Your Complete Guide to Color Packing Like a Pro

Color packing takes hard work to master. But it’s a skill you need, particularly if you’re an artist specializing in traditional, neotraditional, or anime tattoos where vibrant, lurid color takes the spotlight. And that’s just to name a small few styles that require color packing.

Your ultimate goal when color packing is to create a solid, saturated look. Colors should blend seamlessly. There shouldn’t be any patchiness or uneven tones. Overall, this technique ensures a vibrant and smooth finish, essential for achieving professional-quality tattoos.

Understanding Color Packing and Saturation

Color Packing: We covered the basics above, but let’s simplify it! This technique involves inserting pigment into the skin with no visible gaps or negative spaces. It’s all about achieving a uniform fill, ensuring the entire area is saturated with color. Like, saturated.

Saturation: In tattooing, saturation refers to the evenness and depth of color packed into the skin. Proper saturation means the ink is fully absorbed and spread across the skin without any patchiness or gaps. It’s a crucial aspect of successful color packing.

Mastering Color Packing: Key Techniques and Tips

There are countless tips for successfully packing in color. Moreover, what works for one artist may not work for you. However, there are several rules of thumb you can count on when mastering this essential technique.

We’ll break these tips down into categories.

1. Skin Preparation and Needle Handling

Stretch the Skin

• Why? Loose skin can lead to uneven ink distribution.
• Application: With your hands, ensure the skin is stretched taut to allow proper needle penetration.

Use PLENTY of Ink

• Why? Adequate ink is crucial for even saturation. It’s hard to overdo it here. One thing’s for certain—less is NOT more when it comes to color packing.
• Application: Continuously dip your needles and don’t be afraid to use any excess ink that pools on the skin to achieve better saturation.

Control Your Needle Depth

• Why? Correct needle depth affects ink flow and saturation. If you hang your needles too much, it’ll restrict your ink flow. If you don’t float your needles at all, your hits will be too soft. Check out our blog on stroke and needle depth for more information on this topic.
• Application: Float your needles slightly, and make sure you’re only using the tips of your needles. If you feel resistance when using the needle tips, you’re at optimal needle depth.

Practice Proper and Consistent Hand Motions

• Why? Proper, consistent hand motion ensures even saturation and prevents overworking the skin.
• Application: Tattoo in small, tight circles while moving “forwards” slowly. This helps keep puncture marks even. You can also practice the “pendulum” technique, going back and forth with your needles. Whichever technique you choose, don’t stray from it.

Manage Your Voltage (Don’t Get Too High!)

• Why? Higher voltages can cause excessive bouncing and uneven packing. Voltages that are too low will make your hits too soft. You’re looking for a happy medium that works for you.
• Application: Don’t be tempted to crank up the voltage if your color is not saturating. Pay attention to your hand motions, needle depth, and stroke.

Tackling Common Problems

Saturation Issues

• Problem: Using the incorrect needle depth and excessive needle hanging can lead to uneven saturation.
• Solution: As mentioned above, keep needles at the right depth and avoid floating them too much. We also highly recommend using smaller mags (7 or 9) for consistent saturation. These smaller mags don’t require too much pressure for optimal penetration. They also help you stay concentrated in small areas at a time.

Color Gradation Gripes

• Problem: Harsh transitions between colors can disrupt the gradient.
• Solution: Gradually fade colors by mixing with white, use pendulum shading for smooth transitions, and aim for at least three tones of each color for depth. Also, “flicking” can be a helpful method here. Flick your needles to graduate from dark to light tones and build your gradations from there.

Other Practical Tips for Effective Color Packing

Layering Your Colors

• Tip: Apply darker colors first, then layer lighter colors on top. Be cautious as lighter colors may not fully cover darker ones when healed.

Don’t Overdo Your Black

• Tip: Black adds contrast but can overpower the tattoo if overused. Use black sparingly to maintain balance and prevent the tattoo from becoming too dark. The exception to the rule? Blackout tattoos or black packing. In this instance, you’ll be using all your color packing skills, but with black ink. You can check out our blog on how to successfully nail blackout tattoos here.

Choose the Right Black Ink for Packing in Black

Black inks come in all varieties—some are specially designated for linework. Others are perfect for saturation and packing in black.

Lining versus Packing Black

• Packing black has a higher pigment load than lining black. If you’re struggling to pack in black, it could be because you’re using a lining ink which has a much lower pigment load. Consequently, saturation is a lot harder to achieve.
• Packing blacks are formulated to blend more easily and are typically thinner in consistency.

Some great black ink choices for black packing include World Famous Triple Blackout and Dynamic Triple Black.

For color packing with actual color, there’s no distinction between lining and packing inks. Use any color from a reputable ink brand and practice the tips above for your best results.

Go Pack in Some Color

Want to see color packing in action done by one of the best neotrad artists in the game? Check out our Color Packing Tips and Tricks video here featuring Harlan Kantner.

Keep these tips in mind to elevate your color-packing skills and deliver brightly colored (or rich black) tattoos every time. Mastering color packing is essential–and you might find unique tips that work exclusively for you. But start by learning the fundamentals and applying these general rules of thumb. That way, you can get comfortable with the technique and achieve a professional finish with smooth, blended colors. Soon, you’ll be color packing like a pro.