Damnit Deb

 There are millions of beautiful tattoos in the world. There are millions more of beautiful images of birds, trees, flowers, and the universe around us. The rise in AI has made many people struggle to tell between what is real and what isn’t. Micro tattoos have further added to this by allowing people to believe you can tattoo something and have good results. News flash - just because you can doesn’t mean it will look good or the same within 6 months. I find it completely unethical all these artists willing to do micro work and take client money without explaining how poorly their design ages; but that’s a different rant.  AI as a Tool Back in the day if you wanted to see your tattoo on yourself we could spend an hour or two and photograph your body then superimpose it through photoshop and bend it or distort it to fit. It was novel but time consuming. Now you can simply put in the photos and prompt it to do it for you, almost to the point of perfection. It’s great if you’re n...

 We’ve called it ink, paint, color, and all sorts of other names. In the 20 years I’ve been tattooing I’ve seen people use drawing ink straight from Michael’s, and worked for people who mixed their own inks. The contents of tattoo ink varies wildly and practically because there’s no actual regulations for it. Recently there’s been a lot of noise about MOCRA and regulating inks causing certain colors to go away (see my other blog on tattoo ink and cancer). While ink does vary from company to company there are a few basic components of tattoo ink that are standard. I’ll also go over my preference for how I choose certain brands to ensure client safety so you know why I choose my inks the way I do.  The Basics Tattoo ink is essentially a pigment and carrier mixture. They can come from different sources and be either synthetic, organic or inorganic. There’s no right or wrong about these, but obviously the chemical mixtures of those created from metals and lab chemicals can have th...