Hildbrandt Blog

Have you ever looked at a picture that looked like it would make an awesome tattoo?  In this blog post we will cover how to create a tattoo stencil or flash design using any picture with Photoshop.  We are using Photoshop Elements to be exact, however, Photoshop has the exact same functions but the menus may be different.

1. Find a Picture to Create a Tattoo Stencil

First you will need a picture to create a tattoo stencil out of.  Online pictures will be easiest as you can easily save them to your pc.  For magazines or other media, simply scan it.

2. Adjust Hue/Saturation of Stencil Design

>In Photoshop Elements

1. Go to Enhance
2. Go to Adjust Color
3. Go to Adjust hue/saturation
4. Move the Saturation bar all the way to the left

This will remove all of the color from the picture.  What you are left with is a black and grey of your original.

3. Find Edges of the Outline for Tattoo Flash Design

Go to Filter > Stylize > Find Edges and apply to the tattoo flash design.  This find the main outlining lines of the picture.

What you will be left with is the picture with mostly the outer lines which will show up perfectly for tracing onto stencil paper or as an original for a stencil printer.

5. Adjust Brightness and Contrast of Tattoo Stencil

Go to Enhance > Adjust Lighting > Brightness and Contrast and play with the brightness and contrast of the tattoo stencil.  Adjust brightness to less and you will get more shading detail but will also increase the chance for unnecessary detail.  Adjust for more brightness and you will get crisper outlines but you will sacrifice finer detail.

Contrast should be maximum to the negative side as this will give the most shading detail.

6. Sharpen the Design

Go to Enhance > Auto Sharpen to sharpen the lines of the design.  You may want to do this a few times for best effect.  Make sure you do not over kill this though as it may create additional focus on unwanted lines.

7. Your Free Tattoo Stencil Design is Ready!

Well okay, its not exactly a free tattoo stencil design, it did take the effort of creating it.  However, now you can use any nice picture for your tattoo without having to draw it free hand onto stencil paper.  Works great for portraits too!

Turned out quite nice!  By the way, if you are wondering who the chick is, it is Veronica Gomez, sweet sexy latina mami..

We get questions regarding what tattoo needle size goes with what tattoo tube all the time so we figured we would do a blog post about it to help everyone out there and save us some time. Tattoo needles come in a variety of groupings and sizes. Each size and grouping combination will fit specific tubes. There are 6 main needle groupings: Liners, Shaders, Flats, Weaved Magnum, Stacked Magnum and Round magnum. Below is a chart of the tattoo needle size & tubes they correspond with.

Liner Tattoo Needles

Form a round tip that is tight. This formation is used for lining. These will go with a corresponding round tube.

Shader Tattoo Needles

Form a round tip that is loose. The formation is used for shading and coloring. These will go with a corresponding round tube.

Flat tattoo needles

Form a line formation that is used for geometric shapes, shading, etc.. These will go with a corresponding flat tube.

Weaved Magnum tattoo needle

These are quite similar to flats but instead of a single layer, they have 2 layers that are overlapped together, hence the name “weaved”. These will go with a smaller sized flat tube that will correspond to the bottom row of prongs. So for example, a 7M2 will have 4 on the bottom and 3 on the top so a 4-5 flat tube would fit as opposed to a 7 flat tube.

Stacked Magnum tattoo needle

Same idea as the weaved magnums except stacked mags are tightly stacked together. The same rules apply for tubes for all magnums.

Round Magnum tattoo needle

The round magnum have prongs that are arranged into a fan shape at the edges, this allows it to better conform to the skin. This will give a more consistent implantation of ink and cause less damage to the skin. The same rules apply for tubes for all magnums.

Thats a nice squat! Seriously though, she is damn hot! Pepsi should rethink their ad campaign and hire her, I would go out and get a Pepsi right away!

We regularly post things we come across that we find of interest to the tattooing community and we were delighted to find this video on youtube by Mario Barth himself giving some valuable tattoo tips and tutorial. What I like about this video is that Mario explains what he is doing and how he is doing it so well, this fella would make one helluva teacher. The other thing I liked about the video is just how freaking great the tattoo turned out, look at the shading, depth and liveliness of the ink, its freaking amazing man. The guy took a stencil transfer and gave it life.

