The curve magnum tattoo needle allows you to shade in areas softly and the key to doing a portrait is soft, feathery strokes. The best tattoo needle to use for a black and gray portrait is a curve magnum needle. This will take away from the realistic look of the portrait. As soon as you use any lining work on a portrait it immediately turns into a cartoon. The key thing to give the portrait depth is the shading and so instead of lining in areas, you will be shading them in. One main thing about a black and gray portrait that is different from regular tattoos is that you will be using almost no lining work. For a basic black and gray portrait you will need a lining black ink, 3-4 shading blacks and a shading solution to make lighter shades. Mark the areas with a skin marker with detailed notations. Plan out where the most important features of the piece will be like the eyes, nose, cheek bones, jaw line, hair line, shadows, etc. The position and location is important, especially if you intend to free hand (which we do not suggest if you are new to this). The basic black and gray portrait tattoo requires a bit of planning. There is nothing worse than having an ugly mother scratched onto your clients forearm. With that said, if you haven’t much experience in performing a black and grey portrait (which we assume you haven’t otherwise you wouldn’t be here reading this post), you should get a fair amount of practice before you attempt one on skin. Black and grey portraits are also one of the worst looking tattoos if done incorrectly.
#Shading tattoo tutorial how to
This blog post is a continuation of that one as this is post is a tattoo tutorial about how to do a basic black and gray portrait tattoo.īlack and grey shading is ideal for creating realistic 3 dimensional portraits. In our previous blog posts done in July we discussed How to Prep and do a Portrait Tattoo.