You can watch DVDs, take classes and observe an expert tattoo artist at work. But when if you want to become a tattoo artist, you are eventually going to have to put ink to skin. You can practice on yourself, but that has its limits. An essential part of tattoo artist training is tattoo practice skin.
Practice skin is a synthetic skin-like material or animal skin that allows you to practice tattoo techniques. It is made to feel like real skin and react to needles and ink just like real skin. It comes in squares or sheets ranging from 6 x 8 inches to 8 x 12 sheets, with a thickness of about 2 millimeters. The sheets can be plain or may have simple designs stamped on them lightly so you can trace over them. You can also trace designs on practice skin yourself with a stencil just as you would on real skin.
Before synthetic skin was invented, practicing artists used oranges and other fruit to get used to how to use tattoo needles on skin. Animal skin such as pig skin was also used. Synthetic skin is made of rubber or a laminated rubber compound. Some brands can be used on both sides.
For a long time, the common options for those learning to tattoo were to either practice on their own skin, or to tattoo fruit, such as oranges, to get a feel for the depth of the needle. Synthetic skin can be wrapped around a typical tattoo area so the artist can get used to working on body contours.
Not only does practice skin help a tattoo artist improve their skills, good samples made on practice skin can be used in artist portfolios. An artist can try out new inks and designs, and can use the skin to show a client what a finished tattoo will look like.
