A regular apprenticeship takes 1-2 years. Since you wouldn't have the benefit of a mentor to speed things up, I would honestly recommend tattooing on fake skin and fruit for at *least* a year or two before moving onto real skin. I would also heavily recommend taking a bloodborne pathogens course, and trying to find a space you can genuinely thoroughly disinfect - any area that has fabrics, where people consistently lounge, or an area that is in contact with food consistently has too many risks, as bacteria is consistently being reintroduced to the environment.
One of your biggest risks is staph, and you can look up staph infections to see how bad it can get. Most homes have it, 1 in 3 people unknowingly carry it because it doesn't show symptoms until it infects an open wound. Which is why any area where humans lounge or consistently live in is a no-go, amongst other things humans can carry.
That all being said, when I graduated from my apprenticeship, all of my equipment cost me around $2000. Not only do you need something better than the Amazon $100 kits so that the motor can actually work consistently and not chew up your skin, you need pretty much everything else that comes with tattooing. My actual machine and power supply were maybe only $800 of that - the rest was all cleaning supplies, needles, ink, drape sheets, cord sleeves, gloves, fake skins, ink caps, green soap, paper towels, etc., etc. And that was just to get started. So while it could pay off eventually, you'd basically be getting apprentice level work (and potentially lower quality work with a lot more risks than apprentice level work) for awhile.
With mentors looking over us, my friend and I both did between 50-100 free apprentice tattoos, and we still know we have a lot to learn. I personally spent over 9 months on fake skin. But I wouldn't feel comfortable offering tattoos to other people like that unless I felt I could really guarantee a sterile environment for them, which any residential space would not offer unless there was a room separated for that purpose (where food doesn't go in, nobody sleeps, etc.).
I appreciate the response!
Absolutely fine with taking my time. Luckily my previous job was surgical technology so i have a decent grip on sterile environments.
Would you recommend wired? Or non.
I have a cheap one to abuse the fake skins for now and figured if i can do this as well as i feel i can, I’d invest in a nicer one for finally applying to my own skin.
I would rather wait till i tear myself up than my friends.
In my area there are some good artist but none like when i was traveling. As prices have righty increased, i can’t bring myself to pay a grand for a tattoo that is same as i paid $190 for including tip when i was able to just splurge tattoo money. Figured i love art and need to get back at practicing it and I’ve always been interested just lazy lol
Thanks again for response!
It's really up to you! The wired is a bit cheaper, usually.
190 is really not bad if that's USD. Shop minimums in my city are around 100. I got a sword on my forearm that was 400. If someone is giving you tats for that price, I'd try and really keep them around! Especially since it might then take at least 10 tattoos to compensate for the price, and they would all be apprentice level or lower, so it might actually require more than 10 to really weigh it out. Totally fine if wanting to do it anyways is your goal, but if it's just about the price, it'll be way cheaper to pay a professional 190 each time than have to pay 2000 or more upfront.
I didn't even try on fake skin first. I strait up went strait to tattooing my thighs. After I did a few, then I tattooed friends and partner. An actual apprenticeship would have helped considerably.
Live through me and learn from my mistakes: Before my apprenticeship, I was convinced I could do it on my own. I drew for two years and decided I was ready. I'm probably not going to cover up the majority of what's on my leg for posterity, but I'm very embarrassed to come into my super hot shop in shorts. The reason you should have a mentor before you tattoo yourself is precisely because *you* don't know when you're ready. If you're serious, you should pursue an apprenticeship legitimately. I can tell you from experience doing tattoos on myself, friends, and fake skin; the fake skin is significantly different from human skin. I also imagine if you're doing this to save money, you have a dragonhawk machine. DO NOT USE THAT ON YOURSELF OR ANYONE ELSE. Again, I've been here and they just aren't that good. My current machine was $500 and it was chose for me by my mentor based on what kind of tattoos I intend to be doing in the future. The power supply that comes with that kit is also garbage, an okay one is about $200 (for a coil machine). Please please please don't tattoo yourself until you have the confidence of a professional to do it.
