As a tattoo artist, the work you do is a permanent representation of you and your skills, which can be built up by learning how to practice tattooing.

You will no doubt be dealing with a wide range of tattoo designs, even if your style is very specific, and you will likely encounter challenges as you go. Many artists practice for an entire year, or sometimes longer, before tattooing the skin of a person.

What to Practice Tattooing On: alternatives

A part of knowing how to practice tattooing includes knowing which type of skin to practice on – certainly not your friends skin, that’s for sure!.

As you may or may not already know, there is a small variety of skins you can practice on to hone in on your skills.

Not long ago, artists were forced to use rubber skins or fruit to practice on. In modern days, commonly used skin includes silicone skin and pig skin, each of which has its own pros and cons.

• Silicone skin

Synthetic skin made from silicone was developed to give tattoo artists, who were learning, a soft surface that behaved more like real human skin and responded accurately to the needle and the ink. The silicone skin is available in sheets that can be laid flat, which is not recommended, or wrapped around body parts like the wrist.

This synthetic skin also come shaped like hands and feet, providing a more accurate surface to practice on complete with folds and contours you would encounter on real skin.

The silicone skin is often recommended to beginners as it accepts the ink in a way that accurately reflects how it would look on real skin, allowing you to create precise lines and vibrant colors.

A downfall of the silicone skin is its inability to transfer stencils on with ease and many artists experience ink smudging when cleaning the skin.

• Pig skin

Pig skin has been used by artists for many years and is also a surface which closely resembles human skin, especially in the way in which it accepts the ink. When using the softer skin, such as from the belly, you’ll be able to see and feel the needle depth.

The pig skin is also a more cost effective option for beginners.

A disadvantage of this commonly used practice skin is the toughness and leather-like feel. This toughness can lead to you overcompensating and developing a tattooing technique that is much more firm than you’d want to do on human skin.

Some of the colors such as grey, and many of the lighter colors will also show up much differently on the pig skin.

• Tattoo stencil paper

Since your work is going to become a permanent feature on someone skins, you’ll want to ensure that your design is perfect in the eye of your client before getting anywhere near their skin.

Using tattoo stencil paper is an important part of learning how to practice tattooing and it’s a habit that should begin as soon as you start practicing. As a tattoo artist, you have the choice of hectograph paper and thermal paper.

Hectograph paper, also known as free-hand paper uses pressure to create a duplicate image on the side of the paper that will be transferred onto your client’s skin. For precise accuracy, it is recommended to use a hectograph pencil when sketching the design.

Thermal paper is a 4 layered paper system, allowing you to trace or stencil an image from its original source, transfer it onto your client’s skin and reference back to the drawing for even more accuracy.

Most commonly used stencil paper is the thermal paper.

How to Clean Ink Off Practice Skin

You may be wondering if you can clean the ink off after you have practice tattooing on fake skin. This is an advantage if you want to practice on a different design and save some money.

Many artists find that using Vaseline to clean the ink off the skin is an effective practice. While surgical spirits work well for removing the stencil lines, and green soap cleans some of it off, Vaseline has proven to be one of the most effective solutions.

Best Fake Tattoo Skin when Learning How to Practice Tattooing

The best tattoo skin for practicing your designs is agreeably by experts in the industry silicone skin. This practice skin best represents human skin and the way in which the ink is going to transfer into it.

As well as this, the pressure needed when tattooing on silicone skin is very similar to what is needed when tattooing on humans, so you will get a better feel for what the tattooing process will be like.

Combining this with the use of thermal stencil paper will produce the most accurate results and aid you in developing the skills you need to produce a high quality work with each tattoo you do.

Best Tattoo Machine for Beginners

Now, you will need to figure out if you are going to practice using ink from a pen or ink for tattoos. Using a pen would be okay just for the sake of creating your design but, the real deal is when using a tattoo machine, which will give you a different sensation in terms of weight, balance, noise and finally, how comfortable you will be when working for hours.

When it comes to buying your first tattoo machine, there are a few brands that outshine the others in terms of reliability, cost and ease of use for a novice.

