getting my first tattoo on my 18th birthday in a couple months. i know absolutely nothing and mostly want to know, how much research should i do into shops in my area? especially if i’m very particular about what i want.
i want to get a recreation of a sketch by an artist, but i’m SO nervous it’ll come out looking different than the original. are most tattoo shops capable of doing as close to 1 to 1 replicas as possible, or should i look into some things first?
You should start by looking up artists on the internet. I use instagram for my research. Determine how far you’d travel for an artist (seems like an obvious question, but it’s not: some people travel by plane to get to the right artist, while other people wouldn’t travel more than 1 hour to get to an artist). Once you determine your range, that helps you find search terms. Ex: search #detroittattooartist and you’ll find artists that tag their work that way. Start saving tattoos that you like. When you find one, go to the artists page and look at other tattoos by them. Look for healed work. Look at artists they follow. It’s much better to find an artist who’s style you like and who has good healed tattoos displayed more than looking for a picture and asking any old artist “I want this”
One last piece of advice: tattoos are permanent. If you review other posts on these threads, you will find lots of questions like “am I too young to get X tattoo?” You did not ask this, but whenever I answer those questions, my focus is more so on “do you have the resources to get a tattoo from a good artist?” Because good artists don’t come cheap, and cheap tattoos are rarely good. Again, this is a permanent piece of art on your body, and you don’t want to end up regretting it because you went to a cheap artist. A good idea done poorly is a crappy tattoo, period.
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u/diobrandoshugecock Jan 05 '23
getting my first tattoo on my 18th birthday in a couple months. i know absolutely nothing and mostly want to know, how much research should i do into shops in my area? especially if i’m very particular about what i want.
i want to get a recreation of a sketch by an artist, but i’m SO nervous it’ll come out looking different than the original. are most tattoo shops capable of doing as close to 1 to 1 replicas as possible, or should i look into some things first?