How I became a Tattoo Artist (it was tough)

if you're looking into becoming a tattoo artist it is possible to do it online by yourself but today I'll be talking about the importance of a tattoo apprenticeship and how I became a tattoo artist let's get started the first recommendation I have is to create a tattoo portfolio this is the one I made it's a A4 folder it's very easy to carry around when you're applying to tattoo studios it's entirely up to you if you want to do it digitally or on paper some good good qualities to have when you're looking for your apprenticeship is to be patient and also be willing to move to another city or country this is because it's not likely that you'll find an opportunity in your area as most tattoo studios aren't really looking for any apprentices the first ever experience that I had in a tattoo studio was in a small student city in vburg Germany it was great to see how a very high-end professional Tattoo Studio looked and I was asked to be the intern to do social media marketing and to translate their website from German to English unfortunately after 4 months of working there they told me that they didn't actually have time to teach me how to tattoo this was my sole purpose of being there so being quite bummed out I quit and I moved on to looking for other opportunities after this first internship I started working in a restaurant to earn money and 6 months later I found the next apprenticeship in Munich Germany I was very excited so I decided to set up my apartment and my second job on the side during this time I went to Berlin and Amsterdam for holiday just for fun I decided to keep an eye out for any other opportunities that might come along I stumbled across a tattoo studio in the center with a Japanese neotraditional and realistic artist I was blown away by the work and I applied I walked into the studio and I didn't have my folio with me so I just showed him my drawings on Instagram after a couple of weeks I didn't hear anything back so I assumed it was a noo one week before moving day I received a call from the owner asking me if I still want to work there I was quite troubled as I've already set up everything for Munich in the end I made the hard decision to go to Amsterdam so I cancelled everything and went to the studio that I thought was a better quality I definitely think I made the right choice going going with my gut and going to the studio in Amsterdam in the beginning of my apprenticeship I would do a lot of drawing a lot I did cleaning of the studio talking to clients and basic managing I was lucky enough to get paid a little bit while I was doing the cleaning because on the side I had another job at the restaurant to of course keep paying my bills but for any normal apprenticeship you can expect to get nothing for all your work normally you would have another side job such such as working in a restaurant bar or club you name it to pay your basic living bills and Amsterdam is not a cheap place to live after around 4 months of drawing I was finally allowed to pick up my first tattoo machine I started out on fake skin and it was really helpful to learn different techniques and also about the different kind of needles and their sizes once I had improved quite a bit on fake skin I was allowed to move on to real skin AKA real people I started out on myself doing a few small tattoos on my leg and then I was able to tattoo my friends this was a really good practice to get comfortable with the skin and the process when you start tattooing as an apprentice the pressure is quite heavy you don't want to ruin anyone's skin of course I was receiving a lot of feedback and criticism which I was able to take but at some point it was a bit too much I was drawing every day for homework I was working at the restaurant and had long hours at the studio with all of this combined the pressure was too much for me and I just had to quit it was very unfortunate but I think it was the right decision so in the end I worked for the studio for one year and I learned so much I learned how to draw how to clean and how to respect the industry I think this is a very important point and something that you definitely do learn in an apprenticeship besides that I learned that it's very very important to take criticism but also make sure that it's useful criticism I had 2 months of a burnout and I was completely demotivated after that I finally got back on my feet and decided to apply to other Studios to see if I could finish my apprenticeship luckily I didn't have to wait too long and I got an opportunity in a big studio in the heart of Amsterdam I started here as an apprentice and I saw so many different techniques from different artists as they had a lot of guests artists coming in I would ask the artists if I could watch them while they work and I was even able to try different machines from them now this helped me a lot because as an apprentice buying a machine is very expensive so if you're able to try different ones and then make your decision on which one fits your hand best after around 6 months I finally graduated to tattoo artist yay it was a big motivating thing for me to finally accomplish my dream job having all these experiences has humbled me a lot within this industry and really makes me appreciate the whole process from starting to look for an apprenticeship until graduating to tattoo artist took me around 2 years to complete something that's very important is that you don't give up because this industry can be quite tough on you so that's the story of how I became a tattoo artist if you have any questions or if you want to share your own experiences let me know in the comments thanks for watching and have a nice day

Channel: Life of Chihiro

Views: 333

Keywords: tattoo artist, tattoo apprentice, learn to tattoo, tattoo journey, japanese artist, how to tattoo, tattoo for beginners, tattoo artist journey, tattoos, inked, japanese art, dragon tattoos, tattoo help, tattoo advice, tattoo machine, tattoo girl, body art, inked girls, art, design

Id: uLom4O0txaE

Length: 6min 3sec (363 seconds)

Published: Sat May 18 2024