 12 gauge and start getting into tens and eights so in this example again the first numbers are the gauge size of the needle now tens are also known as point threes which means the needle has a gauge of 0.3 millimeters in diameter across its thickest point and finally the 8 gauge needles also known as 0.25 have an even smaller diameter of 0.25 millimeters across the thickest part of the needle so here's the thing that confuses so many people they hear the term bug pin being thrown around the internet now needles with an 8 gauge or a 0.25 are considered bug pins now if you buy bug pins from your tattoo supplier online you will almost certainly be delivered eight gauge needles now the confusion comes when people ask a tattooist what needles he or she is using and if they're not using standard 12s then most likely tell you that they're using bug pins they're probably not using bug pins but actually using tons or 0.3s i don't think tattooists do this to deceive people but it's more of a throwaway comment to say i'm using bug pins if you're using anything other than standard 12 gauge needles but i find more often than not when tattoos are using bug pins they're actually used in tens or point threes just to add a little bit more sprinkle of confusion to this a 10 gauge or a 0.3 are also commonly known as double zeros the reason double zeros are so popular is because they cause less trauma to the skin than a standard 12 gauge needle but they also provide better ink flow than the h gauge needles or the bug pins so just a super random factory here guys bug pin needles get their name from the tiny pins used to mount bugs in display cases so all that's left to explore now is the needle taper well the taper is the measurement from where the needle starts to get ground down from its thickest point and tapers to the very end of the tip some needles have really long tapers some have really short tapers they usually range from around two millimeter to five millimeter and even longer in some cases generally speaking what i personally find is that a shorter taper is better for lining and a longer taper is better for shading but this is by no means a rule and some tattoos actually say the complete opposite works for them but like i always say about tattooing it's very much down to personal preference and what might work really well for one person might not work for the next so that's all the basics out of the way so in this next section let's take a look at some common figurations so let's take a look at the most commonly used needle configurations i think it's pretty safe to say the round liner is the most commonly used needle in the tattoo industry obviously ideal for lining big bold lines little delicate lines script dot work just to name a few next we have the mag the standard mag or curve mag both are pros and cons the standard mag can be used for shading colour packing now the pros to using a standard mag is the fact it's relatively easy to angle on its side to create a really thin line now this can be done with a curved mag but it's not quite as easy as it is with the standard one pros to a curved mag is that they tend to give a softer effect on the shade and because of the way that the shape the less traumatic to the skin next we have round shaders which are great for shading small areas and also color packing just a little tip with these some people think because the way the needles are arranged it will give a bold a thicker line if you use these to line with but what actually happens if you line with these is you get a line that has no definition and lacks a nice solid edge next we have a flat shader these are used for shading and are arranged with a single row of needles personally i don't use these because i feel they tend to slice the skin like a razor if you're not too careful the advantage to these is that they're super easy to angle them and to get a straight edge the type of configuration is more popular with spmu semi-permanent makeup artist particularly for doing like eyebrow strokes one of my artists actually uses these flats and really likes them gets them really well with them gets good results so i'm not saying don't use these i'm just saying personally i don't use them myself so here are the most common configurations covered so in this next section i'm going to show you some examples of how to select the right needle for the right job i'm also going to show you some of my personal needle preferences and also a huge mistake that loads of tattooists make when they first start to use different needles okay guys so in this example we've got a really simple symbol which i want to tattoo on the left i've got my needle choices so to line this tattoo i'd most likely choose an 11 round liner this will give me a nice strong black outline so now i want to pack the symbol with solid color so i'll most likely choose a double zero nine curve mag as i get to the tighter areas of the tattoo i find my mag is too wide so i need to change either my needle or my technique and this brings us to the mistake that a lot of people make because the needles are labeled as liners or shaders so the tattooist thinks they can only use a liner for lining and a shader for shading or colour packing and this is absolutely not the case so what i've always said to my apprentices is this treat the needles as different sized paint brushes don't look at them as needles certainly don't look at them as labels like liners and shaders look at them and ask yourself which size needle can most efficiently do the job so in this really tight corner i could drop to a five round liner and pack the color in with it now i know i'm using a liner to pack color