Different Methods of tattooing

Tattoo Machine

It has become a wide spreading standard, especially throughout Western cultures, to use an industry made electric tattooing machine. The needles are placed inside a tube and the tattoo artist uses a foot peddle to operate the device that inserts the needle into the skin hundreds of times per second. Different needles are needed for outlining, coloring and shading, which vary in size and number. Using a machine is the quickest tattooing method, but requires a license to use and handle.

Bamboo Handles

Most commonly used for full body Japanese tattoos, the bamboo handle is a way to punt ink into the skin by hand. The handle has about two dozen needles embedded in its end and the tattoo artist stretches the skin with one hand while pushing the needles in and out multiple times to create the cohesive image. This tattooing technique can take hundreds of hours to complete a full body tattoo and most often requires dozens of sessions for each person.

Rake and Striking Stick
One of the most primitive and oldest methods in tattooing is using the striking stick. Most common in the South Pacific today, the artist uses a tipped rake, most often bone, dips it in ink, and hits it with the striking stick to puncture the skin. The puncture then contains the ink from the rake and over time the consecutive punctures form a pattern.  This technique has been used to form the world's most elaborately patterned tattoos found in Samoa and Papua New Guinea.