Tutorials
HOW TO TATTOO A MANDALA DESIGN
HOW TO TATTOO a mandala design
In this lesson were tattooing a mandala flower. Why have I chosen this particular piece to be your very first design on the mats? Well, lets have a little look at it together and everything will make sense. We can see first of all there is no shading at all. Obviously we haven’t covered shading yet in the course however that doesn’t mean that we can’t already start doing designs, there are tons of artists out there that have built a solid career in the industry and only ever do designs similar to the one were going to do today. They never do any shading and just stick to nice little designs like mandalas or small delicate fine line tattoos. The design has lots of curved lines, some straight lines, and a nice circle in the middle. It is a great design to help us practice and develop the skills that we have covered so far, the difference being that this time the end result will be a nice design for people to look at and for you all to see how far you have come.
In these initial lessons I’m using my Sol Nova Unlimited, with a 1205 round liner and solid black Dynamic ink. I don’t ‘wrap’ my machine so that you can see what I am doing more clearly in my videos and photographs. However I would usually have grip tape around that area that I am holding. This does two things, It creates a wider area which helps me grip the machine and it also reduces the vibrations of the machine in your hand. Vibrations can start to get problematic when you are holding the machine for long periods of time. How you tape your machine is all down to personal preference so I suggest you try different ways and see what works best for you. At the moment we are working on mats and concentrating on hand and muscle memory. However, for hygiene reasons, everything would be wrapped if you were tattooing a person. We cover all of this at the end of the course.
So let’s get into it. Like I said this lesson is all about bringing everything that we have learned so far together so here are the key things I want you to think about as you are tattooing the design:
• 5 key skills! We still need to be thinking about these all of the time and I would suggest that you continue to say what you are doing out loud until they are really embedded in your memory!
• Check your work. If I was doing this on a person I would be checking my lines as I go. If they are not right then something needs adjusting. The first few lines crucial, every customer will have different skin and you will need to get used to it. Remember: wipe-check-adjust.
• Think about the direction you work in. I am left handed. I always start my tattoos bottom left and work towards the top right so that I don’t rub stencil out as I go. If you’re right handed start bottom right and work towards the top left. This will be the same principle that you will use for all of your tattoos.
• Remember to lock the fingers and machine position and to move the whole hand.
• stretching. When you are working on a person your other hand would be stretching the skin. I like to use this hand as a rest for my tattooing hand which helps with stability. I will often use one of the fingers of the stretching hand as a pivot that can move with and steady the tattooing hand.
• tapering. When you run out of ink remember to taper out and back in again.
• Be careful when you are wiping excess ink away not to wipe stencil away.
• go right to the edge. When lines are supposed to touch make sure they do. I have seen too many tattoos that are ruined by gaps that are not supposed to be there, Cutting corners will lead to shoddy tattoos!
As you are doing all the lines of the design you will begin to notice which directions and hand positions are more comfortable for you. I prefer to push my lines as I can see where I need to go better, however I know a lot of people who prefer pulling lines. You need a find a way of working that is comfortable for you. I don’t want you to be a Ben Fisher replica I want you to be your own artist.
Throughout my career I’ve learnt tons of different ways of doing things. I’ve watched hours of other artists tattooing and I’ve tried lots of things that I’ve seen. Some of them have really suited me and I’ve adjusted how I’ve worked and implemented them. Equally. I’ve tried lots of methods that are just not for me at all. That’s fine, I’ll cover them all in this course and you can decide what works for you. So go ahead and work your way through the designs. There are two of them on the stencil and I suggest you at least do both as it is really good practice, if you have time you can do more. We will come back to these designs later in the course and do some shading on them. And as ever, don’t stress if its not perfect. Perfection takes time and practice. The key thing is to take it slow and enjoy it.
Well done for reaching the end of another lesson. Hopefully your starting to see that you’re going in the right direction and noticing small improvement’s even if its just beginning to feel more comfortable with the machine in your hand that’s a huge step. Remember, we’re taking this one day at a time and building a solid foundation so let’s learn things correctly from day one. No more jumping around YouTube from one topic to another. Trust in the system I have created and you will be shocked in a few weeks at how far you have come.
