In my never ending curiosity to see what I can put my artwork onto, I came across inkbox on Instagram. Having several of my designs that would lend themselves to it, I decided to give it a go!
I decided to do my wolf skull tattoo, and thought it would work without editing. It turns out they need to have a “stencil” where all the white needs to meet up. That meant they had to edit it, since I had some of it enclosed. I would have edited it different, but it still turned out alright.
I followed their directions exactly, but I watched a couple of YouTube videos first.
- DO NOT MOVE THE CLOTH. One lady moved it around, so the blue got on her skin and dyed the whole area. Keep it in one spot.
- Read the directions and follow them exactly. One girl missed the step where she used the alcohol pad on her skin and not on the blue part of the design, and then didn’t pull it off in the right direction. She also put it in the middle of her chest, which was really hard to do firm pressure for 15 minutes. It was super light and spotty for her.
- Do an easy spot first where you can apply firm pressure.
Knowing these things, I put it on the back of my forearm. I followed the directions exactly, but I still didn’t have as much pressure on the top and bottom of my tattoo. It is lighter in those areas. I did a 3×3 tattoo, so a smaller one would have been fine. I also microwaved my towel first, so it wouldn’t be piping hot when I put it on. It was still piping hot. Like…thought I probably burned my skin hot! I backed off the pressure for a few minutes and just left it on top until it cooled a little. I think heat tends to make it develop, so…it actually looked pretty good as it was once I took off the sticky tattoo thing. I wouldn’t recommend the burning skin thing, though. 😉
This is the development of it:
Just off. My skin was red from taking off the sticky and from a slight burn from the cloth. As you can see there are some lighter areas where I didn’t have the consistent hard pressure. The middle was definitely nice and dark:
24 hours:
The peak of darkness was probably at day 3. I did have a few slight lines where the edge of the design sticker hit my skin. The wet cloth wasn’t on those areas, so it leached underneath. It wasn’t bad, but a little annoying since I put it on like I was supposed to put it on.
Here it is at one week. The first week it looked pretty good:
Here it is at 1.5 weeks. After about one week it went into a fast fade:
Here it is at 2 weeks. Pretty much gone:
I think it would have lasted longer on a place that didn’t have as much rubbing on it. The summertime, I imagine it would last longer with no sleeves.
I applied to be an inkbox artist, and after about 2 months I got accepted. I uploaded 4 designs after editing them to be true stencils. I loaded these 4:
They are going to release them one per week, and then see how they do before they let me load more. They reserve the right to rename them, so I have no control over what they named them.
I think it is a fun way to have a tattoo without the commitment of a real tattoo. If I were to have a real tattoo, I would probably choose my wolf. I think it is a great reminder of the Native American tale of the two wolves, where you need to feed the good wolf. Plus…it just looks cool!
I’m not going to say that these things are cheap, and that you would want to buy a ton for all occasions, but they are fun for an occasional indulgence.
I also purchased the ink for freehand drawing. I haven’t done that yet, but will show how that turns out. I need to figure out something easy to do, since it doesn’t seem like it would be great for intricate detail work. We’ll see!
