How to do thick dark tribal?

[Spaz69]

I was wondering if there is anyone who could help me with a lil advice. I am curious on how to do the big dark/bold tribal designs? Is it done in all liner ink? Outlined the shaded? Im curious....recently picked up the trade and doing good, Just nervous about doing tribals without screwing up someones skin.

[Knockout,Ink.]

I'm taking it you never apprenticed? If not I'd suggest finding an apprenticeship to keep from screwing someone up or giving them something. Just my $.02

[Spaz69]

Haven't done an apprenticeship. I work offshore and only have a few days off at a time. I've done sum tattoos. They came out good. I won't do anything without doing my homework first. I would really love to become an apprentice. And usually experiment on tattooing me first so I know how it feels, looks, etc. Cause I would liketo know how it feels. Sorta like how judges should spend time in jail for 2 months before they can sentence someone to something they know nothing about.( my thoughts anyways) appreciate your .02. Do you think someone would accept me for a few days every two weeks? (offshore) Any advice given is appreciated.

[mickeyschlick]

tribal is all about the light and dark balance. no matter how good or shitty the fill in, the design will make the difference.. my advice, never refer to ANYTHING as lining or shading, all tools have their use and sometimes those uses change from job to job. Id say make a lighter wash for the outline and use pure black for the fill in. im supposing you use a liner/shader machine set up? the liner hits differently, faster and this will show in the ink. thats how you can use all the same black and still see the line. outline with a shader and light ink then fill in with black and a big mag so it doesnt take all day. it took me years to "graduate to big needles" waste of time. like i said, use the proper tool for the job (however your macines do need to be set up for different needle groups but I am guessing that if you are just getting started then they most likely run WAY too hard anyway so you'll probably be fine.) then go back with a small round (outline needle) and shader to touch up any messy lines or corners. traditional tattoo theory says "line, shade, fill, viola" but for me that is not always the case. in fact in cases where a big black outline is to be used I usually do that last, especially in large multi session tatoos, and as with all forms of painting, it is easier to make a hard straight edge out of a soft one than a soft one once a "line" is there. on the subject of apprenticeships, I never had one and and I've been at it a couple of years, probably like 3 years out of the last 5. anybody that likes can go tear apart my work on myspace.com/mickeyschlick and facebook.com/mickeyschlick but if you do, then at least add me. At this point in mmy career i am thinking about going back to look for a serious apprenticechip but I've worked in shops and know of many more that have apprentices and i've forgotten more about tattooing than most of the "mentors" who have 10+ years in. Not talking shit, but lames will be happy to take your money and say they can teach you, they may even believe they can. truth is there is no "one way" to tattoo so if you are going to go through the drama of getting an an apprenticeship, make it count with someone who is dope as shit.I"m thinking of going back to find a working apprenticeship with a serious artist, as opposed to a tattooist but my advice to prospective apprentices is always, buyer beware. you should do it though, but hopefully this will help until you decide if you care to be dedicated like that

[DaveGCF]

I'm taking it you never apprenticed? If not I'd suggest finding an apprenticeship to keep from screwing someone up or giving them something. Just my $.02

X2!

[SCtattooer]

^ what they said^

[inkedside]

tribal is all about the light and dark balance. no matter how good or shitty the fill in, the design will make the difference.. my advice, never refer to ANYTHING as lining or shading, all tools have their use and sometimes those uses change from job to job. Id say make a lighter wash for the outline and use pure black for the fill in. im supposing you use a liner/shader machine set up? the liner hits differently, faster and this will show in the ink. thats how you can use all the same black and still see the line. outline with a shader and light ink then fill in with black and a big mag so it doesnt take all day. it took me years to "graduate to big needles" waste of time. like i said, use the proper tool for the job (however your macines do need to be set up for different needle groups but I am guessing that if you are just getting started then they most likely run WAY too hard anyway so you'll probably be fine.) then go back with a small round (outline needle) and shader to touch up any messy lines or corners. traditional tattoo theory says "line, shade, fill, viola" but for me that is not always the case. in fact in cases where a big black outline is to be used I usually do that last, especially in large multi session tatoos, and as with all forms of painting, it is easier to make a hard straight edge out of a soft one than a soft one once a "line" is there. on the subject of apprenticeships, I never had one and and I've been at it a couple of years, probably like 3 years out of the last 5. anybody that likes can go tear apart my work on myspace.com/mickeyschlick and facebook.com/mickeyschlick but if you do, then at least add me. At this point in mmy career i am thinking about going back to look for a serious apprenticechip but I've worked in shops and know of many more that have apprentices and i've forgotten more about tattooing than most of the "mentors" who have 10+ years in. Not talking shit, but lames will be happy to take your money and say they can teach you, they may even believe they can. truth is there is no "one way" to tattoo so if you are going to go through the drama of getting an an apprenticeship, make it count with someone who is dope as shit.I"m thinking of going back to find a working apprenticeship with a serious artist, as opposed to a tattooist but my advice to prospective apprentices is always, buyer beware. you should do it though, but hopefully this will help until you decide if you care to be dedicated like that
mickeyschlick...everything in tattooing is of equal importance so to say that solid shading is not important and the design will make up the differerance is completely false

