r/TattooArtists

The shop I’m currently at is the one that I apprenticed at. I’ve been there in total for about a year now and a half i think, but maybe less. I’ve progressed a lot in a short period of time and I’ve had other shops show interest towards me. So basically here’s the issue. My boss is wildly inappropriate. He has made jokes about my experience being sexually assaulted, he’s made sexually inappropriate jokes and remarks more times than I can count and all of this us with an air of “I’m just kidding though” and if I was to address it with him and ask him to stop it would only get worse. He has full volume screamed at me as well and he treats my coworkers pretty much the same way although I’ve noticed it’s usually worse towards women. There’s some days where he’s really cool and for lack of a better word “normal” but on the days when he’s there I’m mostly miserable, lots of weird insults and petty remarks too. The big problem I’m having is I adore my coworkers. They are very nice, talented, and we all get along very well to the point where I personally would consider them friends and it in a way feels like family. I’m being told that my boss is passing along the shop to my coworker soon and will no longer be working there. if that’s the case then I will absolutely want to stay but I don’t know how long I can wait for that. Another aspect here is I am making money pretty much only from walkins, I’m still new enough that I don’t really have consistent regulars. The new place that I’m considering going to would offer better work hours so I wouldn’t be working as long everyday with the potential of no pay which happens a good amount where I’m at, I would have a private room, it’s significantly closer to my house, and the women who own this shop previously worked for my boss and relate with me on basically everything I’ve mentioned here.
I just don’t want to let my coworkers down or potentially regret my decision but I guess regardless it’s going to be stressful but I was just wondering if anyone could offer some insight. Thank you 💗

Tattooers/shop owners — how are things actually looking for you right now? Curious what other tattooers and shop owners are seeing lately, especially in the PNW, but interested in hearing from everywhere.
Not looking for the usual “tattooing is dead” vs. “I’m booked six months out” debate. More interested in what’s actually happening day to day.

Are you seeing:
Less/more walk-in traffic than a few years ago?
Clients booking less frequently?
More price-conscious clients?
More last-minute bookings and fewer long-term appointments?
Artists staying at shops longer, or more people moving toward private studios?
Shops having a harder time finding and keeping motivated tattooers?

And for the shops/artists that are doing well right now, what do you think is actually working?
Google? Instagram? Repeat clientele? Walk-ins? Events? Location? Reputation? Just years of building a client base?

I’ve been tattooing long enough to know the business constantly changes, but it feels like the way people find and choose tattooers is shifting again. Curious what everyone else is seeing from behind the counter and what you think the next year or two will look like.

Hi,
I’m going to have SMP (scalp micropigmentation) done by an artist in Europe. The artist uses Bishop Pigments (Aurum).

I’ve been trying to find information on their website about whether the pigments are REACH compliant, but I can’t seem to find anything about it.

What I’m mainly concerned about is making sure that the pigments don’t contain aluminium or other contaminants, especially since the pigment ends up in the lymph nodes, similar to what happens with regular tattoo ink.

For those of you who know about this: Does Bishop have a good reputation for high-quality pigments?

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Hey! I’m a tattoo artist based in Tirana, Albania. I’ve been tattooing for almost 5 years and have built up an established clientele during that time.
I currently don’t have a secondary job, but my biggest issue is that, because I have an Albanian (non-EU) passport, I can’t simply work as a guest artist or resident artist in European studios.
I’m therefore thinking about applying for a normal job in Germany (construction, cooking, or basically anything that could offer me a proper work contract) so I can get a work visa and eventually a residence permit. My idea would be to spend the first year working that job, and then hopefully transition into working as a resident tattoo artist once I have the right to do so.
The biggest question for me is what happens with tattooing during that first year. I already have some established clients in Albania, including some bigger projects, so I’d obviously like to keep working on those whenever I’m back home. I’m also wondering whether it would be possible to work a normal part-time/full-time job in Germany while being registered with a tattoo studio and doing something like one tattoo per week, or occasionally doing guest spots during my vacation days.
So my questions are:
• Is it worth slowing down my tattoo career for a year or so in order to get the necessary papers/residency?
• Has anyone been in a similar situation as a non-EU artist, and how did you deal with it?
• Do you think working much less for a year would set me back significantly in terms of tattooing skills and progress?
I really want to move abroad because the tattoo scene in Albania isn’t really suited to the type of work I do. Darker work is still somewhat taboo here, and I feel like I’d have much more room to grow professionally in the European scene.
I’d really appreciate hearing from anyone who has gone through something similar, especially other non-EU tattoo artists.

I don’t know if anyone feels this way but let me say for myself, I’m not fucking leaving.

I don’t care how slow bookings are. I don’t care how shitty the economy is. I don’t care if my hands are aching and my back is breaking. I’m not quitting.

This “job” is my passion in life. It’s all I ever wanted. Since I was a small child this has been it for me.

I’ve worked too hard and it’s insane to me that people have ever used this industry as a quick cash grab.

