Question of the day!

So those of you that know me already know that i am using some new Rotary machines, and learning how to do the whole gray wash, fade, gradient, blah, blah, blah....
Well, here is what i have experienced (at least on pig skin). If i work from the lightest wash to the darkest wash i seemed to get the best overall results. I started doing the whole dark to light order but then it didnt seem like i was getting a good gradient. When I started doing a very light wash and building it up it looked much more professional. If you look at the dress lower part, youll notice its alot darker and what not, that is where i started, then i switched up on the upper part above the belt and the results were much more favorable. Does anybody else do this, is it completely crazy,\?

I love my Mario Barth videos. He was covering this in one of his on a no-line portrait he did. He mentioned the old world way of thinking was always light to dark. He followed it with saying that it just doesn't make sense since you can't make things lighter really, but you can always add darkness. He would lay down his lightest tones, then darker, and so on. It meant his highlights were already there rather than leaving space for them.

I don't have enough experience to say which I prefer. The video was a recent view so my intention is to go lighter and fill in. It just makes sense to me.

although I admire Mario and his work, those damn Youtube videos of his bore me to DEATH!!
OK.........Im working Light to dark, the hell with it all.

For colour work, yes work dark to light so the darker colour doesn't bleed into the lighter ones making them look muddy this can happen when you wipe the tattoo too. For grey wash it really doesn't matter although it makes more sense to do your lighter washes first then darken them, nothing worse than starting dark then overlapping washes and getting a darker line where they meet. Obviously you can do all the SHADOW work in pure black first, same as usual, greys you need to watch hand pressure and tickle the skin so as not to get dark spots. With greywash you can always go darker, you can never go lighter, if you balls something up in a light wash you can fix it with a darker wash, if you balls up with a dark wash you balls up the whole tattoo.

To be honest though from what I can see you're doing an awesome job, I'd be happy to wear that.

Trantula..
Makes perfect sense to me, I got some colors (came with the kit), nothing special, but im going to mess around with them on the "other" half of that pork belly. I was looking at some inks the other day, dont even remeber what the site was but i like the Bowery Stan colors, very warm tones. Since i do alot of pinup type stuff in my other art, I may as well employee it with this as well and see what happens! Thanks for the great advice!
viper

The new skin and ink magazine covers this very subject. good read.

Mark

good magazine...I met Dave Nestler, the dude that does the pin up paintings for the magazine earlier this year at a convention.

When doing b&g I almost always work light to dark. That is the way I'm being taught. unless of course you're whip shading.