New ones

[mommafreak]

I have did a few more. Here is the first one on another person

http://urafreak.com/gallery2/d/13513-1/IMG_9108.jpg

Here is the second on a person its a star I know you can see it good in the pic and I didnt get one after is was done like a dummy...LOL It is better than the star I did on my leg though.
http://urafreak.com/gallery2/d/13541-1/IMG_9178.jpg

And here is the one I did on my leg last night. It came out ok, a little shaky, and its the first one I have done that was complicated.
http://urafreak.com/gallery2/d/13607-1/IMG_9247.jpg

[Mr. Bill]

Looking good so far.

Lines are a bit shaky though. That will improve with time and practice. Also, try to complete each line without stopping if at all possible. If you have to stop in the middle of a line, try to finish it by starting again about an 8th inch into it and continuing in the same direction. It's better than starting at the other end and trying to connect in the middle of the line. (hope that makes sense). Keep up the good work.

[gezza]

Shaky! You should concentrate more and practice more your drawing. Good method to improve your skills is to mount your tattoo machine head to a pen, put on the clipcord too and to draw that way on paper . Thry not to rotate the sheet of paper but rotate your pen with the machine head (as on the skin) Thus you will feel the machine weight... At this point if you are tattooing, choose less demanding designs, whitout coloring and shading thus later if there is a need to corect something in these tattoos it will be much easyer.

[papadurivage]

The first the to consider is safety.. such as setting up and using barrier film when you work on people.. that cloth chair and your shorts are most likely contaminated.. remember that putting ink into the skin is only a part of tattooing.. be safe.

[tadt]

i have to agree with the others also, start out with simple designs. It looks like you dont have alot of control over the machine, luckily the lines look thin enough that you will be able to go over them and make them thicker to even them out once it heals. Also what size grips are your using? looks like the little 1/2 inch ones try the 1 inch grips youll be amazed at how much more control you will have over the machine, i threw out all my 1/2 inch grip tubes after i tried the 1 inch.

[FORGIVEN]

I've never try and discourage people ....and i wont start now , but ...
if you're looking for honesty ..
here it is ..
stop tattooing people for now ...
take 2 "D" batteries and tape them to the end of a pencil ..build up your hand strength ..practice drawing like that for awhile ..
then maybe consider putting a pencil in your tube vise , then draw like that for awhile ,,now when i say "awhile" i mean a few months ...draw SIMPLE designs , when you get the flow of a drawing down ,do that for a couple of weeks , then work on straight lines ..for a few weeks ..
i hope you take this as construtive and not hurtfull ..thats not who i try and be ,..but ...this isnt something everyone is cut out to do..and without some basic knowledge , some handstrength , its a recipe for many , many cover-ups to come ..

[mommafreak]

I've never try and discourage people ....and i wont start now , but ...
if you're looking for honesty ..
here it is ..
stop tattooing people for now ...
take 2 "D" batteries and tape them to the end of a pencil ..build up your hand strength ..practice drawing like that for awhile ..
then maybe consider putting a pencil in your tube vise , then draw like that for awhile ,,now when i say "awhile" i mean a few months ...draw SIMPLE designs , when you get the flow of a drawing down ,do that for a couple of weeks , then work on straight lines ..for a few weeks ..
i hope you take this as constructive and not hurtful ..that's not who i try and be ,..but ...this is something everyone is cut out to do..and without some basic knowledge , some hand strength , its a recipe for many , many cover-ups to come ..

That's what I want. I was really shaking and just nervous when working on other people. And I was having a hard time getting the skin stretched on my own leg because of the position I was in. Thank you for your advise. I really appreciate it :)

[untitled_again]

DITTO! All of the advice givin is great but it looks like you need to study up on cross contamination more then anything. The rest is all in practice and getting over being nervous, but bad habits are hard to break and can be life threatening.

^^^ sad but true. tattoos are forever but so is hepatitis

[el tatuaje]

whoa! what a start, i agree with the building up of your muscles but
just so you'll know, its all fixable and if anyone say's differently then they can't tattoo. don't panic and it will take you a little time to do straight lines.

el

[Duger]

Not busting anything, with reading about CC's you need to practice them aswell, like it was said get your hand strength built up, put a pencil in the tube vise and draw or tape some batteries to a pencil.

[artandtattoo2]

Are u kidding??

[untitled_again]

whoa! what a start, i agree with the building up of your muscles but
just so you'll know, its all fixable and if anyone say's differently then they can't tattoo. don't panic and it will take you a little time to do straight lines.

el

yeah dude. we all gotta start somewhere. lining is a difficult thing to master.

[punkfloyd]

You might want to give the ol' grapefruits a whirl before you try to fix them.

When you do go back to skin try riding the needle with larger grips,thats what I do and I have more confidence with my linework now than before.
Also I would recomend that you attempt small designs first that can be fixed easily, black stars, tribal, anything black that you can make bigger if it goes wrong.

Oh yeah nearly forgot, you don't want to be using anything smaller than a 5L just yet, I would say a 7L is a better option,
Good luck.
It gets easier over time.

[gezza]

whoa! what a start, i agree with the building up of your muscles but
just so you'll know, its all fixable and if anyone say's differently then they can't tattoo. don't panic and it will take you a little time to do straight lines.

el
I screwed up a few tattoos at the beginning of my tattooing career, afterwards I was sorry that I hadn't practice more on graphefruit and hadn't found more information on the Internet, but I was too eager to plunge the needle into the skin... just to depict how ignorant I was: I didn't use rubberbands on my machine.... I had to cover up those tattoos, some of which heald with scar tissue.
So, yes one can tattoo on this level but but he will build up bad reputation for himself and he will have a lot of job covering up his early works.

[In The Flesh]

I apprenticed under a guy, who REALLY had no business tattooing... I did it for about 8 months under him, and realized (not to boast) but I was a FAR better artist than him... So I cut out... How I got my "practice" and reputation, is FIXING all of the work that he had done at his shop... A lot of them were done for free, to kinda re-build my reputation, due to the "Birds Of A Feather" saying... I DID learn a lot from the guy, about how NOT to run a shop... So for that I'm thankful... lol

Any way, I don't know why I even mentioned all of that... But just remember, some days are better than others... I still have my bad days where I do a "not so straight" line... We all do... We're only human... Just stick with it if you have the passion for it... Like it's been said a million times... It WILL get easier with time!

Best of luck to ya!

[Bubba]

i agree stop for now and draw more, it will come

[Tribal Dragon]

I agree with everything that's been said. Another way to build your confidence is to look at magazines with photo's submitted by some Proffessionals. You will see some designs that have lines like a dogs back leg, this will reassure you that even the best can make mistakes. So your not on your own. If you really do like the Art of Tattooing you will get there in the end. Like the other people have said, don't do any more on skin till you get better. Mistakes tend to get seen by a lot of people and this can and will ruin your reputation before you even get one, then you have to work harder to build it up in the first place. Good Luck