As I worked in the shop today, I found myself starting to get the hang of shading. My fellow apprentice, Mike, has been incredibly encouraging. He and I have become rivals and friends in this race to become the best tattoo artists we can. Like me, he’s also been an artist for some time, and he showed me his specialty today, which is stippling. Owen came over while we were discussing, and to our surprise, he expressed to us that we should try to incorporate it into our fake skin practice today. I’d be lying if I said we weren’t ecstatic. We immediately found the first blank space on the synthetic skin that we could find, and we gave it a go. Mike found much more success due to his experience with the technique, but I found a way to hold my own. I hope to learn more techniques like this to grow my skill tree. I know that many tattoo artists have a niche or style that they do very well in, but my goal as it stands is to be as well-rounded as possible for now.
