Let us start with tattoo machines. There are none of “perfect tattoo machines” for all tattooing techniques and styles. Some machines are hard and heavy, so they are really good at lining but not as good at shading as light and soft machines. Some machines are strong, so they really good for color tattoos, however it is kind of hard to control the damage on black & grey tattoos. What tattoo machines to use also depends on the feelings of hand of tattoo artists. There are only three main tattooing techniques which are lining, shading and filling and every tattoo machine company gives instructions which tell what their tattoo machines are good about. Sound simple right? Just go buy the machine that suits your style and you can do beautiful tattoos. If it was that easy, we would not need to buy a lot of different of tattoo machines and save a ton of money. Like most of passionate tattoo artists starting from the bottom, we have tried from cheap machines to average ones and finally world-wide popular expensive machines. It takes years for us to experience to find out which one suits us best and it still goes on, we get updated with new machines whenever we have a chance to make sure we can deliver best quality tattoos for our beloved clients. The picture above are some of our favorite machine brands that we use recently which are Inkjecta, Cheyenne, Dragonfly and Stigma. These brands are world-wide popular and used by many tattoo masters.
Great machines do not accompany blunt needles. We are so proud that one of our artists is sponsored by Cheyenne Tattoo Equipment, the famous German company who invented cartridges that was such a significant shift in tattoo industry giving artists so much of convenience when they need to change needles during tattoo session. We use their safety cartridges which are the sharpest and the most expensive needles in the world. These cartridges can go on skin for a super long tattoo session (like 10 hours) without being blunt. Regardless of the inconvenience, long needles are still widely used due to its high precision. We are not an exception because we do a lot of geometric, minimalism and lettering tattoos. These tattooing styles requires so much of accuracy due to its nature of including so many straight lines and circles. In this case, Kwadron from Poland is the best choice. Due to its long history of development and quality, Kwadron is always top choice for professional tattoo artists all over the world. We also use other famous needle brands for different purposes, such us Mithar from USA and Inox Prime a product of Kwadron.
Machines, needles, ink are compulsory for a quality tattoo. However we can ignore the usefulness of all supporting products, such as pain relieving products, tattooing ointment and aftercare products. You might ask why we do not mention numb cream in the list. There are few reasons that we try not to use numb cream. First, it is really hard to get “quality numb cream” in Vietnam, and the quality numb cream is not really numb, it just helps a little bit. Most of the numb creams that work are imported from China with excessive amount of lidocaine. These China super numb creams will absolutely get the pain away. The problems are your skin will be very hard and not absorb ink well when it’s numb. Therefore, it is difficult for artists to control the damage they put on your skin. Most of the time they go harder on numb skin than normal skin. As a result, your skin might get over-damaged and ink might not be kept perfectly. One more problem is when the numb cream is out of use after few hours you will feel your skin burnt as hell while without numb cream, you feel much better instantly after. To find quality supporting products which helps clients feel easier, but not affect the quality of tattoo is very important. We use best imported products, such as tattooing ointment Inkeeze from USA, pain relieving Bactine, H2Ocean, Hustle Helper all made in USA, tattoo finish Premier Products made in Germany help to dry tattoo right after tattoo session and aftercare product like Tattoo Goo, Vitamin A&D Ointment made in USA. For any tattoo session which lasts longer than 2 hours, you will know these products are really helpful. They will help you save you a lot of energy because your body do not need to tense all the time to handle the pain.
Last but not least, advanced designing tools will help to shorten the time and make it easier to adjust if clients are not happy with the first draft. Our favorite tools are Wacom and Ipad Pro. Wacom is just perfect for complex designs with ton of layers while Ipad Pro is very convenient for quick sketches. They are both cutting-edge designing tools popularized by professional designers around the globe.
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