Are you wanting to know what blow outs are & look like on human skin?
Check out this article that I wrote for you. By the end of this read you’ll be able to spot blow outs from a mile away and you will know what to look for the next time you’re doing a tattoo or getting a tattoo.
Blow Outs Explained
When it comes to blow outs there are some fundamental variables I am considering when I am thinking about the sweet spot, and yes there is a sweet spot for every part of the body. I will have an article that will explain more on needle depth but for this article I want to stick to blow outs.
Keep in mind this sweet spot is going to vary from person to person and from area to area. For example 2 people get a tattoo in the exact same spot, both people are going to vary and will require different depths. We will have to adjust per client.
Needle depth is something we are going to want to get more familiar with but please don’t be over whelmed as needle depth and understanding the sweet spot is something we develop into. More in needle depth in another article.
If we are unfamiliar with the technical side of tattooing it can be fairly easy to blow out a tattoo and not even realize it. I am certain this brings the question “How can we know or be certain we are applying a tattoo correctly?” Unfortunately I don’t feel there is a 1 off answer that can answer this, so my answer to this question is practice, practice and more practice!
The technical side of tattooing is something every artist has to develop and I feel there is no way around this, only going through this.
More About How Blow Outs Happen
Getting back into blow outs, Blow outs can happen for a number of reasons and it is on a per artist basis. Some artist can blow out human skin because their hand speed and voltage are not aligned, they maybe pushing down hard, they may not be familiar with the technical side of tattooing, they could be running their machine too high while moving too slow, you can see that there are a number of reasons why blow outs can and do happen.
It is important to remember that we can always put more ink in but we CAN NOT take ink out. What this means is once a blow out has been tattooed it is essentially there for life! The ink is too far under the skin for the tattoo to be removed. The only way we can correct a blow out is to black out the area, we can try to cover it up with another tattoo. If the cover up is planned well and executed well I can see a cover up of some sort covering a blown out tattoo.
Getting a tattoo is only half of the process to be able to wear a tattoo life long. When we get a new tattoo the initial line weights that the artist used will change over time.
Depending on the artists technical abilities will determine how the tattoos integrity holds up over time. As the ink has settles in you’ll notice that the ink may bleed and bold out a bit. If the tattoo was done correctly the tattoos integrity will hold true and stand the test of time. If the tattoo was applied incorrectly the tattoo may tend to settle into each other during the early and later healing stages causing blurring, distortion and potentially made the entire tattoo un-readable.
Blown out tattoos also have the potential to become infected as the skin is beat up far more over a tattoo that has been applied technically correct. Since the skin tends to be more beaten and chewed up the wounds make our tattoos more prone to outside bacterias & germs, hence more prone to infection.
How Can I Avoid Blow Outs?
If you are a tattoo collector you can avoid blow outs by doing your research and finding yourself a seasoned artist that has a portfolio that meets your wants, needs, and expectations.
If you are a tattoo artist you can avoid blowing out your clients by doing your part and investing into fake skin while investing the time required to learn the technical side of tattooing so we are aware of what we should be doing and how we should be tattooing.
So my answer to a question like this would be to practice, practice, and practice. We have to go through the training, not around it or cut corners. Think of tattooing as a medical type of job that requires us to care for humans. There is going to be a higher level of responsibility when it comes to these sort of jobs because of the human nature. We deal directly with people and learning to care for them is key!
My logic is this, if we care for others as we care for ourselves we can go out of our ways to apply the best possible tattoos that we can apply for our people. Learning to care for one another I feel is a big part of being a good, professional tattoo artist.
Are Blow Outs Avoid-Able?
I would say YES!
Blow outs can be avoided all together should we invest into the right areas. It is wise to invest into fake skins and loads of fake skins. It is also wise to invest your time into learning the craft to be as technically correct and sound as you can be.
Fake skin is important and has been a life saver for me because it helped me understand so much about the technical side of tattooing. I was able to gain an accurate understanding of the technical aspects of tattooing while NOT messing up anyones skin, while NOT risking my future reputation and while NOT sacrificing my well being. I would feel so bad if I were to be out here blowing out & butchering people’s skin. Fake skin is a great investment for anyone who is wanting to practice and further their tattooing.
Can We Fix Blown Out Tattoos?
This is a difficult question as every line and tattoo is different. Every single tattoo settles in differently, every tattoo is applied differently, line weights are different, not to mention the inks artist use vary and are different. You can kind of get the idea by now that we have A LOT to consider when thinking about this question.
The inner artist in me is screaming out from the top of this website and wants to say, yes! Every blow out can be fixed but I think that is reaching, allow me to explain.
There are in fact tattoos that are blown out and done in a manor that leaves the individual wearing the tattoo with limited options. Most reputable artist won’t cover a bad tattoo if they feel it won’t hold up well. What would happen is often times when a tattoo is done beyond repair an artist would recommend laser removal prior to working on the tattoo site. They may recommend laser removal to get as close to a clean canvas as they can get, to lighten up the skin and so the new tattoo reads well and stands the test of time.
I am certain we are probably thinking to ourselves “What Does A Tattoo Beyond Repair Look Like?” Above & Below this article I have linked you to some in depth videos that I made where I blow out my own thigh for the sake of education. You can see what blowing out human skin looks like real time and you can also see how these results heal.
Allow me to take it a step further and show you an image that I found on reddit. Below is an image that I attached for you and in this image we can see that where the tattoo lines are there is this bruise like look to them. What this means is that as this artist was inputting the ink their crucial fundamentals were not aligned. This could be a case of simply going too deep. This can be a case of mis aligned hand speed & voltage. Perhaps the machine was ran at a very high voltage while the hand moved very slow.