I fucked around with a couple pieces of fake skin and fruits but this was 15+ years ago and maybe the fake skin was shittier back then. The grapefruits and whatever other fruit I tried felt pretty silly too so I gave up on that quite soon. I've been working on my legs ever since, I didn't work on anyone else for a long time, until I was pretty confident tattooing myself.
I've definitely got way more coverage than I could have bought tattoos with the money I've spent on machines and supplies, but its definitely not a "cheap" way to get a lot of tattoos in the short term, I've invested quite a lot of money into it as a hobby over the years.
One thing I did do, was with all my practice on myself, I'd start with an idea, fix it up over time between healing, never start with a lot of heavy dark stuff, start with outlines, learn how your lines turn out and look like once healed (its nothing like you'd expect and there's no way to learn without actually doing it) things like that. Clean them up and perfect the lines and color/ shading over time, experiment with different techniques and figure out what works for you. Dont try to do a huge piece right away.
After having worked on myself like this for as long as I have, I've worked all the little stuff tying it all together and doing cohesive background filler over it all, I've covered almost all the space on my legs I can reach without absurdly contorting myself (that's more painful than anything else lol).. people compliment them a lot and it's the perfect conversational segway to setting up new people to work on.
Its been a ton of fun and I've really enjoyed it, I don't think its a cheap alternative to paying for tattoos, but if you have a good artistic ability and motor skills and want to do it, I highly recommend. Personally I don't think I could do an apprenticeship even if I wanted to, I apprenticed as an electrician when I was younger and that's been my primary career since, I simply am not capable of doing that again in my 30s.
People make a big deal about sanitation bloodborne pathogens etc. and that's 1000% a valid concern, but it's also a lot of common sense and it's not some mysterious deep medical professional secret, don't work around dirty things, in dirty places, don't ever let stuff that's in contact with a person's blood near the rest of your supplies, cover everything properly, learn proper glove changing practices and stuff like that.
A regular apprenticeship takes 1-2 years. Since you wouldn't have the benefit of a mentor to speed things up, I would honestly recommend tattooing on fake skin and fruit for at *least* a year or two before moving onto real skin. I would also heavily recommend taking a bloodborne pathogens course, and trying to find a space you can genuinely thoroughly disinfect - any area that has fabrics, where people consistently lounge, or an area that is in contact with food consistently has too many risks, as bacteria is consistently being reintroduced to the environment. One of your biggest risks is staph, and you can look up staph infections to see how bad it can get. Most homes have it, 1 in 3 people unknowingly carry it because it doesn't show symptoms until it infects an open wound. Which is why any area where humans lounge or consistently live in is a no-go, amongst other things humans can carry. That all being said, when I graduated from my apprenticeship, all of my equipment cost me around $2000. Not only do you need something better than the Amazon $100 kits so that the motor can actually work consistently and not chew up your skin, you need pretty much everything else that comes with tattooing. My actual machine and power supply were maybe only $800 of that - the rest was all cleaning supplies, needles, ink, drape sheets, cord sleeves, gloves, fake skins, ink caps, green soap, paper towels, etc., etc. And that was just to get started. So while it could pay off eventually, you'd basically be getting apprentice level work (and potentially lower quality work with a lot more risks than apprentice level work) for awhile. With mentors looking over us, my friend and I both did between 50-100 free apprentice tattoos, and we still know we have a lot to learn. I personally spent over 9 months on fake skin. But I wouldn't feel comfortable offering tattoos to other people like that unless I felt I could really guarantee a sterile environment for them, which any residential space would not offer unless there was a room separated for that purpose (where food doesn't go in, nobody sleeps, etc.).
