A tattoo machine’s needles hit hard so they can penetrate the skin to the appropriate depth in order to give the desired effect each time. Usually artists want that “hardness” so they can deliver perfect and solid lines as well as effortless color packing. That’s not always the case though and that’s where “Give” comes in. Tattoo machines offering a Give function are usually preferred for shading or to work on difficult areas of the body minimizing skin trauma.
A few years back, Artemis Rosakis, our head engineer and co-founder of Stigma-Rotary®, had a ground breaking invention. A mechanism on a rotary tattoo machine where, without the use of tools or the need to swap out any parts, could adjust the softness/hardness of the hit in a matter of seconds. This astounded the tattoo industry and fascinated many artists that were looking for a lightweight and quiet tattoo machine that could make their job much easier.
Nowadays, the Give function can be found in a lot of different tattoo machines such as the Stigma® Spear or the Stigma® Hyper and recently made its appearance also on direct-drive or dual-drive rotaries like the brand new Stigma® Force. In order to achieve a similar effect on a direct-drive machine, the mechanism had to be translated from analogue to digital and now everything is happening by directly controlling the motor with the help of our sophisticated software. Artists can easily adjust the sensitivity and responsiveness of the machine to their desired level and then enable it or disable with a single button whenever they need to.
Enabling the Digital Give, allows the machine to respond to the skin’s resistance and become softer. This helps artists to tattoo on difficult areas where the skin is more sensitive and/or to achieve very smooth shading effortless. Although Give is loved by artists no matter the tattooing style or techniques they use, we can tell from experience that artists who specialize in realistic and black and grey tattooing styles use the Give feature everyday, all day. For many renown artists such as Stigma® PROArtists Ivan Panayotov and Jurgis Mikalauskas, give is a necessity in order to achieve realism and breath taking details in their work.
On the Stigma® Force, Digital Give has three levels. Give-1 will allow for a smoother and responsive operation (in comparison to the machine’s default Constant mode where the hit is consistent and solid). Give-2 and Give-3 will have the same effect but also will reduce the speed when needed to reduce skin trauma or allow for even lighter and smoother shading.
There is also a fascinating new feature called Boost which will make the machine run faster and hit harder when needed but we will talk about this on our next blog post. Until then, enjoy tattooing!
