r/TattooApprentice

As common as I know hazing and abuse is in the tattoo industry especially towards apprentices isn’t unheard of. However on a day to day basis I am subjected to verbal abuse . By no means am I looking for a therapist in the chat but definitely getting a feeling this is over the top abusive. Long story short today I was called outta the bathroom mid break to come assist with whatever I was being asked to do . I hurriedly washed my hands thoroughly and dried. Went to the room that my mentor was tattooing in to assist with his request. Asked me to reach in his cabinet to pull out an extra small ink cup . I asked if I needed to put on gloves to minimize any kind of cross contamination. He looked at me like I was asking what 1+1 was . His response was “why the fuck would you need to do that ?!” I didn’t ask any further questions. Proceeded to reach into a container bare handed digging around for an extra small ink cup. After fumbling through an endless pile of assorted sized cups I finally found the one needed. Placed cup on tattoo tray he was using carefully as to not put my skin on or to not contaminate his setup. He then asked me to grab his white ink and cover with a paper towel before grabbing it and shake it really well. Which I did. He then told me to open it , hover and fill it to the top. In my experience which isn’t extensive find that white ink is a bit thicker depending on what kind being used . I’m heavily tattooed with have had plenty of time in the tattoo chair throughout my life to observe ink pouring and consistency of the inks used. Anyways I knew in my head that I CANNOT touch the bottle to the cap which I wasn’t going to do. I hovered it closely about an inch away to start the pour then would hover a bit higher to have a clear view . He then stopped tattooing his client and screamed rather loudly“DON’T YOU EVER FUCKING POUR INK LIKE THAT EVER AGAIN , you might as well fucking throw the entire bottle out “.

This is a shop that only uses matacide and has an autoclave that’s been sitting on the ground with random paint brushes and supplies since NAM. There are various other major contamination issues I won’t go into. But as a 40 year man thats going through a career change with a newborn on the way I’m growing tired of the way he speaks to me. This isn’t an isolated incident. I got fired on the way to the shop one morning through text because I had taken off for my 1 year wedding anniversary. Basically had to beg to not be let go after being berated for an hour over the phone.

I could literally go on and on about many other over the top shenanigans. I’m pretty patient with my wisdom and age but this dude is excessive. I’ve already committed 5 months of my life for free scrubbing his toilets, wiping door knobs, rearranging the gravel in the parking lot etc. and not going to give up . I also don’t want to get into an altercation. I don’t know who he thinks he talking to but it sure as shit ain’t me. That’s what the rational me says inside but I just take it and keep my mouth shut. Is it really worth sticking it out in this kind of environment?

Sorry serious post incoming. Just looking for advice and support here i guess. I’m a year into my apprenticeship and close to tattooing but I’m going through a very serious mental health episode that I’ve been doing everything in my power to conceal because I’m so terrified of getting fired. I have bipolar disorder and lost my insurance for a while and had to go unmedicated for the time being. I’m in such a severe depressive episode right now i can’t even understand how I’m still finding the strength to show up everyday but i feel like im just gonna lose it. Thank god i am seeing a psychiatrist this week and can get back on medication but fuck dude i am struggling so hard. I don’t feel comfortable sharing this shit with anyone in my shop so i just have to put on the mask of being fine. I’m so tempted to just give everything up at this point cuz im tired of fighting. Sorry this is totally above y’all’s pay grade here im just venting.

I've loved drawing for as long as I can remember, and since early high school I've thought that tattooing would be an awesome career for me.
I originally went to college for forestry, which is obviously pretty far from art, and I ended up absolutely hating it. Now I'm about to start at a completely new school for art, and I'm starting to question whether going to college for art is actually the right move.
I'm worried about going into debt for a degree that I may not even need for the career I want.
For those of you who are tattoo artists or have gone through apprenticeships: Does going to art school actually make a difference when it comes to getting an apprenticeship? With the industry being so competitive/oversaturated right now, would having a degree make me more appealing to a shop, or is it really more about your drawing skills and portfolio?
I'm currently considering two paths:

1. Go to art school for a semester or two and see how I feel. If I'm genuinely improving as an artist and feel like it's helping me build a strong portfolio, I could continue.
2. Skip college altogether for now, work full-time as a barista, and spend the next year or two seriously focusing on drawing, building a portfolio, learning as much as I can, and eventually looking for an apprenticeship.
   Part of me feels like spending those years drawing my ass off and building a portfolio could get me closer to an apprenticeship faster, while avoiding potentially unnecessary student debt. But another part of me worries that I'd be missing out on the education, structure, and connections that art school could provide.
   I'd really appreciate hearing from people who are actually in the tattoo industry.** **If you were in my position, would you go to art school, or would you focus on working/drawing and trying to get an apprenticeship?
   Also, if you did go to art school before tattooing, did you feel like it genuinely helped you, or do you think you could have gotten to the same place without it?

I’ve been tattooing out of my apprenticeship for about 8 months now. However, I feel like I should be better by now. My boss is having me charge $80/hr because that’s what they say my work is worth, but I just don’t see it. Whenever I look at my tattoos all I can see is inconsistencies. Ill be extremely proud of a tattoo I’ve done and as soon as I take a picture and look at it im like oh fuck. I’m also still only tattooing arms and legs as well. I know it just comes with time, but I feel like I’m progressing slower than I should be. I can draw really well I will say so maybe I’m just comparing my tattoos to my drawings. Also, lately I have been tattooing as much as I can: taking in clients, and doing freebies for friends. In terms of clientele I’ve been doing good, about 1-4 clients a week. My mentor didn’t allow me to practice on fake skin, I had to practice on myself. To which now I’m a little cheesed about.