[mickeyschlick]

yeah, I'm not saying that it is not important, but you can fill in a tribal with good design and shitty execution later on and it will still look good. if you put an ugly, no flow piece of shit on someones arm and spend all day making it dark as shit (and possibly scarring them up), there is no fixing it. about a month ago I filled in a tribal sleeve for someone that had a friend line it out. it's got excellent solid fill in (solid black is not technically shading) now but it will always be a shitty (ugly) tattoo.choose your poison. a well designed and poorly executed tattoo will hold, as long as everthing is in the right place and no parts are too dark (this includes crappy lines) then there is hope. an excelently executed ugly tattoo will be ugly forever. I agree that all things are important, maybe not equally, but they are. it is also important to know your own strengths and weaknesses so that you can plan your execution in the most positive way for the client who will be wearing it forever. Obviously the guy that started this thread is new to tattooing. It is rediculous to think that he will have all skills mastered right off the bat. and on the subect of tattoo clients, you guys on the apprenticeship train arent doing his any favors. this is a guy with equiptment and skin to practice on. do you think those comments will help? most likely the guy doesnt even check this forum anymore and his client is getting all torn up. people have issues. to go from an oil rig to a tattoo shop is a big leap and 6 months to a year of apprenticing is a long time to starve. I am not saying that apprenticeships are not important. if you have decided to tattoo for a living go for it. but if you are on the edge, please dont fuck anyone up in the process. And it's funny that in every other section of this forum you can go and get advice and here you get a bunch of people basically saying "go ask someone else". out of compassion for the customer at least give a guy some advice. and the other side of the situation is the customer. this is a person that is asking for a tattoo from an uneducated, untrained person for something that they will die with. if he does end up getting an apprenticeship, do you really think the customer is going to wait around? do you think he will go pay what it is worth? no, he will find someone else willing work cheap to learn and get it there. the least I could do is give my 2 cents. if you would like some other confirmation on my opinion about design being important I suggest asking Guy Aitchison, or Nick Baxter.

[SCtattooer]

it's funny that in every other section of this forum you can go and get advice and here you get a bunch of people basically saying "go ask someone else". out of compassion for the customer at least give a guy some advice.



No other section of this forum deals with the permanent disfigurement of a person. Almost everything that was custom painted back in the 60's has been repainted since. That luxury isn't an option in tattooing.

If a tattooer serves an apprenticeship, then there are 2 responsible parties when he/she screws up, and I would go so far as to say that the mentor carries more of the responsibility.

[AirHasz]

I gota admit for every awsome tattoo I see, I see at least a hundred bad ones...:eek:, just thought I would add that.

[mickeyschlick]

:lol:go check out tattoos from the 60s, or the 80s for that matter, or 90% of what is being put out today, or anything from the first couple years of most tattoo artists careers, and get back to me. nobody starts out in the magazines and even with an apprenticeship your first many are free and on friends. As a matter of fact, a good percentage of tattoos that ARE in magazines shouldn't even be there. So what is an apprenticeship for? to learn the right way? what is the right way? there is no such thing as the right way to tattoo. Maybe that shit washes in parts of the world that dont have a lot of shops but I am in an area SATURATED with ideas, talent, shops, supply houses, and anything else you could want in tattooing. Back in the day when it was all coil machines, metal tubes, make your own needles and "line, shade, color" there was a lot more to teach. Today, if you make your own needles, you are wasting your time (unless you have a specific application that calls for your specific touch) because you can get 50 for $25. Today you can learn all the stuff that goes with coil machines (which I use) but you could also use pneumatic, rotary, swash drives, etc and so forth and if your mentor uses coils, and you are more comfortable with rotaries, what do you do? clenliness? cover everything, dont touch anything besides equiptment in use with gloves on and any time you put a machine down, change gloves. And never reuse anything (of course this is the most general description). Go get a bbp certificate online and it takes less than 20 minutes. Whether or not you still even use steel tubes is a matter of preference, because a disposable tube and needle is like $1.25 and more than worth it to just give everyone a new one. I will go on and on about this topic as long as anyone that wants to debate it and this is why... I've seen more people get ripped off by people giving apprenticeships than people that "learned" from their mentors. Often, an apprentice is taken on in a shop to be a shop bitch and to be "broken" before they learn, which I'm actually not opposed to. The problem comes when the apprentice really cares and really starts doing their homework on their own and then a year in has forgotten more about tattooing than the "mentor" ever taught. Another problem that I have is that in this situation you generally start by learning "kanji" or names or whatever, this teaches the pupil that some tattoos are more important than others. I think a person should start at the very beginning doing tattoos that interest them because they will have a much better sense of what does not look "right" and a straighter path on how to fix it. Apprenticing to tattoo is a tradition and should be taken very seriously, however in the case of looking for an apprenticeship YOU are the customer and they are the salesman. buyer beware, and that does not by any means mean don't get an apprenticeship. it means all prospective tattoo artists have a responsibility to themselves and to their future customers to educate themselves enough to know what to look for when they want to learn to tattoo and to learn from someone that can acutally teach them and teach them well. My advice is this, go get an apprenticeship and do whatever they say. To them they are the mentor, to you, they are your babysitter and you should take it all with a grain of salt. Listen to every word and learn from it all, whether you learn that they are right or that they are wrong. At the same time educate yourself and keep it to yourself. Buy every book, magazine and dvd that you can and learn it. Start with the $300 pkg from Hyperspacestudios.com called the educational combo pac, it comes with "reinventing the tattoo" and "standards of prectice". Once you are comfortable enough to know what questions to ask and answers to look for, start hitting up the forums of a lot of the top artists. you can get a lot of information by reading other peoples questions and answers...

[gangstajay]

Ok this is a touchy subject..you are asking question about a trade that is learned thru an apprenticship... I cant stress it enough to go to a shop with a nice album of your drawings and be humble...I have been in the industry for 14 yrs...and there is no substitute for an apprenticship... :confused: