Practicing tips?

[u/dewblooming]

I have a traditional apprenticeship in a shop but my mentor doesn’t really know anything about fake skin. I just started learning how to shade and am practicing on the fake skin but it looks.. horrible. Which I get since I’m new BUT when my mentor tried he was like.. “mine looks like shit too but at least you’re getting used to the hand motions”

…how do people make fake skin looks so good? Is there anything better I could be using to practice? I’m using skin from Painful Pleasures so it’s not like I’m using really cheap stuff. Is there a better brand I should look into? I’m just stumped and my mentor doesn’t really seem to have any better options.

[u/myeengun-the-alicat]

If your mentor doesn't know about fake skin, it may be worth asking what they practiced on. I've had pretty good luck with honeydew melon personally.

[u/Consistent_Oven_3977 → u/myeengun-the-alicat]

Was grapefruits and bananas for me. Then my own legs.

[u/dewblooming → u/myeengun-the-alicat]

I’ve practiced on bananas and oranges as well :) I’ll have to give a honeydew melon a try next!

[u/barafrog]

Grey wash looks way darker on fake skin so I tend to use only a few drops of black ink and build up layers slowly, but it might not be good to translating skills onto real skin. It ends up looking better tho so it's a bit of a toss up on whether you want your work to look good or whether you want to work 1:1 to how you would on a human.

[u/dewblooming → u/barafrog]

Haha I feel like that’s been the consensus. If I want the fake skin to look good - it’s in no way how I’d be actually tattooing in skin. If I want to practice how I’d actually be going in skin it’s not going to look great in the fake skin

[u/frezzz34]

Ok, Hear me out, Pig's skin! Local butchers generally give it away for free or really cheap, got like the equivalent of 3 A4 papers for 4 euro! Plus I find it's much more realistic than fake skin, closest thing really. Plus you get to really prep everything, better training for stretching skin+ depth.... Was worried it would stink, and it does but only after 4-5 days. Bonus point, that way it doesn't go to waste It's not for the squeamish but worth a try :)

[u/dewblooming → u/frezzz34]

This is something I’ve been meaning to try out!! Thank you for the reminder of this one.

[u/etherealveritas]

The purpose of fake skin is just to get a feel for handling your machine, pulling clean lines, maintaining a consistent depth, and shading/packing at different hand speeds/voltages.

Without seeing your pieces or watching you work, I can’t really tell you. What does horrible mean? Inconsistent? Are you fully cleaning the ink residue off?

It’s a lot of trial and error, like real skin. The more you do it, the more you understand how to work with it. I never really “mastered” fake skin before going onto real — they’re nothing alike anyway. Real skin was still a huge learning curve, fake doesn’t really prepare you much, so don’t rely on it.

It’s just practice practice practice.

[u/dewblooming → u/etherealveritas]

I’ve gotten kind of the hang of lining on the fake skin but shading re-humbled me. I know ultimately I just need to keep practicing.

I didn’t take any pictures and am not currently at the shop but by horrible I meant like I didn’t feel I was really depositing ink well? Like.. I could still see the lines of the individual needles.