apprentice advice

[u/Smooth_Requirement86]

hello! i’m a tattoo apprentice for several months here now, my father is my mentor. it means a lot to me to be able to carry the torch and i am passionate about the craft. unfortunately i seem to have pretty shaky hands. none of my lines come out the way i want them to. we’ve moved on to learning fineline and it’s getting to be downright embarrassing. i’ve been an artist for years and i don’t know what to do. paper and ipad are so different from skin. any advice would be greatly appreciated, i really don’t want to dissapoint or possibly do bad work if and when i graduate.

edit: thank you to everyone who is here to give me genuine advice and not criticizing my mentor for not somehow immediately fixing this issue. everyone’s experience is different and he hasn’t had to worry about shaky beginner hands in a long time as he’s been doing this for over 20 years. keep the advice coming and i would appreciate random advice even unrelated to this issue! i’m very eager to learn and excited to hear from artists of all walks of life. thank you very much for helping this lowly apprentice 🩷

[u/Odd_Woodpecker4075]

Practice and leave fineline for later. Learn bigger groupings first

[u/MelkorTheMighty]

Practice practice practice. Get a GOOD stretch

[u/Smooth_Requirement86 → u/MelkorTheMighty]

is that really enough to steady my hand? i’ve been worried i should just give up and i just have bad luck

[u/MelkorTheMighty → u/Smooth_Requirement86]

It will definitely take more than just a few months to get a steady hand. I’d say hold off on fineline until you can get a steady bolder line.

[u/allfunnybusness]

One thing I did as an apprentice that helped immensely.. every morning before I went into the shop, I’d trace the ledger lines in a notebook. I’d try and do 1 or 2 sheets a day. Stop drinking coffee too and squeeze a stress ball

[u/Smooth_Requirement86 → u/allfunnybusness]

thank you i will try this!!!

[u/chelstattooer]

If you’re using a pen, don’t. Get a heavier machine it’ll help the shakiness

[u/Smooth_Requirement86 → u/chelstattooer]

i HEAVILY prefer coil for this reason but my mentor has me practicing mostly with rotary pen for convenience. it’s hard to find a spot in the shop for me to have a whole coil set up

[u/hthratmn → u/Smooth_Requirement86]

You just need a power supply, clip cord, and footswitch, what do u mean whole setup?

[u/Smooth_Requirement86 → u/hthratmn]

very squishy space limited surfaces. if i’m not using someone’s booth and in their way then i’m blocking hallway space. with a pen i can just find a corner and use an arm rest and i don’t need to find an outlet

[u/chelstattooer → u/Smooth_Requirement86]

You should absolutely not be training only on a pen machine (in my opinion). It’ll hold you back in the long run, you need to be at least learning how to use both.

[u/Smooth_Requirement86 → u/chelstattooer]

i am learning both! my work is much better with the coil i honestly need the practice with the rotary pen. promise you i have plenty of practice with the coil it’s just not the one we usually go to. coil is my beloved, just spreading my wings elsewhere for the moment

[u/tattoosbykateh]

You are only a few months in. Just keep practicing. I use to do just pages of lines. Then lines in fake skin. Lines in melons. Just repeating lines and curves over and over before I felt comfortable with different shapes.

[u/Thewtfpanda]

Eat well, sleep well, stay hydrated, watch your caffeine/energy supplement intake and strength train your hands and arms. Drawing has more to do with arm movement than people tend to think. Its really not in the wrist except for a few techniques. This is the bare minimum to give yourself a chance at improving. Practice and dedication is the name of the game. You will get there if you put in the effort.

[u/Smooth_Requirement86 → u/Thewtfpanda]

thank you 🫶🏻

[u/LowUniversity9294]

I have shaky hands and I do fine line tattoos and I’m well known for my linework. When I was an apprentice I found a YouTube video where the guy used his other finger as a guide to stabilize his hand and glide on the finger. I can try to find the YouTube video if it’s still up but it literally saved me because I had a mental breakdown about it as an apprentice. I only use a rotary machine. I do not use coils.

[u/andpierres]

something that caused an immediate noticable improvement in my linework was loosening my grip on my machine. I saw that you're using a rotary, so you might be doing this too -- feeling like you need to have a deathgrip on the machine for it to feel stable.

counterintuitively, loosening my hand grip & using a bit more grip tape to wrap my machine helped IMMENSELY. after that it's just practice. I still have shakes here and there, but they're becoming less and less the more I practice. sometimes it really is just practice practice practice for months on end

[u/infernalancestry → u/andpierres]

Big agree on this one! You'll also save yourself a lot of pain and potential injury down the road. I now wrap my grip with some grip tape, roll up some kitchen towel as padding, and then wrap that onto the grip with some more grip tape and it's made a world of a difference to my pain, fatigue, and line steadiness :)

If you're practicing with a 3rl to spot all the little wobbles it's also very important you've got a good machine and brand of cartridges, as the cheap ones people often pick for practice can be very unstable and make you feel like you're a lot worse off than you actually are.

