How to Start Practicing Properly- Tattoo University

Nick Duran here with

tattoo

University

and today I'm going to talk about the proper way to

start

tattoo

ing there's a wrong way in a right way some of you guys want to just watch videos with people

tattoo

ing and if I did that I'd be like every channel that's out there they're showing you how to

tattoo

but they're not teaching you how to

tattoo

what's happening is if you are watching those videos and trying to learn advanced techniques but you don't have the basics down you will never be able to

tattoo

like the professionals and that's not something you can just pick up a

tattoo

machine and

start

doing you can mimic it but you're not gonna get it because you don't know the proper machine to use you don't know how to tune your machines you don't know the proper needle setup you you need a solid foundation you need the groundwork to be able to do those

tattoo

s eventually I will be showing you guys how to

tattoo

but I want to make sure you have the groundwork down first so that it will all make sense once you get to that point so the worst thing you can do is go out buy a

tattoo

kit slap that

tattoo

machine together and

start

tattoo

ing on somebody you do not want to

start

tattoo

ing on people and hope that you get better the more you

tattoo

on people there's steps you need to take before you get to that point the reason why that's such a bad idea is that a lot of your business comes from word of mouth it comes from people...

seeing your

tattoo

s and asking that client where they got their

tattoo

s from so that's either gonna help you or that's gonna hurt you if you are putting bad

tattoo

s out there people aren't gonna say hey go to this guy he does bad

tattoo

s they're gonna see those

tattoo

s and they're gonna ask where you got them from so that they don't go to you and they don't get a bad

tattoo

from you I would say pretty much a hundred percent of the business that I do is through word of mouth and through the

tattoo

s that people see on other clients and they asked them where they came from and if you're doing good work you'll get more business so you don't want any

tattoo

s that are bad out there floating around that someone can say this bad

tattoo

came from you and if you're at the beginning stages of

tattoo

ing you're not going to be doing good enough

tattoo

s to where you're gonna be getting a lot of business another problem that I see a lot is that people

start

tattoo

ing and they have no art background so know our background equals bad

tattoo

s if you don't know what looks good you're not gonna know what a good

tattoo

looks like and you might think it looks good but when other people look at it they're gonna see the flaws in that

tattoo

especially if it's somebody who has an art background and they know what it should look like before you ever put a needle to somebody skin you should focus on how to do flash work you should...

maybe pick up some watercolor paints some markers take a couple of college courses in art or watch a whole bunch of YouTube videos and read a whole bunch of books and just self study art before you

start

doing it on people

tattoo

s are just like artwork there's an aesthetic to it and if it doesn't have a good aesthetic people are not gonna like it and until you get that art background you're not gonna know what that is you might think you know it looks good but you're kind of missing that training that lets you know what looks good and what doesn't so if you're absolutely dying to

tattoo

on somebody then

tattoo

yourself and do it in a spot where not a lot of people are gonna see it where you can cover it up if you have to not everybody believes in self

tattoo

ing because it's a little more difficult and some people don't have the pain tolerance where they can

tattoo

themselves but I believe that self

tattoo

ing is a good tool to teach yourself how to

tattoo

and if you're gonna mess somebody up then you need to do it to yourself and not do it to other people a good tool is to have a mentor through this process and if you don't have one in person you can use the internet you can go on Facebook pages like

tattoo

University

Hands where a lot of

tattoo

artists go to that page and they can leave comments they can give you advice you can post your

tattoo

s and see what people think about them and if you post your

tattoo

s and you get a lot of...

negative comments that might tell you that you're not ready to

tattoo

on other people yet and you might need to take a step back and rethink things and practice some more before you

start

tattoo

ing on people again when your self

tattoo

ing there's a way to do it you don't want to

tattoo

in difficult spots

tattoo

ing on your arm is doable but it is not gonna come out well because you need to stretch and on your own arm you need two hands to stretch and you can't do that on your own arm so you can get a decent

tattoo

out of that but after a while you'll see where it's not quite solid and it's gonna fade out because you're stretching wasn't good usually your calf or your thighs good area to self

tattoo

and don't do an entire side piece or sleeve all at once you want to

start

off just

practicing

on your line work you can find a cartoon character which is really good something with a bold outline something simple you don't want to

start

off with something really technical the first thing you want to do is get your line work down focus on your line work don't focus on anything else get a liner machine figure out how to tune it correctly practice the lining until your line work is impeccable once that is done you have these

tattoo

s with the line work completed but they can be colored in then you go to packing color and then after that after you get your packing color down you go to shading and then you would go to blending colors you get...

a little more complicated as you go so don't take up your entire leg with your first

tattoo

come up with a plan with some

tattoo

s that you can build on almost like a sleeve and

start

simple and just focus on one thing at a time another problem I see is people trying to figure everything out all at once instead of figuring one thing out understanding that and then moving on to the next thing so first thing you want to do is if you're

tattoo

ing yourself just focus on line work and getting that line work done and after every

tattoo

show it to somebody who knows what they're doing and ask them what's wrong with this

tattoo

or what how can I improve this

tattoo

posted online you're gonna get a lot of negative comments from people but you're gonna get a lot of positive comments from people you're gonna run into someone like me who's gonna critique that

tattoo

in a positive way I'm not gonna give you a negative feedback I'm just gonna tell you you you need to adjust your machine or your deaths isn't correct you know I'm gonna give you some positive feedback so you need to find those people who are willing to give you positive feedback you know I can look at at a tube and see what's wrong with it and see what you're doing wrong while you're

tattoo

ing and all I have to do is looked at the finished product of that

tattoo

so if you're learning how to

tattoo

you need to show these

tattoo

s to someone you need to show these to...

somebody who can look at

tattoo

s and tell you what you're doing wrong so you can work on that and fix it