Here are three (3) of the best tattoo machines for beginners:

• Cheyenne

Well-known German brand Cheyenne is well liked among artists for its ease of use, precision and rotating grip. The Cheyenne brand offers 4 different models each with their own strengths and weaknesses.

From the four (4) models available, the Cheyenne Hawk Spirit is considered to be the best machine for beginners with its cartridge loading system, light weight and its ability to react well on any skin type and tone.

• Bishop

By contrast, US company Bishop, another popular brand among artists, sells a variety of coil and rotary machines. The Bishop machines, particularly their rotary machines, are favoured by many of the industry’s best due to their power and light weight.

Out of the rotary tattoo machines on offer, the Fantom Bishop is said to be the best for beginners and is described as perfectly balanced and light.

• Neotat

Last but not least, made in the US, NeoTat is another known brand among artists producing rotary machines. The NeoTat Vivace is recommended for novice tattoo artists as it is lightweight, easy to clean and affordable for someone just starting out.

Its versatility is a highlight as you’ll be able to experiment with shading, line work and many other techniques to help you refine your skills.

• Other options

This just a taste of what machines are available in the market for beginners. If you want to get more information about other top rated brands and understand more in detail how a machine works and its variations, we recommend checking some tattoo machine reviews here on Tattoo Machine Advisor.

The right machine for you depends on what specifically you are looking for.

Final Thoughts

While there are many things to take into consideration before beginning to tattoo on real human skin, learning how to practice tattooing effectively should be one of the first steps you take to becoming a top quality tattoo artist.

“Practice Makes the Master”

To understand more about tattoo facts and what to consider when getting a tattoo, here, we explain more in detail some important points on Onpoint tattoos.

From the beginning of ages, numerous cultures have used cave walls to carve their own identity, from the start to the end. At the same time, as part of their culture, they saw that their body were also a space for creativity, bringing numerous tattoo ideas and designs to represent their believes so that, they were able to interact with their gods, animals and elements. But, what exactly was considered when getting a tattoo?

Certainly, pain was not one of them, as long as the right idea and design was shaped properly.

Tattoo fact #1: HOW MUCH IS GOING TO HURT?

Well, it depends on how brave you are and how well you can deal with the pain. Nevertheless, in this list of tattoo facts, it is known that some parts of your body are more susceptible to pain than others. In this case, based on the image, intimate areas, joints, ribs and nipples are the most sensitive areas and certainly, the most painful ones.

Some artist, and of course, tattooed people, describe the pain like a cat’s scratch or a dull pain running down to you body.

Tattoo fact #2: HOW DOES THE INK GETS TRAPPED UNDER YOUR SKIN?

It is a bit of a mystery how, in fact, the ink get trapped under your skin. However, thanks to studies carried out by experts within the tattoo industry, the mystery has been clarified.

It has been concluded that the needle has to reach into the dermis, breaking through the skin between 1 and 2 millimeters. Once the needle has injected the ink drop, that is where the magic starts. But why is it so magical? Well, as you are very aware, any foreign element getting into you body will be destroyed or moved by the white cells, however, in this case the injected pigment will be too large for the white cells to destroy or move.

Now the question is, how the ink stays there? In this case, the Epidermis acts as a window and therefore, the ink can’t get out of your dermis.

Tattoo fact #3: WHAT IF I WANT TO REMOVE THE TATTOO?

The final fact within our tattoo facts list is that you should be very aware that removing a tattoo is not an easy task and could be as painful as getting tattooed. Nowadays, there are way to get rid off of the ugly and undesired tattoo such as redesigning it (like combining with a new tattoo) or going extreme and using the laser technique.

Depending on the size of the tattoo, the laser technique could be done not only in one session, it could take many session and still the affected area will look like discolored white paint. Also, would be more complicated if the tattoo is colored.

Having those two alternatives (rest assure there are other ones that could be not that pleasant), it will be definitely much better redesigning the tattoo. Check out this article (tattoo removal facts) if you want to know more about how to go with tattoo removal.

There are many reasons why we get tattooed either to honor someone or simply something we believe or admire. These tattoo facts will definitely help you out to decide where, why and the final outcome about a tattoo.

If you are still not sure if getting a tattoo is a good or bad idea, think it twice.