but it doesn't matter all i'm doing is is selecting a needle which is the right size small enough to fit in the small gap so in this next example have a realism portrait and i'm wanting to add some subtle flicks of hair in the eyebrows and i feel like even if i use a three round liner this could still be too much of a thick line with most realism tattoos you want to try and avoid lines as such and replace them with more subtle soft shades because in real life people are not made up of lines but rather a collection of contrasting shadows so to do the eyebrow i'd use a double zero seven curved mag and i'd angle it on the corner so only one needle is actually making contact with the skin so i can achieve a super soft thin shade now a lot of tattoos will set out a load of different needle configurations and sizes especially if they're doing a large piece like something like a realism portrait and there's absolutely nothing wrong with this i've seen tattooists doing portraits in the past and literally using eight different size liners and mags for me personally i'm at the other end of this scale and usually when i do a portrait i'll use a maximum of three different needles i usually use a double zero five round liner a double zero nine round liner and a double zero eleven curved mag and again there's absolutely nothing wrong with doing it this way either i think the key point in all of this when choosing what needles you use is to choose what needles that you need to complete the job well so whether you're using twenty different needles or two as long as the tattoo is completed successfully then the job is done nobody looks at a finished tattoo and says wow cool tattoo i can see the tattoo issues 10 different needles for that job it just doesn't work like that so my point is there's no right or wrong answer as to how many needles you should use just as many as it takes to successfully complete the job and don't overthink it so now we're clued up with needle types sizes and types of jobs each needle can perform in this next section i've got a little quiz for you to see if you can pick the right needle for the right job okay guys it's quiz time there's going to be two examples here and each example you get right you're going to bag yourself 10 journal points so here's example one and to the left of the screen we've got our available needles this is a simple swirly script it's got different line weights throughout the tattoo so which needle or needles might you use for this tattoo well for me personally i disregard the 13 round liner straight away because it just seems way too big of a needle for this type of job i'd also disregard the mags because i just don't see the need to use these for this sort of tattoo so personally if i was gonna do this tattoo i'd probably just go for the double zero seven round liner this will give me a nice bold line it's thin enough to achieve the finer parts of the tattoo and i could also use the same needle to line either side of the thicker parts and then do tight circles to pack the black in the middle so one answer to the question is just seven round liner another way you could do this tattoo is to use the standard 12 gauge three round liner for the small part and a double zero nine round liner for the thicker parts so another answer this question could be a three round liner and a nine round liner so you can start to see now that there's not just one way to tackle a tattoo as long as the end result is good so now let's look at something a little trickier example two is a realism portrait now with any tattoo i look over the elements of the tattoo and pre-select the needles before i even put the stencil on the skin because i've already mapped out in my mind exactly what needles i'll be using on each particular part of the tattoo so out the needles on the left of the screen which ones would you select for this tattoo now for me personally i'd use a double zero five round liner for the tight areas like around the pupils in the eyes i'd also use a double zero nine round liner and i'd use it as a shader to sculpt and reinforce things like the shadows immediately under the eyelids and down the clothes and finally i'd use a double zero 11 curved mag for all the shade in the face and the hair now that's my personal preference if you said you'd use all the needles on the left it still will be the right answer so hopefully this video has made things a lot more clearer for you and give you more confidence on how to choose your needles i'm sure everybody got both questions right so if you did you can award yourself 20 jono points and if you did get them right guys let me know by smacking that like button to showing that you're now a fully certified needle ninja if you did like this video guys please hit that like button don't forget to click the subscribe button if you have subscribed it's really important that you click the notification bell and then you can stay up to date with all my latest videos feel free to drop me a comment in the box below and i'll see you in the next one

Channel: Jono Smith

Views: 1,019,957

Keywords: tattoo, tattooist, jono smith, how to tattoo, tattoo techniques, tattoo needle depth, tattoo needles, tattoo lining, tattoo shading, tattoo practice, tattoo help, tattoo ink, tattoo lesson, tattoo method, tattoo analogy, tattoo machine, coil machine, rotary machine, tattoo pen, black & grey, tattoo timelapse, tattoo portrait, tattoo realism, neotrad tattoo, traditional tattoo, colour packing, colour tattoo, cheyenne, inkmachines, eternal ink, dynamic black, intenze ink

Id: Ss9rQBgSd4Q

Length: 11min 45sec (705 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 12 2020