The Tattoo Process

It is our experience that in depth and detailed tattoos can take a long time to complete. The reason being is that there are many factors that come into play that determines this. So we’ve taken the time to explain so that clients can have a better understanding of the time it takes to make these kinds of tattoos. For anyone wanting detailed oriented tattoos, hyper-realism, or portraiture, please be sure to read and inform yourself so that you understand the involvement of time and effort that it could take to create this kind of work here at Aion Tattoo.

 The first and most important thing to know is that our number one priority is the final outcome of each clients tattoo. And although we believe that reaching the optimal level of success in each piece can be time consuming, we try to be as efficient as possible. Creating amazing pieces of art often take a great deal of time, and that’s with every genre of art. We understand that not everyone can afford to sit for many hours, session after session, so we ask that you take this factor under consideration when deciding to get work done by us. We aren’t the fastest but we take pride in doing the best work possible if allowed to take the time we feel necessary to create it. After all, tattoos are permanent and we believe in doing our best to guarantee every clients satisfaction of our work.

 With our combined experience, we have almost 30 years of doing portraiture and realism work. In doing this, it takes time and patience because we are literally trying to portray someone’s loved one, a pet, or even a place that has significance to the client. Sometimes it’s a celebrity or someone famous and recognizable. One of the biggest challenges is reaching a certain level of ‘likeness’. And if that objective is not reached then the client may be disappointed in the outcome. The only way that we can assure coming as close as we can to their ‘likeness’ is by taking the time necessary and assuring that we are rendering as accurately as possible what we see in the reference image or images we are working from. This can literally take hours and hours to do even within a small area. Sometimes its possible to spend a 3 to 4 hour session on a space no larger that 4”x4” or 5”x5” because of its high level of detail.

 The same thing can be said of projects that are portrayals of famous paintings or illustrations that clients have us do for them. There’s something about the image or references they’re having us work from that has drawn them to get it tattooed. Therefore, we take it very seriously trying to reproduce the image, and again, reach a certain level of ‘likeness’ that meets their expectations.

 We often use the term “not an exact science”. And the reason why we say this is because there are many outside factors that can affect the outcome of a tattoo. Therefore, we can’t predict to the minute, hour, or session how long a tattoo may take. (Although, we do give guesstimates prior to scheduling but it’s not guaranteed). More traditional tattoos are easier to predict. The process usually involves outlining a moderately simple outline, followed by some shading, and then some simple solid fields or blends of color. A lot of artists that specialize in more traditional approaches often ‘freehand’ their approach which allows them a certain level of freedom that realism artists just don’t have because of the nature of the work. When it comes to portraiture or realism, it’s not that simple. There are very specific guidelines and boundaries that must be followed in order to achieve the desired result. And again, for us this can take quite a bit of time. Sometimes this can take 3 or 4- 4hr sessions, or it can take 10, 20, or 30 4hr sessions. It just depends on the size, placement, and detail.  

 Depending on what the tattoo calls for, we may want to ‘ghost line’ or ‘gray line’ the entire design so that the stencil becomes lightly permanent on the skin. For us, this is often the best way to start a tattoo and it can often take an entire session to complete, again depending on size and detail. Once the stencil is completed, we can begin the task of shading sections out during the following sessions.

 We use a process of layering when we tattoo. Because tattoos fade with time, we believe that going over areas from previous sessions allows for more saturation which in turn will make the tattoo last longer. Building up of layers creates a certain level of density within the tissue being tattooed and we find it critical to do this especially if the tattoo comes back and it didn’t heal as solid or saturated as anticipated. And that can happen often depending on the health of the clients skin and/or how well they take care of their tattoo. These are things that as artists we have little to no control over. All we can do is control the tattooing process and give advice on what we feel works best for aftercare and hope that the client follows that advice.

 We are also big believers that if color will be involved that an ‘underpainting’ helps to not only cement the tattoo, but to help keep its saturation. And in our process, sometimes that involves doing an initial black and gray rendering, then adding color. Again, this kind of process takes time, but not always necessary. We do believe though, that this increases a certain level of longevity for the tattoo that otherwise would not happen.

 The aforementioned details above are just a glimpse of the process. And by no means is it the only way to approach tattooing. In fact, there are many amazing tattoo artists whose approach may be completely different than ours. They may also work faster than we do. This is something that MUST be considered and we encourage ALL clients to do their homework and inquire with other artists so that they can make a well informed and educated decision as to which artist would be the best fit for their project and their budget.

 Lastly, on a personal note we’d like to say that we love what we do (that goes go without saying, lol). Our process and outcome of each project we feel reflects this. We try and take the best care and time that we can to make each tattoo the best that it can be. We try and strive for perfection with every piece that we do. We believe that quality and attention to detail equals success. We know we aren’t always the right fit for every project so we try to be selective of the pieces we chose to work on and take the time to assure our clients are well informed of our process.