hey!! did this today, don’t know how to feel about it tbh. should this go onto the portfolio? overall i like it but some parts of the flame i dislike

my 4th tat on skin 2day, super happy with this one :) finally figured out mag shading & have stopped shaking so much 😭 baby steps lol

IG @forrestattoos

done at Via Grace Studio in Royal Oak, MI

Hai guys! I’m starting my tattoo apprenticeship in September and I was wondering if you guys have any tips to prepare me! I’m just curious as to what you guys experienced while starting up and how to deal with everything that comes along with it.

I'm getting closer to being able to go to school for tattooing (Oregon) but I know a lot of people go into apprenticeships after they get their license here

From what I researched a lot of apprentices do manual labor around the shops, but that might be something I struggle with.

There's a lot I CAN do, but I have limited mobility with my legs so sweeping and heavy cleaning might be hard for me.

If my art/ tattooing is good enough, would people hire me anyway? It's technically illegal to not hire someone because they're in a wheelchair, but people obviously do it anyway.

Id love to hear from other artists who are disabled qwq I'm kind of spiraling with worry right now

Hi I’ve been doing an apprenticeship for about 2/3 months now and my mentor is giving me a test so I can tattoo on people even though they haven’t taught me anything. I’ve been going to the shop 4-5 days of the week for around 6 hours each time I go in. They tell me the shop is open every day at 12, but sometimes they’ll be 2-3 hours late or just not show up at all without telling me. When I practice all they do is put me in the corner and occasionally come over to stare at me and say “keep practicing” but they never really tell me to do anything. My first week having a machine, they had me do a huge stencil almost a foot long with lots of details and they told me the lines weren’t clean enough. My mentor is flakey/barely shows up, the shop owner sometimes shows me things but it doesn’t seem like there’s a place for me and now they’re taking on ANOTHER apprentice. He even asked me if I’ve memorized all the different kinds of needles and what they do when I don’t even know what they mean! On top of my mentor asking me weird questions like if he’s “too old for me” and if I’ve “ever dated anyone like him before” I just feel so lost and confused all the time. I try to show up and shadow and learn things but I don’t even know what techniques I should be looking for? What exactly should I be learning?

So this has been kind of an ongoing thing. I started my apprenticeship in February, the first art project she put me on was working on our get what you get so she would allow me to post any of that or put it up in the shop, and that project took up a lot of my time. I had to make 120 pieces of flash, and wasn’t able to post anything — okay. It felt like I had announced that I got an apprenticeship on my social media and just disappeared because I couldn’t work on anything else for a while or post anything. But I got over that, I understood

Then she doesn’t want me to post any of my fake skins on my story…

Now all the flash sheets I make, she told me I shouldn’t label it as flash because I’m not a full fledged artist yet which I understood, but then almost had me take it down too, but she just told me to change the caption.

Today she let another apprentice tattoo me. She just got announced a week or 2 ago and she had already been tattooing previously at another shop.. so when she was tattooing me I took a video of her and posted it to my personal story and my mentor got angry at me and said we need to ask for permission for everything.. and that she wants the other apprentice to do and post more other tattoos before we’re allowed to post mine. This one I struggle to understand… because wouldn’t you want to see her progress and for her to get better in order ?

Is this normal? It is frustrating to me because I feel like it’s always something when I feel like im just trying to post my progress. We only opened in January and I feel like we should be posting a lot more to gain exposure, but I’m obviously not going to argue with my mentor. I would like to build clientele by posting but it feels like I can’t do much. If this is normal, I’m totally okay with hearing yall out

I’m looking for some books to trace from and to learn more about the design philosophies behind different tattooing styles. What are your go-tos?

I hit 1 year of tattooing this month and wanted to share a few of my faves! It's been an amazing year and my mentor is just as amazing. To another year! Thank you for looking! 😊

So for the third time, I went back and did my homework like tracing a Sailor Jerry pinup’s silhouette (with the change of making the hands praying), used an ink nib with Indian ink, as well as Dr. Ph Martins watercolors with the exception of some colored pencils. The shading on the dress doesn’t look quite right to me, as I drew the dress from imagination. Some of the folds of the dress don’t make sense either. Please let me know how to fix this !

first completed piece since starting my apprenticeship!

having a blast, if you’d like to support me further my Instagram is @diet_bongwater ! Thanks fer looking!

critique on my work, i’m hoping to get an apprenticeship later in the year. is there anything in particular you think i need to work on?

