How much do you pay for your tattoo machine ?
Plenty so cheap and well designed on Ebay from China
Now to me , the INK is what matters and the quality of the blades.
I have learned to tattoo on skin and then created few designs and tattooed few
It was fun :) as a job it is well paid too and you do have a lot of talent as an artist.
Have you tried also with no machine ? It is called old school tattoo , directly with the needle ...honestly the easier , less painful one and the colors stays in for a very long time and there you go ..no machine needed.
But again to me , the price is in the INK unless you want to do only black tattoos and then you can use the welknown very clean charcoal powder.