Sun Feb 05, 2012 5:04 am
Hello
been lurkin, posted a few times. a bit about me. 12 year sailor. been into art my whole life. drawing, painting, sketching, i do digital sketches mostly now. i played around with tattooing when i was in my teens; gave my brother a "prison style" tattoo of a devil on his arm. dot for dot it looked like.. well let's not go there. it's now a flower, then again in my early 20's i had a room mate who's chick's uncle was an artist in IN. we went to his shop and he let me mess with a liner. i now have my initials on my arm. i got my sleeve started in 2002 and from there it was like wildfire. Dan from Lefty's tattoo in National City CA was my go to man for advice, and answers. not an apprenticeship, he wouldn't have it. i had purchased some machines, and some basic equipment. never worked on people, just that crappy rubber, and lots of pig back and belly. my machines were in a shipping crate that went "missing" when i transferred to MD. i got busy with my naval career. haven't messed with it since 2005. In 2009 was drawing on watch one day and one of the guy's was watching me go at it. he like it and asked me to draw him a pair of birds. so i did. they are now on his back. we were in turkey on deployment and pretty much the whole crew went to tattoo alley. Black cat studio in Kusadasi. there shop manager Eko and i got acquainted, next thing you know i'm making stencils for his artists and Freddy, one of the artists let me prep, apply the stencil, and sit in on several tattoos, the dude talked me through the whole process on all of them. he would ask me questions, had me draw some things in between to see my creativity. it was bad ass. on our last day he told me to get some new machines and get back in it. fast forward to now. i have 3 coil machines, and 2 rotary's. i play on rubber skin almost everyday, mostly lines and gradient shading. i spend about an hour or so a night with my 7 year old drawing at the table. been looking around here in VA to find an apprenticeship. come to find out it's harder than i thought. did my first real deal on my wife's wrist yesterday going to add that to my portfolio. in a day she's lined up 6 people that are willing to let me tattoo them. i think it's pretty awesome. next step convincing an artist to take me in. glad to be part of this community. great information here.