EDIT: When I ask if I can sign myself off I ofc mean when I feel ready and capable of doing great, clean tattoos. Don’t worry, I’m willing to put in the years before I can actually sign myself off - if I’m able to.

I’ve only been at this apprenticeship for three months and it’s been terrible.

I show up one to two hours early every day (my choice). There’s only been a handful of days where I was about 10 minutes early. I do all of my chores without complaining. I do what’s asked of me without complaining.

I’d be more than willing to stay and endure his abuse if I was learning anything but he told me to watch YouTube to learn (because he doesn’t know any art or tattooing terms) and the one time he sat down with me he was watching TikTok’s.

My coworker who just left has taught me more in five sentences on how to tattoo than my “mentor” has in three months.

The environment my mentor/shop owner (same person) has created is extremely stressful and even at times unsafe.

4 people in 3 months have left him without a word (I’m about to be the fourth)

I’ve been documenting everything he’s done and it’s impressively bad how long that last is.

I’m not allowed to have a bad day because if I show any signs of being remotely less than happy then he’ll go out of his way to make my day worse.

He said he’s trying to fast track me. He tried to move me onto shading because I tattooed one good line, one good circle (which was honestly terrible) and this was two months in. Then when I said I need to take a step back and work on my lines he yelled at me and told me that it’s stupid to go backwards and lose progress. You mean gain the fundamentals of this very craft? Then he went on a bonus tangent and said I’m the reason he treats people terribly… when that was nowhere near the topic - the topic was my line work.

And it all comes down to money. He needs money and if he’s not getting it then he would morally nuke the atmosphere of the shop. Hmmm, maybe you should be at the shop like the rest of us and stop cancelling appointments so you can “play hooky” with his wife (an actual text he sent me).

The scariest thing is that he pierces people but he does it wrong. He has “no choice” but to pierce because the piercer left. And I feel immense guilt when I book a piercing appointment for him because I know they’re going to walk out of there infected.

We have a shop spider that I’ll gladly take care of because it an animal that’s being held captive and needs humans to keep it alive. I stopped trying to nudge my mentor towards buying her food or new dirt because the current dirt is moldy because he said “if you could drive then you could get her the stuff she needs” which is terribly cruel because he knows I take the bus and I couldn’t even afford the food and dirt if I wanted to.

I can no longer call off sick (despite me telling him I have an autoimmune disease so I get sick quite easily) because he’ll tell me I’m lying. And when I show up to work coughing and clearly sick, he’ll light 4 sticks of incense and gets annoyed when I cough even more because of it. I’ve only called off sick 2 times btw.

I told him at least three times that I’m hard of hearing in my left ear so my right ear is extra sensitive because it’s picking up all the work. He plays his music so loud that you have to speak up quite a bit to hear each other. I asked if I could move to the back because it quieter back there. He said sure with a smile (I’ve learned that if he agrees with no issue and smile, that he’s going to make an issue of it later down the road tenfold). My first day in the back he turns on the back speaker (which has never been on), the doorway speaker, and the front speaker on full blast. My right ear was throbbing in pain and I was trying not cry and this monster had the audacity to ask me if the back was quiet enough for me. That was the same day he started a fight with me for working on my line work as mentioned before. He was also throwing stuff in the back.

And his latest act of terror was when my coworkers left (two of them at once this last Saturday) he went on to TikTok to talk down on them and insulted them and said they were “pathetic” and other insults. All of the things he listed that they did, he did but times ten. I’ve seen my coworkers there more than him, the shop owner.

He always goes on TikTok and Facebook and Instagram and posts petty things but this has reached a new level of embarrassing.

I can’t stay in this environment much longer because now it’s just me and him left in the shop and I can’t be there if it’s just us.

And he’s said he’s a “rare artist” and “whenever I hire people it’s to help them, I don’t need them” but goes crazy when they take off for their birthday…

ANY advice would be amazing, thank you

Hi I’ve been doing an apprenticeship for about 2/3 months now and my mentor is giving me a test so I can tattoo on people even though they haven’t taught me anything. I’ve been going to the shop 4-5 days of the week for around 6 hours each time I go in. They tell me the shop is open every day at 12, but sometimes they’ll be 2-3 hours late or just not show up at all without telling me. When I practice all they do is put me in the corner and occasionally come over to stare at me and say “keep practicing” but they never really tell me to do anything. My first week having a machine, they had me do a huge stencil almost a foot long with lots of details and they told me the lines weren’t clean enough. My mentor is flakey/barely shows up, the shop owner sometimes shows me things but it doesn’t seem like there’s a place for me and now they’re taking on ANOTHER apprentice. He even asked me if I’ve memorized all the different kinds of needles and what they do when I don’t even know what they mean! On top of my mentor asking me weird questions like if he’s “too old for me” and if I’ve “ever dated anyone like him before” I just feel so lost and confused all the time. I try to show up and shadow and learn things but I don’t even know what techniques I should be looking for? What exactly should I be learning?

I'm building my tattoo design portfolio as an aspiring tattoo artist, can you give me some three word prompts I can turn into designs so I can think outside my own box please? I don't want to use online generators they all seem AI based and very random.