How to do tattoos with watercolor pencils?

What I think is happening, is the MSC might be mixing with the water color pencil.

Remember MSC is Laquer base, not a good idea to use laquer over anything water base.* You might want to consider an acrylic clear matt coat "fixative" for the water color pencil. A good coat of that over the tatoo.
Multiple light coats!

*I have found it also works to spray light coats , one at a time over water base products, letting each coat dry properly., instead of one "All at once" heavy coat. Everything under the MCS just disolves when it's applied like that.

Hope I helped!

Then again, I'm sure there's plenty of other opinions to dogpile on with other products ect, so mileage may vary.

 

It may also be that particular brand of watercolour pencils won't adhere with the MSC... I've personally never had issues with it, but perhaps your brand has something different in it?

 

Alright, I drew this tattoo on my El's hip in color pencil. I brushed off all excess dust and I sealed it with MSC (It's the UV cut, if that helps) three times, waiting half an hour between coats. It's chilly outside (30ºF or so) but I bring him in as soon as I'm done spraying him and he dries in the house.

I can STILL rub the color off the tattoo.

What the heck am I doing wrong?
Is three coats not enough?

 

Have you tried putting on some clear paint (the one you use for lip gloss) over the color and seal? Then seal on top of that.

 

What kind of pencil is it? MSC won't settle on an oily surface, so if it's an artist/studio pencil, that might the the problem. I had the same thing when doing Eiji's tats.

 

I was thinking about that, that's probably what I'm going to have to do. I'll pick up some matte varnish after work.

They're my Prismacolor ones, maybe that's it. I didn't know that about MSC, I knew I should have just gone an painted it XD I'm having the same issue with his other tattoo, which is a scrapbook rub-on.

Thanks for the tips guys, I do believe this problem is solved :3

 

Prismacolors has some excellent watercolor pencils. They don't require any clear paint and only one coat of sealer is necessary, but it's always good to put an extra coat or two just for safe measure.

 

i know that there are many many threads about doing tattoos for your dolls, about two pages or more. but i am having a difficult time figuring how to do them with water colored pancils/ pastels and i was wondering if anyone wouldn't mind posting a link that can help me it's my questions were answered and i over looked it.

anyways, i know that some people use water colored pancils to do tattoos, but i am wondering if someone can break down that process for me? do you wet the pencil first then draw, or do you draw the tattoos with the watercolored pencils, but then fill in with pastel. i am not comfortable painting on my doll, and so i exclusivley use pastel or watercolored pencils. but i cannot seem to figure out how to do it.

any help would be most appreciated. i apologize if i happened to over look a thread that detailed how to do this.

 

I would suggest drawing on the doll and then wetting the water color pencils there if you want that for the color portion. Wcp are unreliable when pre wettened, I find.

And other options which is likely the more used is to do all your coloring with the pastel and the wcp as the outlines of that tattoo. You could play with doing that in either order. When I did so I used pastels as the color and then went over with acrylic so likely the same idea could be used.

 

I'm also interested in tattooing my doll.
Are there any tutorials on the the web?

 

no i don't think so. i was able to do it alright. i drew the tattoo on my girl when the WCP was dry, but then to fill it in i decided to try the WCP wet. it worked out ok but i was unable to get the detail i wanted. so i took a brush with a really small tip and wetted it and then used that to sharpen the ends of the tattoo. but i think i need a lot more practice.

anyways that was the only way i could think of to do it before anyone had an oppurtunity to get back to me.

 

yah i thinking doing them with wcp takes practice. I still personally need more practice myself, but I did one on one of my boys. It was just a line tattoo so i did the lines with the wcp and then i took a toothpick and dappened it with water and slowly just wetted the wcp lines to smooth them out and sharpen them up. It worked okay but it was my first time doing it and i think maybe with practic it could look better.....

 

I don't even use water or wet the pencil for my doll's tattoos. I just make sure that the watercolor pencil is sharpened very frequently to get nice fine lines. ^_^ But I've only done solid color blocks, not shaded tattoos. For that I'd probably do the outline in WCP first (dry), then seal it really well and brush dry pastel on top. I'm a bit too messy to use wet media.

 

yea. the tooth pick idea sounds good. i am thinking that i will try that next time. i actually pmed another person who does tattoos for their dolls on the forum. and she told me that the pastels don't usually give her the opacity that she wants when she is doing the tattoos.

 

I tried temporary tattoos that were all gungy and sticky (bleurgh! They were people ones that I suspect were the home-printed variety) so I grasped the nettle and had a go at watercolour pencil ones. Easy peasy! Mini tutorial.

