[Jehan Chumomisto]

Jehan worked quickly but making sure that he was doing everything correct. It still took him some time but in the end he had carved away a much better needle than the first one. It was smooth, and sharp and remained the same thickness. “There, I think that will do” he said as he passed the needle over to his mentor who examined it and nodded.

“Ah see, it was worth doing over again. You had a good eye Jehan and were able to correct your mistake rather than work with a tool that wasn’t your best. Always remember, you are only as good as your worth piece of artwork. No matter how many good ones you do a bad one will make people second guess coming to you. It is always better to take longer and have it right than to do it wrong. Once there is a mistake there is no going back from it.” Anagaja informed her student as she handed him back the needle.

“Now usually when you are shading the color is less dark than that of the outline. In most cases it is easiest to add white pigment to your darker ones though it is no unheard of for there to be extra carrier applied as well. As you seen however that is a delicate procedure to do as it could ruin your ink. Once the ink in decided however it is applied the same way that the outline is however because it is shading it is fine to have the ink spread out more the fainter it gets. It will take time to master the art of shading, it can be very difficult and hard to tell when you are doing to much

Now, I would like you to do an outline and shade it in on this skin” Jehan was told and passed a skin. “Make it simple, it does not have to be fancy, that is not what we are testing”

Jehan nodded and began to tattoo the skin using the second best ink that he had created the brightening before after preparing the area by washing it and shaving it. He began his simple design, poking the needle so that it only pierced two layers of skin and started going. He ended up with a circle and that was it. She had said simple and that is what he did.

“That will work nicely Jehan” she told him as she took the skin and the thicker needle in his hand. She lay the skin down so that Jehan could see what she was about to do next.