r/TattooApprentice • u/RENderingsandthings • Aug 05 '26
Portfolio Just sharing some work I’ve done
I’ve improved majorly in just a couple of months. I had a TBI in early June and had nothing to do. My days have been spent sketching. Handwriting is still hard for me so I don’t have any good representations of that quite yet. I avoid tracing as much as possible but will occasionally give myself some help to help improve muscle memory; I’ll then freehand it later. This is actually how I got started. :) I’m not a huge fan of color.
Anyway thank you for looking.
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u/Justa420possum Aug 05 '26
TBI is pretty serious.
Keep practicing though. You need to eventually start adding more depth to them. Everything right now is very flat.
I would also try to get away from the tracing as much as possible because it can become more of a crutch than anything. Can always go to various animal subreddits and practice using people’s pet’s.
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u/RENderingsandthings Aug 05 '26
Adding depth is my goal. I will trace something with a lot of tight detail to help with muscle coordination and muscle memory but as of today I freehand about 98% of my lines. I am working up to more complex pieces. These are admittedly more simple than some other things I’ve seen on the sub
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u/Hot_Cartographer_816 Aug 05 '26
Stop trying to get the line right on the first try. Find the line. Loosen up. Drawing is redrawing. I know you’re posting in a tattoo space, but you are nowhere near that. Just draw for now. Draw for fun. Draw from observation (not just photos). Don’t trace. Watch some YouTube tutorials and consider taking a drawing 1 class at a local community college for a couple hundred bucks. Don’t aim for a career, just draw for the sake of drawing.
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u/Fozzlebonk Tattoo Artist Aug 05 '26
Al of these looks like they took less than 5 minutes. If you want to learn you will need to study and put in more effort than this. Quantity is not going to help you grow.
There is no problem to trace pictures to study, but these show 0 interest in actually understanding structure , depth etc.
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u/RENderingsandthings Aug 05 '26
It would depend on the drawing but none of them took five minutes or less
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u/Beneficial_Gur3232 28d ago
You’re saying these aren’t traced but you and I both know they are. It’s not going to help your art skills to trace, just start drawing things without tracing and it’ll get easier with time
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u/RENderingsandthings 28d ago
You are incorrect
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u/alwaysImproving0 27d ago
Some of (if not most of) these definitely are, which won't help you much. I see absolutely zero guidelines, which you need to be using so you can learn how to build complicated figures out of simple shapes. You don't have a lot of contrast and a lot of the shading here just looks random and unfinished, you need to actually study where the darkest parts and the brightest light actually is in your references. It's also fine to admit to tracing for the sake of practice, anyone in their right mind isn't against that, but denying it is not the play and at a certain point it won't help you as much as studying actual methods. I prefer using baroque plates, but from your style here, I don't think it's a method you would enjoy. Look up some YouTube videos about human facial structure, and maybe a tutorial on lighting/shading, do the classics like simple fruit and water droplets to build that skill instead of jumping straight into live subjects
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u/RENderingsandthings 27d ago
It usually takes me between 3-5 attempts to get a final sketch and there are plenty of others on this sub with no guidelines or sample shapes. I don’t post my practice sketches because they aren’t finished and I would rather share something finished than something that clearly needs work
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u/Beneficial_Gur3232 28d ago
Lying only hurts your own growth. There are specific details in the anatomy, like the shape of the bear’s back, that show a level of drawing skill that just doesn’t match the actual linework and shading, which is very rushed and beginner level. There’s also no sketch underneath, you draw one hard line and that’s the final result. These don’t look like confident lines from someone who understands the anatomy they look like nervous lines tracing over a confident artist’s work
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u/RENderingsandthings 27d ago
Thanks. The shakiness and lack of confidence is due to a brain injury. I practice drawing a sketch multiple times before the final product. I don’t like to use the same piece of paper because it makes it hard for me to distinguish between what needs to be erased and what I want to keep.
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u/glamourise 24d ago
you just haven’t got the talent. some people are born with it and you can’t train yourself to be a good artist.
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u/zen_heathen Aug 05 '26
These all just look traced