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Hey dude.

First of all, good tattoo artists can do the job with all kinds of machines. From what I understand, many of them use cheyennes because they are probably sponsored by them.

Anyway. You talk about realism but thats very vague. Are you talking about colour realism or black and gray?
Colour Realism requires Packing and blending, while black and gray requires shading to bare skin.

Now, the thunder is 4mm right? and I think the spirit is 2.8mm if i am not mistaken.
Well a 4mm machine spends more time in the tube and thus gathers more ink to then pack into the skin.

A 2.8mm machine will spend less time in the tube thus gathering less ink on its way to the skin.

So basically thats why a 3.5mm-4.2mm machine is good for color, while a 2.8mm-3.(something) machine is good for black and gray shading.

So its up to you mate, according to what kind of style you have.

Now, if you cant afford 2 machines and so have to choose between a light or a hard rotary, then I would suggest you buy a rotary that can be adjusted. Maybe the Spektra Edge X from FKIrons which goes from 2.8 to 4.2

Hope that helps bro :)

I mainly meant for the colour realistic tattoos.
I'm talking about people who use Spirit most of the time.
I don't understand why they are using it for large colour realistic pieces(sometimes hyperrealistic) while (how you said) the thunder packs more ink into the skin and also that is a more developed machine.
So can someone explain to me why does the most popular tattoo artist use Spirit (for colour realistic tattoos) instead of Thunder?

I have a shagbuilt rotary. It has a 4mm stroke. I use it for everything, lineing, shadeing, colorpacking. I Think you need to look at your work when They come back. See what dosent look like it was supposed to. Remser what technique you used and then change it. I think you should be able to change the way you tattoo instead of changing the machine. I also have a soft shader from dringenberg, but if i set it up right, i Can allso Pack color with it.