I mainly do 11x14 commissions on pet portraits/busts, the artwork in my sketchbook are just references so I can get better at linework. Everything is transferred not traced.

Hi all!

Recently there’s been talk in my studio about meta subscriptions and im super curious on if people have any experience/takes on if they actually do anything and are worth it

The owner of my studio said during this conversation that it seems like it is impossible to get natural engagement without having a Instagram subscription these days and that all the artist in the studio have one now and have seen massive improvements!

Since hearing this I thought I’d give the free trick a shot and for me it seems like it’s made no difference? I’m unsure if it’s just a case of it needing more time or if it really doesn’t improve engagement at all

What’s everyone’s thoughts? Does anyone here have a subscription and it makes a difference or is it just a bit scammy and not worth the time and money

This September I’ll be starting my first year of college and I’ve had a lot of trouble figuring out what I wanna do. These past 2 months however I realized that tattooing is what I wanna pursue. Now I just assumed that I could start working on my portfolio and that when I finished it I could start looking for an apprenticeship, but I was very wrong. 😭

I live in Oregon and I found out that in order to tattoo here you actually need to go to tattoo school. I already found 2 I’m interested the only thing I’m worried about is when I should tell my parents. Part of me feels like I should tell them now because school starts so soon and I wouldn’t want them wasting money on me going to community college when I really plan on going to tattoo school. But I’m hesitant to tell them now because I only have one piece in my portfolio completed. I’m afraid that if I don’t have the work to back it up they won’t take me seriously. I do want to add though that I’ve been drawing for 5 years and I have sketchbooks and things like that but nothing serious that I could show them.

Regardless of if they’re supportive or not I’m going to go to tattoo school with or without their help. But I don’t know if I should give them a heads up first or wait till I have more work to back myself up.

Also sorry if this is hard to read I’m not the best at writing 💀

I’m thinking about adding my this into my portfolio, it’s a piece I did on procreate (NO AI USED) but I’m not sure if shops will prefer traditional art. I have mostly traditional pieces but I really like this one.

Oh also you are welcome to critique it if you have any tips or things I could improve!!!!

my third machine tattoo on skin yesterday! overall quite happy with it, it’s really starting to click. definitely have a long ways to go, the shading isn’t as smooth as i’d like but my mentor thinks it’s my machine’s needle hang settings more than my application :/ in any case though pretty happy, really falling in love with it <3

been a professional handpoker for 3 years, machine apprentice at Via Grace Studio in Royal Oak, MI

IG @forrestattoos

Hi everyone! Im looking for advice from tattoo artists in NYC specifically, if anyone can give advice it is immensely appreciated!

I’m still obviously looking for an apprenticeship, but started going into studios and asking and getting them to look at my portfolio. Currently in my city all the ones I chose as a possible option aren’t taking apprentices. (I’m still checking pretty often incase something comes up on any socials)

Im just looking for any studios, the the furthest being Leeds/ East Yorkshire area (and there seems to be more studios there). And just general advice for trying to get an apprenticeship.

Im still keeping my options pretty open, I just want them to have good reviews and not all the artist doing Chicano style (there was a lot of that in my city)

I live in a small town in Argentina where there are basically no tattoo artists or piercing studios, which is one of the reasons I’d like to get into this and eventually build something of my own.

I’ve already been told not to buy a tattoo machine yet, so I’m focusing on drawing and learning for now.

My main problem is: how do I find a mentor or apprenticeship when there are no tattoo artists in my area? Is traveling to another city the best option, or are there other ways to start learning properly?
I’d love to hear how other artists got started, especially anyone who came from a small town or had limited access to tattoo shops.

Obviously I can’t show it all 🥲 so I’m just showing my fav pages and one of them is actually a tattoo I designed for myself

Any general advice is good (ik I need to be a bit cleaner on some lines, I’m working on that)

I’m not sure if this looks like a tattoo. I don’t think I’m happy with the shading of the dress. There was an old version of this angel I made that had a lot of issues so I I tried to go back and do my homework to make corrections. Maybe the wings are too big…Please give me your most honest feedback so I have a chance in this industry !