I've been using my time off to create a myspace where I can show my work and add every tattoo studio and artist I can find. I've also been contacting friends of mine who are tattooists or training tattooists to either trade artworks or to work on collaborative flash sheets.
From now until we break up for the year I'm going to be working on a portfolio to take around tattoo shops to show them my work and hopefully gain an apprenticeship with.
Already done a few weeks apprenticeship at a local tattooists but they had to let me go because there was not enough time to teach me. They did teach my enough to be able to tattoo on my own and it gave me the foot in the door that I needed.
I've tattooed myself a few times and my friend to get use to using the machines. Which weighs a good few pounds and vibrates so getting a straight line is going to take alot of practice.
Heres some pictures from Tattoo artists I admire. Each one has their own distinct style.
Leah Moule - Birmingham
Valerie Vargas - London
Steve Byrne - London
As for making a living the usual rate for an hour's tattooing is £60 or more. On a fully booked 10am-6pm day with an hours break you will easily get £400+ a day.
To reach my goal I need to start collecting reference material as every tattoo artist will have shelves of books on every subject becasue you never know what you will be asked to do.
http://www.doverbooks.co.uk/ are perfect for this.
Also I need to improve my faces and figures.
Learn about muscle structure and how a tattoo will move on the skin.
Improve my watercolour and wash techniques.
And absorb as much information as I can. The tattoo magazines Total Tattoo & Skin Deep are great for interviews with Artists, Photographs from Conventions and seeing what work is being made.
Re-read my Fundamentals of modern tattooing book and create a folder of all the things I need to remember.
The hard part will be getting my hands on any copies of Tattoo Master magazine as it is only sold to registered tattoo shops. So I will have to pester my tattooist friends for old copies. It is a trade only magazine full of information on how to tattoo. It goes to show how closely guarded the tattoo industry is.
UPDATE: Taking my portfolio with me when I get tattooed on the 15th and they're going to go through it with me and give me help. Also they are lending me their copies of Tattoo Masters magazines. My friend who got an apprenticeship with her portfolio told me that I need to show portraits so here's a few in progress.
Conventional
Unconventional
2 comments:
you should get in touch with Evelyn Lindsay from last year's third years, she was well into tattooing,
On the illustration side, I expect to see a portfolio of designs, because at the end of the day, it doesn't matter how good you are with the machine, if your designs are average!
So for your mock interview, you had better show us some designs which show an individual style and several thematic approaches
check hector fong
Have a couple of books on Traditional Japanese so I'm going to try and slip some of those in to.
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