B #10: Dice on Grapefruit 30/30

Can you tell I just wanted to finish? Haha, I have an appointment with a guy today for my first skin work. And I had to finish my fruit challenge first, so here is a pair of dice with a ribbon saying, "dice." Hope you're happy! I am!

B #09: Flower and Leaves on Grapefruit 28/30

I love doing these flowers. Even though flash can be found anywhere in the world, it's still sweet. I'm not saying I'll ever get anything on me that's going to be on millions of other people, but I definitely don't look down on it at this point.

B #08: Firy Skull on Orange 25/30

I have been dying to do some major shading projects. I got this design off of Google Images. the fun part about it was that I didn't need much of a stencil. Just the basic skull shape, really. Then the shading began and I was able t go at it, having fun blending those needles around. I really like where this is going!

B #07: Celtic Knot on Orange 24/30

I was using a design for this one, but ended up making my own twist to it. Rather than let it look like a complete and carefully crafted Celtic knot, I kind of took the fragments and braided them together on the right side. Just kind of fun.

B #06: Ribbon Ribbon on Grapefruit 18/30

A ribbon. It says, "Ribbon," on it.I love it, but might not give it a drop shadow next time. Now that I have done a few shadows behind the designs, I am seeing that it is only necessary for a few of them. Some, like this, I think would look better without it. The razor wire, as well. Anyway, the top of this ribbon was with a single, as was the lettering. Both this and the skull were shaded with an 8-round.

B #05: Skull on Grapefruit 17/30

I took this design from the box to my tattooing machine. I thought I'd best get SOME practice with a skull, so wallah! This was also my first time using a single (only one needle on the bit). I used it for the finer details like the teeth and marks on the skull itself and it worked out really great!

B #04: Razor Wire on Grapefruit 14/30

 A friend of mine is almost as excited to let me practice on him as I am. He wants an arm band of razor wire, so I was practicing it today. You can see in the first photo that I hadn't mastered how I wanted to shade it yet. The second picture shows what I settled on.

One thing I think is interesting is my needle choice. I used a 7 Flat for everything, thinking it would make the straight lines even straighter. Then, I noticed that I could not go for very long with the flat before needing to move my hand, which resulted in jagged lines. (You can have a line go continuously for much longer if you just slide along where you need to go.) But now I like the jagged look! I will think about it some more before making a decision. A worse downside of the flat needle for lining is that the 7 needles go in several times by the time you slide it anywhere parallel to its points, where a 3 liner would only repeat itself once if that. My concern is the 7 Flat essentially acting as a scalpel. Maybe I'll line with a round and shade with a flat. like normal people...

B #03: Shaded Heart with Shadow on Grapefruit 10/30

Yup, folks. I got my newest fruit. The grapefruit was going to be, hopefully, larger than the orange. I think it is, but it's not by much. As far as the color, it's definitely going to work out well as a lighter color.

Anyway, so this is practice for when Abi lets me fill in the heart outline she has on her back. She was thinking of getting it filled solid red, but I'm playing with other ideas. This was meant to be one of them... but I forgot to switch inks. That's why it's black, rather than red. For the next try, see the next post.

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B #02: Rat on Orange 7/30

This one was a bit "spur of the moment." I Abi and I were playing with our rats and I noticed that one was being especially still while eating. So I snapped this photo and slapped his face on the orange!

I primarily used diluted black ink for shading, only using solid black for final touches. I also used a little white just to ring out the shine on his eye and the highlights on his ears and forehead. I think next time, I'd just leave the highlights as the skin's normal shade. (I still think white is a bit unpredictable and need to use a sample on real skin...)

B #01: Heart with Ribbon on Orange 3/30

Today while watching a youtube video by Superior Tattoo on shading, I felt the strongest urge to try it out. I must say, I'm impressed with how easy this is! I know it's not perfect, but it's much better-looking than I expected my first attempt to turn out.

This hobby kicks ass.