Obviously I’m not speaking about people who have legitimate health struggles or life struggles that prevent them somehow. I’m speaking about people who had zero passion, respect or love for the art and just used tattoos to make a quick buck.

Anyone else feel this way? I feel very passionate about the tattoo industry.

What’s up Reddit, I’m coming here to either have my views swayed or concrete my opinions on how things work. I would like to hear from both sides, shop owners and the people that work there.

I’ve owned my shop for many years and am here to hear some options, the topic is booth rental VS a cut, and the business hours attached to each of them. I will give a little back history on where I’m coming from and where I’m at- sorry if it’s a tad long.

I opened up my shop 14 years ago, just a few miles outside of NYC. In the beginning it was just Me and three employees. I had everyone on a 65/35 cut and supplied everything except the machines and pigment- this includes all the furniture, all the fluids, supplies top to bottom, all of thier insurance, all the yearly licensing fees my state has and even all the drawing paper and drawing supplies in the back room- once in a while an artist would try a new stencil applicant but I always stuck with supplying the same one. This is more then I ever received in any shop I worked at prior to opening my own and those shops I was also working a 50-50 cut.
Keep in mind I was working as an employee from 06-2012 so a 50/50 cut was pretty standard then. My boss at the time had shop hours- those were 11:30-8 every day and we were required to be there for those hours, showing up at 11:30 was 30 minutes earlier then the shop opened and that was to ensure that we were all there for when the business opened and not walking in when the clients were which is incredibly unprofessional. When I opened up my own shop I wanted to see all of the flaws I saw in my first shop and run a shop free of those flaws.

After a few years of my shop being open, our group was pretty solidified, consistent and all on the same page- we would all get there around 11:30 and stay till 6 if nothing was going on, or later if we had appointments. But we never left before 6. I never wanted to hold my employees there till 8 like I used to have to do, I wanted to be progressive, and, well, maybe not full time. We all worked either a 4 or 5 day schedule and this was seamless- I bumped everyone up to 70/30 because of it.

As time when on, the shop grew- I added a few more stations, expanded the drawing room, added another tattoo room and the shop could now fit double what it did when I opened. That means more people can come on board which helps as bills and rent slowly started to climb.

Now, the shop has 9 of us. 7 of us are “full time” and 2 just come in twice a week (they are splitting time between my shop
And another shop)

The public’s business hours are 12-6 still like they always were- with most of us getting there at 11:30.

In the last two years, I noticed some employees would randomly throw on thier backpack and start to pack up around 3/4pm if they hadn’t anything going on and start saying peace to everyone. This started happening more and more with the same employees. At first it always had a reason- dinner with family, birthday, my dog, etc etc (you’ve all seen and herd it if you are in a shop) but then it started to being a norm- and obviously as a shop owner that’s providing the space for the person every day this starts to get under your skin-

I explained that I understand that everyone has their own life- we’re lucky to Tattoo to have everything we have in life and pretty much all of us work part time in someway. Yes I totally get booking appointments and drawing outside of the shop constitutes as work but like any business there’s working in the business and working on the business, and working in the business is done during normal business hours.

As I brought this up all of the employees were understanding of the business hours and how it works and why it’s bothering me that they’re leaving early except for one employee- so I explained to him that if he wants to have his own business where he comes and goes inside my business then he has to rent his station and it won’t bother me when he shows up or when he leaves.

This booth rental was 400$ a week and he happily accepted. His average cut he paid to the shop weekly for the last two years was 465, so this was a win for him, although I was making less money I saw it as a win for me because I got to separate my feelings from the way he conducted business because now he’s doing it for himself.

This lasted six months.

Just like every tattooer were seeing on here and on the Internet talking about being slow, that hit him as well. The 400$ rent was now more then he would pay me if he was leaving a cut as the 2026 summer season really slowed down for his tattooing.

He asked to go back on a cut- I told him only if he sticks to the business hours- we both agreed.

That was only a month ago.. fast forward to today: The last couple weeks when he works and I’m not there the other employees mention that he was leaving early, and today while I was working with him, he strolled into the shop 30 minutes after we opened- I bit my tongue. Then at 3:45, he throws on his backpack and starts to say peace to everyone after tattooing one person- when he got to my room I just looked at him and told him he’s not going anywhere. This immediately caused a problem.

He lets me know that he no longer wants to do walkins and hees only tattooing his people, and because of that hees comming in only for them then leaving- and staying till 6 in unfair- keep in mind this is just weeks after we had come to an agreement to switch back to 70/30 from his booth rental which granted him that freedom to run his own microbusiness within mine.

So my question is- who’s right?

I’m providing two different options for how you could work for me- pay a 70/30% cut and show up at 11:30 and leave at six, you could work one day a week or five, it doesn’t bother me as long as you’re there for those hours you choose, whether you’re busy or slow.

Or

Pay 400 bucks a week to come and go seven days a week as you please.

For my fellow shop owners, opinions?
And for the shop employees in here as well- what do you think? How would you handle this situation- I would like to see it through different eyes.

Thanks!