Val AKA Valerie came over the other day so I could help her with somethings she was having trouble with tattooing. She wants to get things right before trying on more people. She has tattooed pigskin and fruit but said she still has trouble and of course like all people starting out; it was with the lining not so much the fill or shading.

Tattooing fruit is easy; if you have tattooed people before, fruit is exactly how you wish ink went in every time, sometimes a little too easy. Now pig is different, it’s very much like real skin and like people it has different skin textures and qualities.This is my first experience tattooing pig skin, when I started out I did one on myself and then went right to friends. The owner of the shop I learned at told me to get people who wanted free tattoos to bring in their ID and go to town.

Kind of the Old Skool way, which looking back on it was kind of jackass on my part. People really weren’t using pigskin, fruit or that horrible plastic practice skin (don’t waste you time too hard to use and doesn’t clean off right) you just went for it.

Here is a list of what we used and what you would need to try this on pig:

Pig Skin-Ears and feet (non-pickled) are good but Fat back with non-perforated skin is going to be easiest when first starting out. It has skin and fat with a little meat for cushion. All these can be purchased from any good quality Meat Cutter or Mexican Carneceria

*Any Vegans or vegetarians worried about cruelty to animals don’t worry. The pig in this feature died do to an automotive related death caused from alcohol.*



7 round Liner

7 Mag

Green soap in spray bottle

Rubbing alcohol in spray bottle (Lots of it like the quart bottle from Walgreen’s)

Paper towels

Petroleum Jelly

Aluminum Foil

Metal tray or cookie sheet

House fan optional (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!)

Set up like you would for any tattoo but your work area needs to have extra protection. Fatback like it is named for has a lot of fat on it and it will slide around. If you don’t protect your work area you will have pork grease and Juice (Pork Soda) on everything.

I recommend a foil wrapped cookie tray or pizza dish and a couple paper towels under the pig flesh for absorbency and fluid control. Val had some sheets of fatback that were frozen and needed to be thawed.

[b]DON’T MICROWAVE FROZEN PIG TO THAW. Keep in a plastic bag and thaw in a pot of cold water that has running water pouring into it from the tap. It takes a little longer but won’t half cook the pig flesh on accident making a world of nasty smells that might convert you to vegetarian.
Val brought some of her original artwork and we decided on a design she plans on doing on someone when she feels confident enough. We first cleaned the pig skin with Rubbing alcohol. Pigskin is very greasy and the alcohol cleans off all the dirt and oil. It will take longer then human skin to clean but needs to be done so the stencil will stick properly.


There was enough space on there for two stencils. One for me to do and one for Val to follow with. I wanted to see how it looked when I did it because from my trial with practice skin it came out horrible. It was hard to tattoo and the ink wouldn’t go in or clean off.

* Even though you can’t get or a pass a Blood born Pathogen to Pig Skin. Treat it like an actual person and glove up anytime you are using your machines. It’s a good habit.*


Tattooing pigskin is slightly different then human it has some of the same texture and variances but it is slightly tougher in general. If you have ever touched a live pig you know what I’m saying. Since the flesh is dead it’s a little stiffer then that.

The flesh on the back of the skin gives a good feel and cushions the needle a bit unlike practice skin. Pressing to hard will bog the machine down and you feel resistance coming back you don’t get with a person. They would also scream if you applied as much pressure as I was sometimes.

I feel the hardest part technically in tattooing is getting smooth consistent lines. I noticed that the needle didn’t want to follow the lines of the stencil and I had to force it a little. The needle wanted to follow the texture of the skin on top of it being tough was making me wrestle with the line work.

This can be discouraging for someone just starting out. They have no idea what’s wrong thinking because they are a novice that the line work sucks. In reality it’s just the tough pigskin. This was one of Vals problems she had with the pigskin when she tried this before by herself. Along with her machine, needle set up and rubber band tension. This is still great practice. All the screw ups none of the regret.


You can see my lines are a little shaky from the struggle and some of them aren’t touching where they are supposed to. I cleaned up the pork with the soap and alcohol and then went and fixed my lines before letting Val have a crack at it.


If you look at the top you can see her lines aren’t that bad. They are much better after giving her tips on the skin, what speed to line at and angle of attack. The top of the pigskin had a deeper wrinkly texture and I should have done that area and let her have the smoother part. You can’t stretch the wrinkles out of dead pigskin they are in there. That also adds to the Illusion of bad line work.

The art she brought was very clean with strong line work. She didn’t bring in a color version leaving that to be made up and experiment with in the skin. When designing tattoos you should have complete line work and color composition done when working on a real person though.

I took a more New Skool approach and did a color outline for the cheese where as Val wanted to make it more traditional and use black all around.

I shaded the letters with Gray Wash and added orange for the shading to match the line work. This is where I turned on The house fan. It was a warm day and the pig was starting to warm up and slide around. My hand was kind of sliding on pig grease from the exposed fat by the heel of my palm. The odor of warm pork isn’t that appealing and I had to put the fan on to waft it away from my nose.



I finished off the coloring with a cartoony golden yellow and some white. Here is where pigskin becomes more optimistic but can let you down in a real tattoo. Line work is hard but coloring is easy. The skin takes the ink with relative ease and all the colors show up bright and saturated.


