Tattoo Shading and Colour Blending

Many tattoo designs will require a certain amount of more subtle shaded colouring, particularly in the case of black- only tattooing.

Solid black, rather than finishing abruptly at a given point, may need to be faded out at the edges to achieve a graduated shaded effect. This technique needs a little practice but basically all you need to do is use the machine, as before, to produce solid colour and then simply click the machine out of and away from the skin atva shallow angle. Sometimes it will be necessary to blend one colour into another, smoothly and without a stop-start finish.

In order to achieve this effect, use the flicking technique at the edges of the first colour and use the same technique to overlap and blend the second (lighter) colour. Stroking or brushing the needles across the skin and, again, finishing each stroke with a flick will produce an extremely subtle shaded effect. This technique is particularly useful when using Sumi ink (dilute black) to produce more advanced, realistic designs, portraits for example.