Basics of Tattoo Creation

About a decade or two ago, tattoos were mostly associated with bikers, sailors and other artists etc. However, in the recent years, they have evolved to become more popular with each design and style of the tattoo defining its recipient. Some people who despised tattoos are also getting permanent make-up to emphasize their lips or eyes these days.

Tattoos are created as a result of injecting ink into the recipient’s skin. In order to do so, an electrically powered tattooing machine is used which sounds much like the dental drill. The machine penetrates the skin 50 to 3000 times in a minute. The needle goes in as deep as a millimeter into the skin to deposit a drop of ink each time.

The tattoo machine was originally invented by Samuel O’Riley in the late 1800s, which is unchanged till date. The design of the tattoo machine was based on the mechanism of the autographic printer invented by Thomas Edison. The printer was originally invented to engrave writing into hard surfaces, while O’ Riley modified the same machine by changing it to the tube system and modifying its rotary-driven electromagnetic oscillating unit.

Most modern tattoo parlors have the following basic components in their machines:

• Sterilized needle
• A tube system to draw ink through the machine and into the skin
• Electric motor
• A pedal controlled at the foot to regulate the needle’s vertical movement.

A person’s visible tattoo is the ink that we can see through that person’s epidermis (the outer layer of the skin). The ink is actually situated in the dermis, (the second layer of the skin), whose cells are very stable. This also assists the ink to stay in place without any major dispersion throughout the recipient’s life.