There is no bleeding and white looks like paint on the skin. This can be a total let down when you go to ink a person because blood changes the darkness and color of the tattoo and sometimes washed the colors right back out of the skin making fill hard. So this should be taken into consideration.

One good thing though without bleeding you can see if you have solid lines or if they trail off and are too light. I did intentionally try to make a blow out by drawing a line in at an angle and pressing too hard, but the dead skin just holds and won’t do it so that still needs to be watched for.


Vals completed piece came out really well for a beginner. She has a sharp learning curve and when told how to adjust she did and remedied that problem. As she progressed her line work got better and easier and after a few tips in shading the gradients are pretty smooth and the fill is rather solid considering the canvas.

It helps that she is a good artist and that aids with problem solving and composition, which is important. Anybody can learn how to tattoo technically but after you learn how to apply ink the only thing that sets you apart from other artists is artistic ability, subject matter and attitude.

Finally make sure to clean up your area and use a good strong cleaner to get any grease or juice and throw everything away and take outside. Don’t try and keep pig just take pics. By the end of this the pig was warm and getting a little ripe. I think freak summer heat and humidity in San Francisco didn’t help at all

Mark's the best. If any of you get the chance to sit down with a decent tattoo artist and ask questions, even just for a few minutes, do it. Just watching and listening to him solved some problems I've been having for a long time. Thanks Mark! I owe you.

Did this help anybody at all?

it did yes.. im guilty of posting bs about pig skin... i know all too well just how tough it is and have posted " dont bother with pig skin cos its nothing like real skin" i have seen here that it is actually a good practice medium.... if you have some guidance...

another top notch post Mark.. Salut`

Good one mark.

good info 4 me mark, havent tattooed anything yet and have read mostly everything twice,now its time to apply .. ordered piggy and is coming in a week from the local...but wasnt sure on prepping or result....very helpful and timely.................thxxx

I use a supermarket pig skin which is called 'pork rind'. It's meant for scratchings.
It is smooth and so much better (for me) than the toughness of pigskin.
It's just the fucking grid pattern that fucks me off.

I also think pig skin can fuck you over in thinking that ur machine cant lay lines for shit when really it just isnt cut out for that type
of thick skin. My Glyn Flew was shocking at lining on pigskin. the lines went from fat to thin all over the place, On the rind is a
different story. Lays lines no probs and theyre more consistant.

I don't know where you're from but the supermarkets around here don't carry pigskin. It's more of a specialty item around where I'm at. I would have loved to have gotten some. I decided to do this to see how hard or easy. This is kind of a step back for me never having used any practice materials.

Not that I would do it (veggie!) but has anyone tried practicing on say a chicken or turkey?

I would imagine that the stretch would be better practice, although the skin maybe is too thin.

That was an awesome post dude... really was. I wish i could pop over for the day, but unfortunatly, you live a little too far away

I'm with skin, that in the uk... the skin they sell for pork scratchings is lovely, and much better then when i've asked for pig skin at the butchers... just softer, and nicer to work with.

I wouldn't have thought that chicken or turkey would be that great... the skin does seem pretty thin like. No harm in tying though i suppose

nice info. thanks a lot.
I really hate the smell of it.. you should try microwaving it.. it smells very special after that lol.
I feel ill thinking about it! ha.

you can make your own from pigskin... just soak it in salt for a week and keep it refridgerated... (yeh, ive made bacon........)

good post mark, its true the first time i tattooed pigskin i thought i was a master at filling in i was sadly disappointed when i went to do a bid solid piece on my buddy.... neways does anyone know a way to stop the skin from smelling, it makes me gag!

Make sure it stays cool

have a butcher cut the fat. work with the skin only. the extra fat is what smells the most. If you put it in the fridge before you work on it, it will smell far less. I learned this the hard way :

this is an extremly helpful thread! Im going to subscribe to this thread.

Im just starting out, so Im amassing info for future reference.

thanks again, ITs totaly awesome.

blooming marvoulous,,,,,, n' iv seen the cheese tattoo on London Ink, n' it wasn't on pig skin!!!!

if you use two cookie sheet pans, one slightly larger than the other. set smaller pan on top of 6-20 very thick (1/8", 3mm or larger) stainless washers inside the larger pan.

if it's going to be a long session, i would take an additional step of putting thick aluminum foil, cut slightly larger than the largest pan, on top of the washers and under the inner pan. fold the sides up around the inner pan and continue with the next step.

fill larger pan with chipped ice and ice water, making sure not to overflow once the ice melts. however, if done right the ice should only be able to overflow onto the table and not inside the smaller pan.

if you used foil, now is your chance to seal off the ice by attaching it to the outer pan, creating a chamber of ice water surrounding the inner pan.

finally, place 2 blue automotive towels inside inner pan. (more absorbent and tougher than typical paper towels), then place skin, tattoo, rinse, repeat.

PS. crank up the AC and point the fan at YOU, not the pig; pointing it at the pig makes it decay faster.

muchos gracias, Mark. peace.



EDIT: btw, the washers help with water flow; if the inner pan sits directly on top of the outer pan the cool water will not reach underneath it.

This post has been edited by nevery: Dec 19 2008, 05:00 PM

Great post im a newbie and joined the board tonight after doing my first tattoo on a practice skin today and found them to be pretty crappy. Trying to remove the excess ink was a nightmare.
heading to the butcher tomorrow to order me some pig.

Another fine post.That info is gold.
Many thanks Mark.