Читать книгу Learn the art of Tattooing - Become a Tattoo artist - Dennis Nowakowski - Страница 8

Talent helps - but it is not everything

A little story

A beginner tattoo artist comes to a five star restaurant. As he sifts through the menu, the chef who is a great admirer of his work, recognizes him. He speaks to him.

“I am a great fan of your work. You must have a great tattoo machine and great colors.”

The tattoo artist smiles and nods friendly. After a five-course meal, he calls the chef to his table and says,

“A truly magnificent meal. I am thrilled. You must have a great stove and really good pots.”

It's a fairly well-known story, which I rewrote a little bit. Making a good job depend entirely on tools and materials is nonsense. A craftsman is only as good as his tools. Without talent or enough practice, the best tattoo machine in the world won't do you any good. If you don't have the talent in the first place, it only helps to practice.

“I can't even draw stick figures - how can I become a tattoo artist?”

If I got one euro for every person who uttered that sentence, I could take months off work. Why is everyone convinced that you have to be a brilliant draughtsman or inker to deliver beautiful tattoos? I know many tattoo artists who have never drawn before and are now respected tattoo artists. You just have to realize that it is a learned profession, as any profession is. Nobody masters something perfectly the first time. Nobody is born into the world as a brain surgeon, racing driver or banker. These are all skills that we have to learn. The only question is how good you want to be. For each area there are specialists and professionals who stand out from the standard workers because they can do more or are more precise. As a rule, it takes three years to learn a profession. Most people think that's it. To master something really well, no matter what, an average type of worker needs seven years. This is no joke, it's scientifically proven. There's no need to throw in the towel now. If you could do anything, you wouldn't need this book.

A standard education helps

A solid apprenticeship occupation can therefore not hurt. At the very least, it would be an emergency plan in case the desired career as an artist doesn't work out right away. This way you can, at least at the beginning, provide for a regular income and spend your free time learning about drawing, needles and colors. Invest as much time as possible in your hobby, as I call it for now. Getting a good feel for shapes, line work and shading is a solid step forward. Colors and color combinations are often an art themselves, but they develop over time. Look intensively at many pictures and motifs. Pay attention to light edges, shadows and how shadows cast on objects. Brightness, contrast and color intensity are also dynamic factors.

Skin is not paper

You can’t compare inking on white paper with inking skin. Skin doesn’t lie smooth in front of you or keeps permanently still. It belongs to a sentient person, to whom you can cause extreme pain if you approach the matter too brutally. Physical pain is followed by psychic pain if you mess up the motive. These statements should not deter you from your intention, they should make you think. How would you react if someone torments you for several hours and the desired result looks like anything but your chosen motif? You would be really angry. That's exactly what the customer is if he doesn't get gentle treatment and solid workmanship. The term “butcher” is widespread in the scene and describes tattoo artists who are ruthless and unprofessional. This is also how the finished motifs look like, which take ages to heal, are scarred and can’t even be saved by a cover up. These people have very quickly lost their reputation and always mysteriously disappear abroad to “allegedly” make a name for themselves there. Such or similar stories about disappeared tattoo artists you will hear more often, when more and more customers come to you. You don’t want to be such a tattoo artist. Your name has to stand for reliability, solid, fast and relatively painless work.

Only in a few cases, a prospective tattoo artist brings all the basic requirements to be really good. Don’t worry about it. That's why you learn everything about the topic. At the beginning of this chapter, I talked about people who never inked and yet were able to gain a successful foothold in the industry. I also know of brilliant draughtsmen who are unable to properly ink a motif on skin. They can’t deal with the circumstances. A tattoo machine is not a pencil, skin is not paper, paper doesn’t move and doesn’t scream when it gets too painful.

Just as frowned upon as the “butchers” are arrogant tattoo artists. I admit it of-fen, I don't get along with most of the people in my business because they are too arrogant in my opinion. With mediocre work, which is honored far too highly, many people cheat their way through and consider themselves the greatest makers of our time. They present themselves self-confidently, can do everything, know everything and are beyond any doubt. Unfortunately, this is also the customers fault, who themselves have no idea of the matter and praise the would-be artists to the skies for their work. Thick, continuous outlines and a little color are apparently enough to make a large part of our society happy. The laws of nature, such as light and shadow, are overrated anyway. It's also astonishing that these customers voluntarily pay several hundred Euro for very little tattoo.

“What are they putting in your tea, folks?”

You see, talent alone is not enough. It's all a matter of practice. If you really want it, you will sacrifice every minute of your freetime learning, reading and practicing. Usually the passion for actual inking also awakens in you and you try out many other things. Maybe you will end up at an easel, with canvas, oil or acrylic. Or you discover your passion for good comics and want to write a story yourself and implement it in many pictures. Everything is possible. The advantage of tattooing is you earn some money. To make it as a inker or comic artist is damn hard, laborious and hardly recognized. You shouldn’t be distracted too much from your intentions by other influences. Besides your exercises you should familiarize yourself with your engraving tools and master them blindly. Know your tattoo machines, your power supply “transformer”, your pedal, your needles, your colors, your stencil paper “tracing paper” and everything else. The safe handling of your tools is the first step to professionalism. It is not only talent that counts, but your will to succeed.