Allow me to paint a picture for you!
Let’s say I am using a 12-11 round liner tattoo needle which will be a tattoo needle that has 11 needles in the diameter of 0.35mm. Let’s take this standard 11 Round Liner & input this needle into a machine that has a 4mm stroke, which is a great stroke for lining. So now we have our standard 11 round liner inserted into our 4mm stroke machine, stay with me, let’s now get the power going and let’s say the voltage is set to 9.8 volts.
First and foremost we DO NOT need that much power, probably ever. So we have our 11 round liner running at 9.8 volts push a 4mm stroke. So in short what this means is that we have a hard hitting machine running 11 needles at 9.8 volts. If I were to play an audio clip of what a machine sounds like at this voltage you would hear that there is an excessive amount of power pushing this needle grouping.
You will see the term “round trip” and when using this term I am referring to the stroke. With rotary machines for example stroke is the distance traveled to complete 1 rotation.
So as the artist puts the needle to skin this needle is making so many round trips in such a short amount of time because the voltage is way too high. That 11 round liner needle is round tripping in the same spot of the skin. In theory the higher we run our voltage the quicker we have to move our hand to compensate for the fast moving needle.
So what is happening is that the ink is being pushed into the skin at such a fast rate if the hand speed is even remotely slow the ink will keep depositing into the skin and well the ink has to go somewhere, right?
The ink tends to go down and spread so when this happens the ink is now in fact under the skin and we essentially have free shading. No that is a joke, blowing out skin is sad, unfortunate and is definitely not shading.
When tattoos are blown out they have that bruised, unread-able look to them. The tattoo at a distance may even look like a blob. Try it with the image below. Place your phone a bit away from you and see if you are able to read the image below.
Does the tattoo below make sense from a distance?
A very similar effect will happen with most blown out & poorly done tattoos, we will always see that at a distance they are hard to read.
Does getting a blown out tattoo hurt?
As someone who has blown themselves out for the sake of educating others, take it from me. Yes!
Yes! Yes! Blown out tattoos hurt tremendously. That is not to say just because you experience pain during a tattoo that you are being blown out as every single tattoo I have ever gotten had a certain level of pain involved. However the pain was manageable and something that I have been able to manage. There are also numbing gels that we can use to help us manage the pain along the way.
I think when we get into the levels of unbearable pain, we may want to take a look at our artist and the work that is currently being done on us.
Is The Tattoo Below Fix-Able?
Again as much as the artist in me is screaming yes, unfortunately for the tattoo below I don’t think that there is anything that can be done.
Keep in mind when I say anything I mean there aren’t many design types that can cover something like this besides heavy saturated blackwork or complete blacking out or laser removal.
If this tattoo came into a shop I was working at and wanted it to be covered up, let’s say with a mandala design, I will decline the tattoo. If the client wanted this blacked out and worked on from there I would see if it is a tattoo that I can create a plan for to execute.
Let’s keep in mind this also depends on the size of the tattoo and placement. If it is a smaller tattoo and can be covered easily with some saturation we can get away with it. However if the tattoo is larger is can be hard to hide the tattoo. The placement would determine how much space is left to work with as that would help figure out a design plan that can cover the tattoo.
So off the bat we can see there is a critical thought process that goes into thinking about covering up blown out tattoos.
Can A Blown Out Tattoo Be Covered With Skin Colored Ink?
This is something in theory we think would work, right?
From what I have seen the results vary and I have not seen a blown out tattoo hold up well even after trying to be fixed with skin colored ink.
I am not saying that this can not be done but what I am saying is that we shouldn’t have to go this far. If covering blow outs with human skin colored ink we would have to do multiple sessions for a noticeable difference to take place. Keep in mind that all tattoos look fresh when they are fresh.
What Can I Do To Make Sure I Don’t Get Blown Out?
What I would recommend to anyone looking to get good tattoos is to simply start with doing your research. Use hashtags on social media to find artist in your area, use Youtube to educate yourself on good and bad tattoos, research artist in your area, find a style that you want and research artist that specialize in that style.
One thing when it comes to tattooing is that we have to look at it from a bird’s eye view and understand that if we want good quality work we have to pay the artist fee’s required to obtain their work. When it comes to tattoos I wish I had a “How To Pick Tattoos” course because I would have picked completely different tattoos.
I would also recommend putting some thought into how you want your tattoos to present you. How do you want your tattoos to look? How do you want them to read? How do you want to be covered? Put some thought into your tattoos. By putting thought into what you want and figuring out the expectations and why’s of your tattoos you will be far more equipped to pick an artist that is more seasoned and less likely to blow you out!
I hope that you found this article that I wrote for you helpful. I hope that you can take this information and use it to find tattoos that are right for you and tattoos that you can be happy with!
I appreciate you reading, thank you for your time and support! -Daniel Yuck
I have been tattooing about 3 years now and I have tattooed on SO MUCH fake skin! I am grateful for fake skins as I have developed in so many ways because I was able to make the mistakes needed in order for me to improve.
If you are looking to improve I highly recommend investing into yourself and investing into some fake skins. I would also recommend and encourage you to stay away from practicing on fake skin because we will make mistakes! As a learning artist we need to make mistakes so we are able to learn and develop.
That is why I choose to use fake skin every step of the way through out my learning journey. When I needed to or want to learn a new technique or try an idea fake skin is what I reach for. Trust me in the end is it far better to invest into fake skin upfront and invest the time into tattooing the fake skin!
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