Story time!

So I as curious to hear how everyone got into tattooing, if you are a professional? how was your apprenticeship? What steps did you take to become a tattoo artist? What made you want to tattoo? What steps should someone who wants to be a tattoo artist make to achieve that goal? If you could give one piece of advice to an up and comer what would it be?

I look forward to the answers from anyone willing to share their story and maybe it will help some of us here.

Started scratching at 18 for the 'fame and the glory', some local status. I'd been engraving glass and soft metals for a few years for extra pocket money. Bought some crap kit off a guy who gave me very little (and poor) advice on how to get going. Started with local youngsters doing covers for free, then after a few months started charging (looking back i was busy earning not alot). Carried on for 12 years, a bit stop start at times, but improving my own 'found' techniques along the way. In the process I did a few art courses and ended up at university, tattooed loads of fellow students over the 3 years (fish in a barrel scenario) then got a 'grown-up' job that demanded a lot of time and attention, so the machines got packed in the loft for 20 years.

Diifferent scenario now, different mindset. Couldn't care less about the fame and the glory and my focus is completely on doing good work (if I'm capable).

Learnt alot from people on this forum, quite a bit from YouTube, devoured 'machinegun' magzine for machine tuning knowledge, did a couple of days one-to-one 'intensive training' recently and practising like mad on fake and pig skin. Feeling ready to go again.

Included: a few bits from the past (mid to late 80s) - pre-digital photography so images are scarce (maybe for the best  ).

i don't think i seen those before whippet, better than i imagined...

i'm still living my story... and sorry i need all the tips i can get to hoard for myself.

my fella did half an apprenticeship before going to prison and he showed me a few things so i dabbled for a bit , i didn't really throw myslef into it untill i lost a baby and needed a distraction , so threw my self into tattooing , couldnt get an apprenticeship , then i found one with a guy who turned out to be a fraud , then merit helped me a bit then i was lucky to be chosen for the welsh stars project and was lucky to get government funded training for my tattooing , then i opened the business in 2013 , and i was the first person in powys to open a fully licensed mobile tattoo business , but i would not have done any of it with out merit , and the forum , the goverment funded training was to cover the basics , first aid , bbp training , and art classes , and i was the only one out of 35 people chose for the stars project to go on and open a business , so it may be small but its mine

Whippet- sounds good mate, lots of practice and you can achieve the work your aiming for, that's my mindset anyhow. Trying to draw and do some simple tattoos as much as I can. Hopefully I'll build my confidence up to doing some more complex tattoos soon and improve with practice.

Lou- the fact that you've overcome everything and now have your own business (no matter how small) is amazing. Where to in Powys do you work?


Iv always been intrested in tattoos from a young age, watchin my parents sleeves and backpieces slowly growing.
I had a plan in my head to try to get an apprenticeship, but my daughter was diagnosed with cancer in 2011 so that slowed things down, then a couple more sprogs came along and never really had the time to do anything. Iv been slowly getting into it over the last couple of years but still have a very long way to go. With help from this forum in sure I'll get their in the end...

Lou, I came across your Facebook page - you got a lot of nice stuff up there

tyler im licensed for north and south powys so its a pretty big area i cover , but i try to stay as local as possible to be honest only because im not a great traveler , and yeah its been a long and rocky road but im still here and breathing , it sounds like you know how the rough road feels , i hope your daughter is ok


thank you whippet

Loulou wrote:tyler im licensed for north and south powys so its a pretty big area i cover , but i try to stay as local as possible to be honest only because im not a great traveler  , and yeah its been a long and rocky road but im still here and breathing , it sounds like you know how the rough road feels , i hope your daughter is ok
 

Yeah i know the rough road lol, but she's better now thanks.
Was asking where you work cos I know Powys is massive lol and couldn't imagine travelling all over.
I enquired to my council about getting licenced for going mobile,  but they prety much told me to piss off coz it's not allowed in my borough. I wanted to be licenced more for the fact that there are a lot of wankers out there that will report me out of spite cos iv refused to tattoo them, plus it opens up the door to practice with some of the more simple tattoos.

my council told me excatly the same thing untill i pointed out that if i can be insured to do it then legally you cant stop me , once they knew that i knew my shit , they where behind me 100 % to be fair

Hmm, I'll have to look into it a bit more...
Thanks Lou