hey guys Johnny golf with iron Lotus tattoo in Boulder Colorado and today I'm going to be talking about depth for shading a tattoo I'm not shading but color packing because people don't really understand that shading is for black and color packing is for color so I've been getting a lot of quest about this particular video and for today's demonstration purposes I've been coloring my koi fish on my own arm but what people don't understand I'm using the coil machine today by the way a custom bill here now if you look at the full depth of my needle here you're going to see that my depth is actually pretty far this is about three and a half millimeters out of the actual tube now what people don't understand is that your machine should not be hitting so hard that your needle is getting the full travel into the skin that's why bogging down is so important when tattooing now even though my needle travel looks like it's very very far what's going to happen is because I'm using a larger Magnum the skin is going to push back on the needle and it's going to prevent the needle from making a full travel which is why when you see the machine running like so you know you're getting a a full travel now when I bring the finger up to the Machine the full travel becomes about half of the distance that it should be going into the skin now I get a lot of questions about this a lot of people you know I always want to know my settings ask for stuff like that when it comes to tattooing and it comes to depth your depth is something that you have to find you have to learn your depth by continually tattooing and figuring out what you like and what works now when it comes to whatever machine you're using you want to make sure that your machine is not hitting too hard but you want to make sure that it's also getting you know enough into the skin that it's actually going to pack in the ink I'm currently using a nine Magnum and I'm going to be coloring on some of these spots let you guys just take a look at it now you see the full travel the needle here the full travel is very large but when I put it in the skin it's not going to make the full distance and you can see how much ink got packed in on the first pass you can hear in the machine that it's bogging down because it's not making those full travels anymore but the thing is it's not going all three and a half millimeters into the skin now one of the big things you want to be careful of if you're going too deep is that the skin around it will puff up very very badly you'll it will raise up immediately and it'll be very damaged another thing is it won't be weeping like this plasma and weeping like this means that you're going into the dermis heavy heavy bleeding which actually runs down the skin versus weeping that means that you went too deep and you've gone into the sub dermis which is where the fluids are running that's what blows out lines it carries the ink a little bit further away than it's supposed to go another really big telltale sign of over traumatizing or going too deep is the skin will begin to get a hamburger meat like texture the skins texture will physically change that's very very dangerous if you're if you're getting signs of that your best option is to just stop just stop right away and do not damage the person any further I personally have very very sensitive skin and my skin is very difficult to tattoo because my skin does not hold ink very well both color and any type of black now if you look up or higher on my elbow this is some of my color work that I had done recently I have actually die tattooed my entire own arm from my lower hand all the way up to the peonies flower on my upper arm but when it comes down to it when you look at the full travel of the needle versus you know how far the needle is actually going into the skin it's not the true distance the when you push the needle out that's not the true distance that your needle is going to be going into the skin the reason why scratchers damage tattoos so badly is because they don't go all the way in that's where the term scratcher comes from from you know not going deep enough in your tattoo almost looks like it's just scratching the surface of the skin that's where the name comes from that and you know you know kitchen magician [ __ ] like that now what I have here is a rotary machine that has an artificial give on the top now the give is on max this is a real swash drive whip with a max on Swiss motor so the hit is very very hard and solid but this wishbone style clip up here allows it to you know give back and forth so I'm not going to get the full travel of this needle but you're going to see how deep I'm actually going on my skin with it when I detail the smaller you know corners and edges I'm going to be making a entry right here on the sides and the corners and let you guys see how far I'm going in as always if I'm entering the skin for color I have a low angle of entry about 45 degrees or less and as you can see it tax color and just as well just as easy now what you can see is that on the needle I'm getting a large large stroke the stroke on this is huge but when I press my thumb up against the bar this travel becomes much shorter you see that travel without travel with travel without bog travel with bog and you begin to see how the skin affects the tattoo placing ink the right depth but then the skin is going to cause the tattoo to heal correctly to heal brighter as you can see the the actual tattoo itself is very very bright very very rich and I don't have any shallow points that's the most important part you don't want shallow points and you want your machine to actually make travel that is the most difficult thing to learn about depth and a reason that a lot of people's color falls out is because they don't understand that they're not going deep enough that's going to do it for this tutorial guys thanks for watching if you have any questions or any comments please leave them in the comments section below no flaming for those of you who freaked out over me you know putting this on the internet but thanks for watching guys remember to Like rate subscribe or message me if you have any questions