Why a Tattoo Portfolio?

I have always had a love for tattoos and appreciate them as a form of artwork. Many people use it as a way of expressing themselves and I have always found that interesting. Tattoos are a visual representation of a person for who they are, where they have been, what they love, and what they have been through, and so on. Over the years I have thought about becoming a professional tattoo artist. When researching how to become one everyone says to start out with a portfolio of work in order to show tattoo studios your skill level and hopefully end up with an apprenticeship.

I have taken a lot of inspiration for my work from artists such as Fukari (or fuki_ink on Instagram), White Oak Tattoo Co., True Hand Society, Dakota Williams (aka tattoosbykota on Instagram), the show Ink Masters, and many more artists I have found online or in my local area. I have spent a lot of time going to tattoo conventions in the local area as well as getting tattoos done on myself which inspire my work today. While traditional tattoo styles inspire my personal work through this project I have expanded this influence into my personal branding which can be seen in this piece as well as my website and resume.

For this project, I decided to break it up into 5 main categories to show a variety of tattoo themes. I started with a series of animals, two flash sheets (one for basic small tattoos and one for zodiac signs), a series inspired by cartoon media, a horror movie-inspired series, and two portraits. These categories are not only important to be able to create for tattoos, but also have helped inspire my personal work from a young age and therefore felt important to include.