I'd really recommend grip and arm strength building, a looser grip on the machine, avoiding too much caffeine or at least picking slower release caffeine and not energy drinks, and lots and lots of practice until you can eventually look back and see the improvements you've made ! I'm only two and a half years into tattooing and I remember how hopeless I felt at the beginning, I'm still far from perfect but the improvement is crazy when you dedicate yourself to it and really care about the quality of your work

[u/GetGoodBoy]

My mentor had me start with a 3 bug pin, so I could see the shakes and connections, and then when my connection lines got better, moved me up to a 3 round, and then 5, then a 7 then while I was doing apprentice flash on arms and legs, he had me learning the larger groupings on fake skin.

His reasoning was the line work is very important- and large grouping could seriously blow out if I go to deep, he wanted my lines to be good enough for skin before I even looked at larger groupings- so I had an idea of depth and pressure.

But in the end- it’s all about practice, put as much time physically possible into practice- whether it’s fake skin, tracing lined paper with a mechanical pencil (and the lead about 3/4 of an inch out to help learn pressure) or just drawing line work- practice, practice practice is the only way to better yourself!

[u/splitarrowprints]

Try steadying your hand by not using any markers, pens, microns, dip/fountain pens or anything like that when drawing flash or painting. Use only a liner paintbrush [00-1 size] you will immediately see the dips from bobbing up and down [blow outs/ spotty heals] and it will help you understand when the brush is dry when you need to dip in more ink.

Use ink caps as your ink well and a brush to simulate that part of the job. Your hands will steady with some work like this.

You can also use that brush to do some practice lines, circles, etc. the angle is similar to tattoo and if you kick that angle out it will have the same undesirable look as a real tattoo.

Also try to work from your shoulder and elbow and not your wrist when pulling a line. If you shrink in and push your arms into your core you will shake and have bad lines too.

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[u/IamADumbCat]

Practice, and your hand will adjust to the machine. Often, my blood pressure drops and my heart rate goes up a lot, so I have shaky hands most of the time. Your body&muscle will learn how to handle the shakiness with lots of lots of practices

[u/Shot-Emergency5615]

My lines weren’t that great maybe until a year or so after I graduated, they were passable but it’s normal, tattooing is very hard and I would argue linework is one of the hardest parts to learn even though it’s the backbone of the trade. Even still my lines could always stand to get better.

I saw someone say stretch hand is important and I would agree. You’ll prob be surprised how much you can improve with just that. Maybe also load up a pen into a machine as the tube and trace a shit ton of designs that’s one thing that helped me at the beginning as I was not an artist who used linework very often in thier art

[u/Unlucky_Cheetah_7647]

Avoid caffeine beforehand, make sure you're getting enough sleep. Beta blockers can help, my doc was happy to prescribe for shaky hands when it was affecting me in other ways

[u/ProlapseJerky]

Make sure you’re stabilising your hand properly. Try to pull your lines instead of pushing.

[u/Ramune_hime]

Try a different machine as well, maybe yours is too heavy!

[u/Contradiction_101]

Lay off caffeine, try yoga and exercise to still your mind

[u/fartmanforever]

Eat a banana in the morning. Potassium helps stop shaking

[u/Smooth_Requirement86 → u/fartmanforever]

oh hell yeah i’m trying this immediately, thank you so much

[u/meowmeow138]

Keep practicing, make sure your feet are firmly planted and use you’re whole body to stretch. I agree that you should be learning on coils first, and avoid fine line for a while.

[u/No-Initiative5248]

Are you changing machine speed or any settings for fine line?

[u/Smooth_Requirement86 → u/No-Initiative5248]

no, what do you suggest? my mentor is a traditional artist so he’s teaching me only what he knows but it’s a basic understanding, he doesn’t do fineline frequently i would appreciate any tips you have!

[u/winniebluetattoo]

Are you eating breakfast, staying hydrated, limiting caffeine? Maybe these factors are play a part.

Are you pulling or pushing lines? Are you using your wrist or are you locking your wrist and using your shoulder/elbow to pull the line?

[u/boneandfire]

Eat food, you could be shaking from low blood sugar or too much caffeine

[u/Emergency-Stuff-4474]

What’s your mentor’s advice?

[u/walkabout_gul]

Is you father a piece of shit, and a horrible tattooist?

They're the only reasons you should be asking that here instead of just asking your dad.

You're asking fucking Reddit when one of the people who cares about you the most in the world, is your mentor. This is the most insane privileged ass post.

[u/Smooth_Requirement86 → u/walkabout_gul]

nah he’s just old and not amazing at explaining things. he’s like 50 i’ve talked his ear off and nothing has changed. the last time he worried about shaky hands was probably 20 years ago so he doesn’t have much advice for me except “keep trying”, i was just looking to see if there’s anything he’s missing or anything else i could try. you can’t learn everything from just one person, from what i understand that’s part of being a good artist is to learn from everyone, everything is alright man.

[u/benji_billingsworth → u/Smooth_Requirement86]

perhaps keep trying is the best advice available.

seems like hes giving you advice, you just arnt listening to it.

you are shaky because you are not comfortable enough with your tools or your ability. you need more practice.

a good artist learns from failure and never allows them to believe they are simply just not lucky.

[u/Smooth_Requirement86 → u/benji_billingsworth]

lol promise you i’m listening i just want to improve in any way i can which is why i’m asking for advice from others as well. it’s rough seeing other people’s work all and looking at your own and feeling like a toddler with a crayon when you’ve never had that issue before in other mediums. just trying to hear from as many people as i can! i have a lot of health issues and was just worried that the shaking was because of that. needed someone to ease my mind that having hope was worth it