This guest post was written by Brandon Collins at Nightmare Studios Tattoo in Reno, NV

With the invention of tattoo “reality” shows, the average un-tattooed or mildly tattooed person is led to believe that tattoo artists are superheroes: they can draw an entire back piece in 15 minutes, go out to the clubs all night and still come to work on time, able to tattoo whatever you want, wherever you want it.

That sounds awfully appealing to some kids–but it couldn’t be any further from the truth. Anyone who has spent time in a tattoo shop knows that most tattooers are your average hardworking dads and moms with mortgages, car payments and phone bills, not prima donna rockstars that get VIP everywhere and drive Lamborghini’s. Those TV shows make a mockery of our profession and because of them, our trade has been diluted by half-ass, mediocre tattooers. Not only have these hacks not paid their dues, but they pump out crappy $20 tattoos that the average joes doesn’t even realize are shit.

Before deciding you want to be a tattooer, think about this: Say my appointment for the day doesn’t show up, so that $400 I needed to pay rent and put food on my table will just have to wait. If YOU go to work and no one shows up, YOU still get paid and so you can afford to sit home home and watch “TATTOO SCHOOL” and say to your stoned roommate “bro, I can totally do that shit!”. You get breaks and paid holidays, insurance and an guaranteed paycheck every week. We don’t. We work 50-60 hours a week tattooing, drawing and painting with no medical benefits and no retirement funds.

Don’t listen to your family. That skull with the lightning bolts and a joint in its mouth you drew in the 8th grade ISN’T amazing. Your parents, close family members and friends are always going to tell you that you are a natural artist. Their biased encouragement will only give you the false confidence to go into a tattoo shop and get your feelings hurt. Tattooing isn’t a hobby or something just to pass the time. It is a profession and a sole mean of income, so if you think we will welcome you and your “tat guns” into our trade with open arms, you are sorely mistaken. Apprenticeships are meant to be hard–to weed out the undeserving. If you are lucky enough to get one (and I do mean lucky) you will be taught a skill that can carry you for the rest of your life and you are forever indebted to the person who taught you. There are those dip-shits that don’t have the balls to go into a tattoo shop and try to get an apprenticeship – or they did and were tossed out, just order some “guns” online and “do tats” out of their house. Not only is this completely disgusting, unsanitary and unethical, but also illegal. Don’t even think about doing that. Those fucktards can do some real and irreversible damage to someone not to mention potentially spread disease.

Most tattoo artists don’t make a lot of money. Tattooers get paid by the hour but that money isn’t dumped right into our pockets. We have to give a percentage to the shop and pay for supplies and what-not. In reality we only get a fraction of what we charge for your tattoo. So when you tell me, “Dannnng $100?… Thats a lot, you must be rich!” and I want to run a steel spike through your head, you will understand why. As I mentioned before, if an appointment doesn’t show up or you don’t have anything scheduled, you don’t get paid. Imagine going to your job at Home Depot or where ever and working a full day without pay.

So next time you have the urge to be like Kat Von D or whatever rockstar tattooer is the flavor of the week… remember this: Countless hours of work for minimal pay and no benefits is the life that we have chosen and will defend with extreme prejudice. Do yourself a favor: keep your day job, and leave our profession alone.

**** Quality guest blogs from tattooers & enthusiasts always welcomed–shoot us an email.

Recently, I’ve had a few clients come in with photos of custom tattoos in the hopes that I will duplicate them. After I educate them on the etiquette of custom tattoos and explain why I need to redraw/redesign them, I usually get one of the following responses: “I completely understand and I’m sure I’ll love what you design” or, “Change it? But I really like it the way it is!”

Though I try to explain to potential clients that this defeats the purpose of getting their own one-of-a-kind, custom tattoo, sometimes their insistence forces me to abandon “their” idea completely!

Pick an artist whom you trust and whose work you admire, and then be open-minded to the artist’s visions and suggestions. Feel free to bring references–but know that a reputable tattooer will not give you an exact copy of another artist’s work.

Below are recent examples other artists’ work that I redesigned for my clients. The raven on the left is by Oleg Turyanskiy, and the peach on the left was done by Nick Baxter.

–Guest post by Mark Duhan at Skin Deep Ink in New Milford, CT.

**** Quality guest blogs from tattooers & enthusiasts always welcomed–shoot us an email.

Editor’s note: Given the changes that have occurred in tattooing – and the numerous enthusiasts that have made regrettable decisions in tattoo artist/subject selection – we’re looking to shed light not only on where to get a good tattoo, but how to get rid of a bad one.

I’ll let Michael Driver take over from here.

This whole thing started back when I was 19 or 20 and had my first experiences with laser tattoo removal. I had rushed out and gotten a sleeve off some dude I can’t even remember the name of within my first few weeks of being 18. After a year or so, I began to realize that it was pure shit–a standard dumb kid move, but it got me to where I am now, I guess.

While I was going through it, I became obsessed with learning as much as I could about laser tattoo removal and ended up quizzing the doctors and nurses doing the treatments. I realized that, most of the time, they didn’t know what they were doing.

It took about a year and a half for me to finish the necessary courses and training. During my practical training I got the feeling that this was going to be a big thing for tattoo culture on the whole, not just the mid-30’s soccer mum regretting her tramp stamp.

It was cool how many tattooers and tattoo collectors came to me, asking that I lighten older tattoos so they could free up space for newer, ‘good’ ones.