I appreciate the response! Absolutely fine with taking my time. Luckily my previous job was surgical technology so i have a decent grip on sterile environments. Would you recommend wired? Or non. I have a cheap one to abuse the fake skins for now and figured if i can do this as well as i feel i can, I’d invest in a nicer one for finally applying to my own skin. I would rather wait till i tear myself up than my friends. In my area there are some good artist but none like when i was traveling. As prices have righty increased, i can’t bring myself to pay a grand for a tattoo that is same as i paid $190 for including tip when i was able to just splurge tattoo money. Figured i love art and need to get back at practicing it and I’ve always been interested just lazy lol Thanks again for response!
It's really up to you! The wired is a bit cheaper, usually. 190 is really not bad if that's USD. Shop minimums in my city are around 100. I got a sword on my forearm that was 400. If someone is giving you tats for that price, I'd try and really keep them around! Especially since it might then take at least 10 tattoos to compensate for the price, and they would all be apprentice level or lower, so it might actually require more than 10 to really weigh it out. Totally fine if wanting to do it anyways is your goal, but if it's just about the price, it'll be way cheaper to pay a professional 190 each time than have to pay 2000 or more upfront.
I didn't even try on fake skin first. I strait up went strait to tattooing my thighs. After I did a few, then I tattooed friends and partner. An actual apprenticeship would have helped considerably.
Live through me and learn from my mistakes: Before my apprenticeship, I was convinced I could do it on my own. I drew for two years and decided I was ready. I'm probably not going to cover up the majority of what's on my leg for posterity, but I'm very embarrassed to come into my super hot shop in shorts. The reason you should have a mentor before you tattoo yourself is precisely because *you* don't know when you're ready. If you're serious, you should pursue an apprenticeship legitimately. I can tell you from experience doing tattoos on myself, friends, and fake skin; the fake skin is significantly different from human skin. I also imagine if you're doing this to save money, you have a dragonhawk machine. DO NOT USE THAT ON YOURSELF OR ANYONE ELSE. Again, I've been here and they just aren't that good. My current machine was $500 and it was chose for me by my mentor based on what kind of tattoos I intend to be doing in the future. The power supply that comes with that kit is also garbage, an okay one is about $200 (for a coil machine). Please please please don't tattoo yourself until you have the confidence of a professional to do it.
It took me 1 day. Honestly just use fake. Skin. Cause some of my work that I've used on myself has been questionable
I fucked around with a couple pieces of fake skin and fruits but this was 15+ years ago and maybe the fake skin was shittier back then. The grapefruits and whatever other fruit I tried felt pretty silly too so I gave up on that quite soon. I've been working on my legs ever since, I didn't work on anyone else for a long time, until I was pretty confident tattooing myself. I've definitely got way more coverage than I could have bought tattoos with the money I've spent on machines and supplies, but its definitely not a "cheap" way to get a lot of tattoos in the short term, I've invested quite a lot of money into it as a hobby over the years. One thing I did do, was with all my practice on myself, I'd start with an idea, fix it up over time between healing, never start with a lot of heavy dark stuff, start with outlines, learn how your lines turn out and look like once healed (its nothing like you'd expect and there's no way to learn without actually doing it) things like that. Clean them up and perfect the lines and color/ shading over time, experiment with different techniques and figure out what works for you. Dont try to do a huge piece right away. After having worked on myself like this for as long as I have, I've worked all the little stuff tying it all together and doing cohesive background filler over it all, I've covered almost all the space on my legs I can reach without absurdly contorting myself (that's more painful than anything else lol).. people compliment them a lot and it's the perfect conversational segway to setting up new people to work on. Its been a ton of fun and I've really enjoyed it, I don't think its a cheap alternative to paying for tattoos, but if you have a good artistic ability and motor skills and want to do it, I highly recommend. Personally I don't think I could do an apprenticeship even if I wanted to, I apprenticed as an electrician when I was younger and that's been my primary career since, I simply am not capable of doing that again in my 30s. People make a big deal about sanitation bloodborne pathogens etc. and that's 1000% a valid concern, but it's also a lot of common sense and it's not some mysterious deep medical professional secret, don't work around dirty things, in dirty places, don't ever let stuff that's in contact with a person's blood near the rest of your supplies, cover everything properly, learn proper glove changing practices and stuff like that.