Hello! I’ve been following your blog for a while, but because I want to become a tattoo artist, and I know it’s a mostly male dominated environment I was wondering if you had any advice or thoughts! Thank you!
OKAY, I’M SORRY FOR THIS BLOCK OF TEXT, BUT I HAVE TO HELP ANON.
It’s a bit more challenging for a girl to start tattooing, but also very exciting. There’s still not so many of us out there so we stand out more. But since the tattoos are not such a taboo anymore, 80% of my customers are female. They feel more at ease being tattooed by a girl, especially if they have to undress.
The tattoo scene will mostly accept you regardless your gender, just follow these rules:
- no scratching (working illegally from home)
- no badmouthing other artists (if a customer starts to badmouth someone just say “I respect them as a fellow artist” or “idk, I don’t know them”)
- no stealing customers by setting very low prices (that will hurt you the most in the long run)
- respect the ones that started before you and accept those after you.
What I did to avoid conflicts (I live in a tiny country, so I can’t afford a bad rep):
- I collected my best artworks and found a good mentor
- I showed him I was a hard worker and offered him to collaborate after my apprenticeship
- Once he helped me open my shop I found the other local tattooers (all male) and made friends (a very good way to show respect to a tattoo artist is to get tattooed by them in their art style - if you like it - otherwise just bring them beer and buy a T-shirt)
- I also connected (followed/liked) all the girl tattooers in the country (again, tiny country)
This way there was no “who’s that new girl that thinks she can tattoo?” but instead “yeah, that’s P, she’s cool, still learning tho.”
Yes, some people still confuse me with the counter girl, hairdresser or the customer (asking my actual male customers to make an appointment). If you want I’ll make an AMA on my Twitch channel soon and explain how I tackle these things, as well as people I don’t want to tattoo, guys that ask for appointment just so they could flirt, people who want tattoos that you don’t know how to make and other tattooers who look down on you because of your gender. All standard girl tattooer problems.
