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When you need to get some designs on cups in a hurry, what do you do? Old school American traditional flash. It was meant to be done quickly. They called it "flash" because back when tattoos were illegal, a tattooist would find a place to work, pin up his sheets of designs for customers to pick from and bang them out. No custom stuff (they couldn't make custom stencils quickly back then - they had to hand cut reusable stencils from sheets of acetate). If the police were coming, he had to pack up and be gone "in a flash". So the designs came to be known as flash. That's what my mentor told me, anyway.
I have a ton of respect for American traditional tattooists. It looks simple and easy, but simple things are the absolute most difficult to do well. An old school design is something complicated boiled down to its most recognizable traits. Everyone starts out drawing simplified as kids, but if you stick with it your work will naturally get more and more complex as you think about values, color theory, lighting, perspective, etc. Trying to go back to drawing simplified is a mind fuck. I don't know how many pages of old school roses I had to draw, but enough to be humble about the challenge of making a flower everyone can recognize from a handful of perfect lines on a sheet of paper. Picasso, for instance. Classically trained artist, totally capable of realistic work in his youth that many people would consider the artistic pinnacle. Chooses to push his art in a simplified, childlike, experimental direction. Because realism is boring. It is, it's dead boring. Laypeople are overly impressed by near photographic renderings. Are artists supposed to be cameras? No. Reproducing an image like a camera is a parlor trick. "Ooh, aah" but it's not that hard once you have the muscle memory, hand eye coordination and grasp of a basic value scale. It's not difficult.
I would never pass myself off as an American traditional artist because it is too difficult for my current skill level. Because it is simple, it has to be perfect. With realism you can be a little sloppy and there's wiggle room. Realism can hide a thousand sins.
It's good to work with old school designs because they force you to focus on line quality. Metal cups are both less and more forgiving than skin. Small imperfections in a line will disappear in a healed tattoo as the ink blurs a little under the skin. With metal, what you see is what you get. But, you can also go in and try to make small adjustments as many times as you like. With skin, you pretty much get one shot. Going over a line might look better immediately for a fresh tattoo, but as it heals that ink will blob, maybe blow out, and it will heal rough because of too much skin trauma from multiple passes.
I was running my machine at about 9k rpm, but I think I get better line quality at 13k or so, but it feels dangerous because the spin of the bit can get more out of control really fast. I'm starting to think nothing looks good on these rainbow cups. Maybe the shiny colors and the shiny engraving clash instead of complimenting. But it seems like every miniscule jiggle in the line is magnified. It's making me crazy. I'm basically going to have to reengrave most of this stupid peacock feather. Varying the line weight helps - anything with a single fixed line weight will look amateurish, unfinished. I can get a little bit of line variation, but not enough. It's just annoying because I thought I was doing really well with the long, graceful lines of the feather and I wash the stencil off and it's HOT SHINY CRAP. Anyway, I think I will stick to matte powder coated cups in the future. The black cups look awesome. The rainbow cups are disappointment.
Apparently spouse told a coworker what I was doing and now he wants a Mandalorian beer stein too. I'm conflicted. I would never attempt to sell IP things to the general public. I'm lukewarm on fanart so it's no sacrifice - fanart always seems like a cheap ploy for bucks. People will buy almost any crap thing based on their love for the IP. Of course people want something cool from a fandom they enjoy, me included. I like Star Wars - if someone wanted a Mandalorian tattoo I'd be so excited to do it. There's no fuss over licensing for a tattoo. So I guess if I think of this as tattooing on a metal object by special request it would be okay. It's a one off thing, not to be mass duplicated. I am sure the mouse would disagree, but I think these are the rules I will abide by. Specific custom requests, okay. Displayed in the booth or advertised, hard no. Won't even mention in conversation.
We'll see what this guy says when I say it'll be a minimum $120. Which honestly is a lowball price for the work. That's one hour of tattoo time. Realistically I should charge $200. But it's spouse's coworker and I'm just getting started, so.
I need to get that stainless steel patina. Oooh, I wants it. Can't do another mandalorian piece without it. I think adding the dark patina for contrast will be the PERFECT thing. Like, I wonder if I can do splattery brushstrokes with it? Like a sumi-e painting? And then engrave over? That would be BADASS. I'm getting hyped just thinking about it.
(I also researched acid etching stainless steel. I'd need a real workspace for it, like the powder coating. It has to be taken to a proper disposal site afterward. So not something I want to try in an upper floor apartment.)
I've been pulling my money out of the stupid crypto app slowly as various coins rise. I don't have the attention span for maintaining short term trades and buying/selling at the right times. I learned a ton - great experience - will be long term investing. I ended up doubling my money, which would be more impressive if it weren't a mere $100 and it didn't take 2-3 months. So I can pay for the patina kit from crypto profits, yay!
Sun's up, time to get back to work.