1. Decide on the style of tattoo you want.
2. Google for a few reference pictures to use as inspiration. There are also some copyright free tattoo flashes around that can simply be scaled down.
3. Make a template for the area you are going to tattoo by covering it in kitchen paper towel and drawing an outline of how much of it you want to cover.
4. On paper, use your template and your reference pics to design a tattoo that will go well in that space. I was careful to avoid tattooing too near to joints as those areas would be most likely to rub off first. Keep your design. You might have to use it again for repairs at a later date.
5. Transfer your design onto tracing paper.
6. Thoroughly clean and dry area to be tattooed and spray with two layers of MSC (just in case).
7. Trace design onto doll using normal soft graphite pencil.
8. Colour in with watercolour pencil. Sharpen pencil regularly to get a nice, sharp outline. Persevere with the colouring in to make sure it is even and not too "grainy". I have appalling eyesight so I always use an illuminated magnifying glass for fiddly work like this.
9. Spray at least three coats of MSC onto tattoo. You can also spray a layer here and there as you go along. I sprayed the traced design to that I would not accidentally rub it off as I worked. I found that the MSC slightly "diluted" the watercolour pencil. Not enough to make it run or smudge, but just enough that it blended in some of the graininess of the pencil, which worked beautifully.

Result, and you can see from the scraped MSC on his upper deltoid that any tattoo placed there wouldn't have lasted long. Also, if you compare the smooth finish of the pec and back tattoos with the rather more scruffy finish on the deltoid and bicep, you can see that it is worth thoroughly washing the area to be tattooed before working on it. Doh!

 

^_^ Thank you!!

 

This is awesome! Thank you. ~Gus

 

MadamMauMau, thank you for the great tutorial.

 

Quoting from another thread (just to keep that on on topic).

The paper towel is to wrap around the body part to be tattooed so that you can get a pattern for the size and shape thjat the tattoo needs to be. I often stick the paper towel into shape with sticky tape, draw the outline shape on the area to be covered carefully on the towel with a ball point pen and then gently cut the paper towel off the body.

As for colours, I haven't tried that yet. I would suggest pencilling in your design, spray it with MSC and then do the colours with pastel. You might need to do a couple of layers to get the colours bright enough. Then add your black outline with watercolour pencil. That method wouldn't produce so bright a result as you would acheive with watercolour pencil for the coloured bit, but the subtlety it would give would balance that out, I think.

I wouldn't try smudging the pencil with a cotton bud, personally, but that is because I did detailed designs. If you keep the pencil sharp and colour carefuly, the result doesn't need smoothing.

 

There is also a tutorial of how to tattoo either in one of the Haute doll issues or in the Orbyrarium.
It was step by step and had pics and such.

 

one great effect that watercolor pencils have is that once they get wet by the MSC, they blend a little and the edges soften like you brushed them with a bit of water. I love that when doing my doll's eyebrows. If you get it right, it makes a really stunning effect.

But if you want to do a tattoo, watercolor pencils is probably the easiest way of doing it. They can't damage the doll, the ability to blend the colors is very nice, and it is actually not that hard to correct or cover mistakes when using them, unlike acrylics which require removers which can ruin a work in progress. you can use them dry or wet (wet takes a bit of practice, even on paper, as they blend differently than when they are dry) but I would recommend using them dry.

 

Wow! Thank you all so much for the great tips and information. I really like the use of the watercolor pencils.

 

Madame Mau Mau: Is it possible to apply watercolor from tube directly to resin? I wonder if only can use watercolor pencil

 

Personally, I don't use the pencils wet at all. I sharpen them VERY hard, and keep a steady pressure on them as I'm applying the lines, once I've got the outlines down, I coat with MSC, then use pastels to do any shading/infill. As someone else mentioned once the MSC hits the pencil, it blurs the edge slightly anyway, and you can help the natural look along a bit with shading in a fleshtone over the top to take the edge off it. It works for me

 

Do you blush body contours or draw tattos first? I would assume blush but is it possible to get even pencil color over soft pastel?

 

Personally, I do all the bodyblushing first and then spray and do the tattoo. So, as you have a layer of MSC between the blushing and the pencil, neither is affected.

And piktorouge (sorry, I have only just seen your question), I didn't use waterclour for my tattoos as it wanted them to look like real, mature tattoos (and I did ponder on blushing some blue green over the design too to give it that faded look). However, I find that watercolour tattoos look too vivid and super fresh for that effect.

 

I usually blush underneath and outline, spray a coat of MSC, shade and add in the details, another coat of MSC, and then blush over the whole lot again with a skintone shade to knock it back a bit. For the slightly more complex ones like these:



It's many laters of shading and detail with subsequent MSC layers in between. Basically, I treat it as I would a faceup and work it up from a base shade to finish.

 

well... as far as water colors go, youre never supposed to actually wet the pencil. The water soaks into the "lead" and causes it to separate from the wood, therefore damaging your pencils. MSC will cause the line work to bleed a bit, but if you really want smooooth lines I recommend acrylic and a liner brush... but then thats not the point of this thread...