Tattoo Tips and Haters

A lot of fellas seem to have a problem with artists giving people tutorial tattoo tips online. Personally, I don’t see the point in hating on things like that. If people are going to try to learn, they are going to try, determination is a lot stronger than fear of failure for most people. I’m in the camp that its better that people out there get accurate information rather than guess and test on themselves or their friends. Some artists complain about the industry being ruined because the scratcher down the road is charging bargain basement prices for tattoos. Come on man, this is art, you are going to have this on your skin for life, most people aren’t going to go for the cheapest option available. If you are good at what you do, you need not worry about some scratcher stealing your business because they are undercutting you, people will just naturally find you because they trust your name. Just like Mario here, look at how amazing his tattoo turned out, no scratcher, not even a lot of tattoo artists can ink something that good, that’s why he doesn’t care if there are a million scratchers out there, he knows people will pay top dollar for his work. 

 Asian girls with tattoos, pretty hot! This one looks feisty! I come across pictures of hot chicks with ink all the time and it got me thinking I should start something for Hildbrandt too. I was thinking creating a hot girls with ink model or webcam contest. We’ll get facebook votes to judge which girl should win. It’ll be like an online beauty pageant except with a lot more contestants and one of the criteria other than how pretty the girl is, is how nice her ink is. What do you guys think?

Here’s a nice Japanese/Asian style tattoo done by Jose Sagon using a Hildbrandt .44 Magnum tattoo machine. I personally love these kinds of pieces, the color, the way all the elements melds together with so many different aspects into a finished look.  It takes a lot of imagination and coordination with color to get one to look right. Bravo Jose!

Definitely like how this hotty is inked, not so sure about the tattoo itself though as the picture is not very clear. I think that would be an interesting new direction if girls started getting tattoos that doubled up as a kind of lingerie. Nothing like a permanent bra and thong inked on or anything, that would just be weird. I’m talking about subtle things like inked on garters and stuff like that. Then again, I suppose if you have a body like this girl, it wouldn’t matter what kind of ink you got on, it would still be hot! Dunno about the tattoos of gats on her back, I don’t have a close up look but they don’t seem to be done well. Lucky man that inked her though, I bet he must have had a hard time concentrating! Wish I had a frontal view, never know about them butter faces nowadays…

We have 2 cool new sizes for our Stencil Stuff and Green Soap. Both are now available in travel size 4 ounce bottles. Small and compact, convenient to put in your bag and bring it on the go! Also great for people that would like to test them out before committing to a larger bottle. The Stencil Stuff 4 ounce bottle sells for $9.99. The Green Soap 4 oz bottle sells for $2.99. The Green Soap is concentrated and can be diluted to up to 1/4 gallon which makes plenty of soap solution! Please note that our 4 oz size Green Soap is repackaged from original larger Green Soap bottles.

Okay, so maybe we are a little crazy but we just got these awesome Stigma rotary tattoo machines in and we are putting them up for sale already? Yes, we are crazy! We are also a little eager, David tried one of these bad boys out and was like freaking amazed how well they run. Considering their retail price, not a lot of people can afford to shell out 6 hundred dollars to buy one. So, we figured we would help out a little by offering a $20 off discount code for anyone interested in buying a Stigma Rotary tattoo machine from our website.

The discount code is STIGMA20, just add the Stigma rotary of your choice to the shopping cart, enter in the discount to get an automatic $20 off! If you have been looking for one of these machines online and wanted to get one, here is your chance to get one on sale! We are an authorized distributor of Stigma Rotaries, we are listed on their website. Try one of these bad boys today and be amazed at the precise and smooth German engineering, these are like the Mercedes of rotary tattoo machines!

Offer subject to change without prior notice. Buyers are able to use this discount code once only. The discount code is only applicable to these rotaries and not any other products available on our website. Customers are allowed to enter other products into their shopping cart for purchase but the $20 discount will only apply to the machine and not the rest of the purchase.