When I do not tattoo on clients I practice on fakeskin. I sometimes find it boring as the adrenaline of touching real human skin is missing. And I admit that I like that feeling of novelty, when I get to test each skin as it is different.
Nevertheless, I play around with this funny piece of fakeskin that I flap around playing with it like it is jelly. I do that that when I am not so much in the mood for tattoing that. I have days when I feel I want to cut it into pieces and make a soup out of it 馃懣馃が 馃槀
But I must practice discipline in doing what I also do not like that much as it helps me build muscle memory for tattoing. Yes, I tell myself that often so I could remember it. If it were by me I would sit and paint all day long lol馃グ. Back to the jelly practice that I deeply dislike馃あ 馃槚 Yup, this is how most tattoo artists started, I will look back at this post and probably laugh years from now at the fakeskin mental allergy I had.
I mostly want to specialize on botanical art, in the illustration of plants , insects and animals in that cool botanical atlas vibe way. I am studying this and I recently discovered Alice Tangerini's work and I am utterly impressed. But with tattoing the process of drawing is different and you can't put that much details into a design. On human skin you must simplify a lot, more than I would have thought. Still in my mind I think of ways in which this could be overwritten with very fine needles, like 1RL, which is capable of doing the finest details.
I focused mainly on flowers , pepper shading and getting used with magnum needles. It's fun. I put my headsets on and I listen to podcasts or the music that I want. It makes me feel I am extra productive and I get to also feel that I work on myself while working on the jelly.
Although for the moment I am limited to doing small designs because I just started, I feel that I have great potential for being unique in this. I do not want to be another imitator, who just tattoos whatever to make a buck. I want to feel that what I do is what I like. And I do make my best to put quality in the tiniest tattoos because I know that the discipline of delivering good work starts with when you do the small stuff. I make efforts to make the time for painting and reading, as they remain my main hobbies which help me maintain a good state of mind.