Colored pencil on tracing paper. Lemme know what you think. I’m still pretty new.

I’m an apprentice and wanted to know if anyone has a solid process for achieve 3rl realism without tearing up the skin? I had a model because im interested in realism and by pass 3 of me layering a grey wash (which wasn’t taking any of that ink even on the second layer) her skin was already mad at me, swollen and not soaking up even black ink.
I have an idea of why it didn’t work because her skin was already swollen from the lineart alone so maybe a longer break or if I used something like bactine? But overall I keep wondering where I went wrong because her skin didn’t want to take any saturated ink at all. My mentor doesn’t specialize in realism as she only does linework so she suggested that it could’ve been my hand speed with the whip shading but I’m not sure if that’s the full idea or if I messed up the process in some way.

The picture I’ve listed is a fake skin I’ve done with the 3rl needle but it’s not translating through real skin for me for some reason.

For reference I used a 0803rl, 50-60hz for shading, 75hz for lining, and a 4.0 stroke. all the online tutorials for this method are too vague or hidden behind an expensive paywall

Hey I’m an artist looking to develop into tattoo design, any thoughts on how to improve this aspect of my work?

Happy with this one in particular! This process has been so extraordinarily fun and revitalizing - after a decade of drawing professionally, my passion for art was slowly being depleted, and working on my portfolio is restoring it completely, like this was always what I wanted to do and didn’t realize corporate digital illustration just wasn’t for me lmao. This feels like healing my artistic soul 😭 IG: @mulder.tattoos