My friend Mitch Love and I were talking after a show in Brisbane one night and he mentioned that Matt Cunnington (owner of Westside Tattoo) was interested in having a chat with me about working together.

This was basically a dream come true. I had been getting tattooed there regularly for the last four years and consider it one of the best shops in the country–not to mention a lot better than other shops that had offered me a position at the time. After a few phone calls with Matt (and a lot of phone calls to the health department) I started working out of Westside Tattoo a few months later.

Business was quite slow at first; we were one the first shops in the country offering laser tattoo removal, and it was relatively new to most people.

Things started picking up after numerous other tattoo shops starting sending people our way. A lot of younger kids that made the same mistakes I did were coming in and fading out there full sleeves, back pieces, etc…

Quite a few people come in to have their face tattoos completely removed in the last few months, which is understandable after the phase that Australian tattooing just went through for that.

I guess now people realize they can go through the tattoo removal process and have the person doing the treatment who can relate to them every step of the way and isn’t some douchebag that hates tattoos.

I recently opened up my second “clinic” (I hate that word) inside Third Eye Tattoo in Melbourne, and have a third opening in Sydney in the not-too-distant future.

Obviously I love tattoos, and I love lightening the pieces people aren’t happy with so they can get quality new ones in their place. That being said, I really hope I never find myself inundated with customers that want their tattoos completely removed after deciding they don’t like tattoos anymore.

**** We’re looking for quality guest blogs from tattooers & enthusiasts–shoot us an email.

You know what really grinds my gears? TATTOO THIEVES. It is becoming a pretty serious issue. Tattoo artists of low integrity are giving in to clients and not using their own skills to create a custom pice. Most of the time you can look at a tattoo and know exactly who the artist is; peoples’ styles have become so obvious thanks to the internet.

Editor’s Note: Earlier we posted a guest blog from Joe Capobianco (Tattoo Coupons: Bad for Business). I encourage you to read both posts before firing off on anyone. I encourage you to read both posts before firing off  in the comments.

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The current Republican primary has unraveled into hyperbolic absurdity, and as an outsider (a non-Republican), it is an amusing disaster to watch. Each statement a candidate makes is taken by his rivals and twisted so far out of context that its original meaning is completely lost before being used against him in stump speeches and misquoted in ads on TV. Although unfair and dishonest, it is a brutal election process with very high stakes. It’s not hard to see how respectable politicians can become childish and petty so quickly.

When similar name-calling and shit-talking eats away at your own community, though, it is far from entertaining. Every time something new is unveiled in the tattoo industry, there’s a thousand over-the-top opinions and judgements unleashed immediately. While you can find honest debate over relevant industry issues (i.e. licensing, safety, and equipment), it tends to be drowned out by the alarmist babble concerning the more insignificant happenings that don’t have a real effect on anything–or anyone.

The newest non-issue incurring the wrath of those who need to be heard is the offering of coupons for tattoo work on group discount websites like Groupon. These sites are a little too “thrifty suburban housewife” for me, but I hardly believe that the partnering of these sites with tattoo shops is going to destroy the tattoo industry as we know it. In fact, other shops using coupons probably won’t have any impact on established custom tattoo shops with existing clientele.

Tattoo customers have various ways of finding the type of artist or shop that best suits their purposes. Some people want a tattoo of something simple ASAP, and a normal street shop works fine for them. On the other side of the spectrum, a serious tattoo collector will want a specific artist’s work, and are willing to wait a year or more to get an appointment.

Between these two sides fall the rest of the tattoo shops, which range widely in quality, price, cleanliness and experience. In order to differentiate themselves from each other, shops use whatever marketing techniques are available to them. For the shops that don’t offer especially unique skills or styles that are competing with many other shops for the mid-grade type of customer (who might not know much about the tattoo industry) but does want a clean, friendly environment, coupons seem like an effective strategy.

The clients that search out specific artists and styles are looking for a higher quality of tattooing. They aren’t shopping based on price, they are educated about the tattoo industry and know what they are looking for. They often get larger pieces, have to travel to their artist and sometimes wait months (or longer) for appointments. None of these clients would be swayed by the coupons offered by local, unremarkable shops.

Mitt Romney never slammed Jon Huntsman or Rick Perry (even when they were twisting his words about wanting choices in his health care plan by repeating his “I like to fire people…” quote)… because he didn’t have to. The Perry campaign spent their time turning that unfairly edited quote into a ringtone for download on his website (and they did), but it wasn’t going to change the minds of Romney’s supporters. They knew the truth, and they also knew that neither Perry or Huntsman were a threat. They’ve both since dropped out of the race, after all. Mitt Romney has focused on running the best campaign he can, with little thought to the desperate moves taken by harmless opponents.

Tattooing will never be an industry without gritty parts and undesirable qualities. It certainly wasn’t founded on high principles of artistic merit, but has come a long way in a short amount of time. The best approach to having a more educated public is to promote the highest caliber of artists and shops through avenues such as TattooSnob and Tattoo Now, and to encourage all the positive efforts being made in the industry. This will more effectively contribute to the betterment of the tattoo community than the very public and negative infighting, especially concerning issues that have no real bearing on established artists.

–Guest blog by Shawn Hebrank

**** We’re looking for quality guest blogs from tattooers & enthusiasts–shoot us an email.