Tattoo Digital Design Tools are Changing Flash
As a tattooer for 20 years, I have been through and witnessed a lot of the major changes in the tattoo industry. As our craft became more popular in the mainstream, pushing back against a lot of traditionalists, a lot of investors got involved and really helped push our industry into the next era. I know a lot of tattooers were not very happy about corporate America getting their greedy tentacles into our industry but, I gotta say, some of them have developed things that no tattooer was about to invent or create in their shop or garage. Personally I am thankful about these innovations.
Back to my original point, one of the many major changes has been the availability of great digital drawing tablets. The most popular being the iPad of course. With this increased availability, came increased adapters. With tablets now being drastically cheaper, more people are willing to give it a shot. Also, now in order to design on a great tablet, you no longer need to be connected to a laptop or a desktop. We now have mobile, fully functional tablets with unbelievable power and price points that any professional or hobbyist can afford.
With all of this said, you can understand why so many people have made the digital switch. When I made the switch, almost 7 years ago, it wasn’t as easy. It’s wild to see how far we have come in less than 10 years!
When I first switched over, I used to travel the country to do seminars; teaching and helping bridge the gap for traditional analog artists. Now 7 years later, I would be confident in saying that at least half of the tattoo industry is now working in a digital format. Maybe some still dabble with pencil and paper for everyday designs, but a large majority have made the switch and design most of their tattoos and artwork on a tablet of some sort.
With a variety of great 2d drawing programs out there, a lot of tattooers have adopted a few they use in unisant.
Procreate is probably the most popular one used amongst tattooers. As one of the very first iPad drawing applications, it was used early on and has grown immensely since. With tons of great updates over the years they have created one of the most intuitive drawing applications I have ever used; even my 6 year old can figure it out.
Over the years I have explained to artists why going digital was so important for my growth and what the benefits are. To break down a few, I will compile a short list.
First and foremost: Drawing supplies.
You will never need to go shopping for supplies or, have to use that last nub of a pencil, because you forgot to go supply shopping. Or, that worn out micron that’s on his last breath. You can sleep easy knowing that as long as you have your charger, you will never run out of drawing supplies again.
Secondly: Save the trees.
You won’t be using rolls and rolls of paper anymore. Just a few sheets when you make stencils. The everlasting pile of crumpled up papers or stacks of sketches, can now be all nice and neat in a folder on your cloud or folder on your tablet.
Third: You can design anywhere anytime with no limits.
Excited to start a design or in a hurry to meet a deadline? Perfect. You can now draw anywhere with full potential. No more sketching on the train or Uber ride, trying to prepare for when you are at a desk so you can finish the design with all of your “supplies”.
Busting out tracing paper and microns and a light table anywhere, just isn’t logical.
With digital, you can pull out your tablet anywhere and create with endless potential.
On the train, no problem. On the bus, no problem. On the beach or poolside, no problem. Stay on top of your clients designs anywhere anytime and become the ultimate professional. With this type of efficiency, maybe you could actually retire and not tattoo till you're dead.
Fourth: Merchandise.
As we all know, tattooers and artists alike have used merchandise as a source of passive income. Most production artists can only make money while they are actively sitting down and designing. This form of income is not sustainable, plus, it has a very low ceiling for revenue. In order to move past this hurdle, artists need passive income and investments.
Circling back around to why going digital is relevant to this subject. When drawing digitally you are already designing in a format that is used for creating every form of merchandise. No need to pay someone to convert your drawings to vector files or use an analog drawing for a design, you can create designs that are prepped and ready to print and produce without any extra effort. Obviously, you need to understand the settings to use to design for print but, that’s simple and we will discuss that in another blog post soon.
Fifthly: Design Efficiency! Adjustments have no limitations, no matter how drastic they are.
Let me explain. Basically, through all of my years of tattooing, one thing that always gave me huge issues was when a client see’s a design that you spent hours and hours designing and they just don't like one part of it. But that part, could seem very simple to the client, but may be a huge compositional issue if we were to change or remove it.
Before, I would have to potentially take my fully rendered design and throw it on a light board and retrace my original design then make the necessary adjustments. This situation can vary quite a bit and can sometimes add hours of extra time to the project that you don't get paid for. Which is terrible for a tattooer. When working in the digital format, these changes are much easier. This will help make sure your client is happy with their design, you can tattoo them and make your money for the day.
Another instance is, what if your client loves the design, but what if you lay the stencil and things just don't line up compositionally. It just doesn't look good. Instead of “making it work”, because redesign would take hours, now you can make major adjustments in just minutes. Making every tattoo you do, that much better.
We have given you a mountain of reasons to switch to digital. I want everyone to understand that, we completely understand the need for analog tools. Just because you use a tablet to design your weekly tattoos, doesn't mean we don't love paintings and art that are done with analog tools.
Personally I don't think we can ever replace ink and paper completely, because of the look and feel, the ritual of working analog. Along with what it does for an artist psychologically, and of course the fact that there is 1 original piece of artwork which adds to the value of a said art. With that said, by no means are we at Tattoo Space, advocates for moving away from analog tools, but we also know there's a time and place for it. The same for digital.
Again, work smarter not harder.
The last point I wanted to make for now, trust me there is plenty more. But for now, the big barrier for a lot of artists is consultations and bookkeeping. I have been teaching about digital consults and bookkeeping for years and have tons of advice on the situation. We want to help all artists find the right tools, and shops for them so for job opportunities in the tattoo industry, give Jooble a try!
In our next blog we will show you how to get rid of all of those pieces of tracing paper with sharpie guidelines and random notes. Get yourself truly organized and don't show up to an appointment unprepared ever again.
We hope you enjoyed this read and we are excited for our next educational post!
