Recently I was introduced to a pretty interesting (and new) application for hardware that L-Tron offers. But first, I must give you a primer on one aspect of the tattoo community. As with many aspects, there are traditionalists and modernists; those who maintain the old methods and techniques of a given craft and those who are always looking for the next technology and the benefits it can bring to them.
The tattoo profession is not an exception. There is one camp who prefers to do everything by hand and with classic equipment from sketching and tracing to the tattoo machine itself. There is another camp, however, who prefers to use the latest in computer imaging software and hardware as well as the tattoo machine itself. The latter is where L-Tron comes in.
The typical process for creating a tattoo is to:
- Create a sketch of the image to be tattooed. This sketch can take anywhere from a few minutes to multiple days, depending on the complexity and whether computers are used or not.
- Once agreed upon with the client, this sketch is transferred to special tattoo stencil paper, either thermal or hectograph, which is similar to making a carbon copy and can be done by hand or by the use of computer software and hardware.
- After the stencil is complete, the top piece of the tattoo stencil paper is placed on moistened skin and the ink is transferred to the skin.
- From this point, the tattoo artist completes the tattoo using their preferred tattoo machine.
- For those tattoo artists who are using computers in their process and want to crank out stencils very quickly, yet precisely, L-Tron can help tremendously with stenciling via the Brother PocketJet 6 Plus thermal printer.
As compared to other thermal printers for tattoos, the PocketJet 6 Plus is:
- lighter
- more rugged
- more mobile at only 10.04″ L x 2.17″ W x 1.18″ H
- and extremely precise
With a high resolution of 300 dots per inch (dpi), the PocketJet 6 Plus is easily able to replicate photographs that clients are looking to memorialize on their bodies, frequently of lost loved ones or pets. Furthermore, any sort of details on computer generated images can also easily be transferred to a tattoo stencil. The PocketJet 6 Plus is easily installed on most modern computers via USB or Bluetooth, depending on the model, and can be up and printing in no time, assuming that the user has some sort of imaging software that they are already familiar with.
This particular PocketJet application seems to be gaining more and more traction as it is one of the best ways to create fine detail, quickly (like for a barcode tattoo). In speaking with a customer, the customer recounted that thermal printing was changing his business because he could provide better tattoos for his customers. He could also serve even more customers because of the time saved with thermal printing.
If you’re in the tattoo industry and want to learn how you too could save yourself time while delivering superior tattoos, please give us a call. 800-830-9523
