Reinventing The Tattoo Forum

Are you sticking the needle in and then out standing still in one place and in one  motion, or are you creating a very tight circle in a very tight small space to create the dot? I'm curious about your hand motion....

Sorry to not be clear... I haven't done the Dotwork tattoos in question, I'm looking for pointers before I do one... And that's the exact question I'm asking, which is the proper technique?  Thank you

I use a swissmade rotary machine at 5.5 volts and fast hand motion, to make my "dotwork" shading effect, like on this piece: 

This was done useing a tight 5 round liner, it works very well for me. 

Ps.: this is the 1st session on the piece btw, some colors on the next one =)

You do dotwork the same as you would do stipple on a piece of paper.  Get a micron pen, and draw your image only in dots on paper... that's exactly how you do the tattoo.  5 liner tends to be best... 3s are very easy to accidentally blow out the dots.

Very precisely lower the needle and pull it straight back up.  If you get fast and sloppy, the dots will turn into check marks.  

The above method of running the machine slow and moving you hand quickly is called pepper shading.  Similar effect, but very different.

Run your machine at whatever speed you would normally line with.