Want a tattoo really bad? Short on cash and thinking of doing it yourself? I urge you to reconsider. There are countless reasons not to tattoo yourself but we’ll just touch on a few of the most important ones for this article.
How Many Tattoos Have You Done Before?
Perhaps one of the most important aspects of tattooing is the ability to accurately apply a design to skin. If you’ve never tattooed before I can guarantee that your first tattoo will look like crap. Every tattooist’s first tattoo looks like crap even with the best equipment available. If you plan on tattooing yourself and you’ve never done it before be prepared to have a horrible looking tattoo for the rest of your life.
Homemade tattoo equipment is also generally of poor quality and the chance of seriously damaging tissue and creating scars is a real possibility. If you decide that your tattoo was a bad decision later in life and get it removed by laser, scar tissue does not go away. You may be left with a perfect scar of your previous home made tattoo.
Doing tattoos yourself with substandard ink could also cause your tattoo to prematurely fade leaving you with a blurry picture or a tattoo that looks old well before it’s time.
Risk Of Infection
Now that I’ve explained why you can’t tattoo yourself Ill try to stress the factor of sterilization and disease.
You need an autoclave to sterilize equipment properly. Do you have an autoclave? If you answered no, mark another check in the column for why you shouldn’t be trying to tattoo. Without an autoclave you can not guarantee complete sterilization of equipment. If needles are used more then once you risk contracting any virus the person who was tattooed before you possibly had. This means AIDS, Hepatitis, or one of a thousand other afflictions that could be present or grow on unsterilized equipment.
If you do manage to avoid contracting a life threatening virus you’re still at a high risk for developing an infection in your new tattoo. Infection can come from virtually anywhere and you should do everything you can to reduce the risk of contamination. Homemade tattoos are much more likely to get infected then a professionally applied tattoo in a sterile work environment.
My 2 Cents
I’ve seen tons of homemade tattoos and can honestly say I’ve never seen one that was really good. Even tattoos with a unique feel and design can be made into a horrible abomination of body art when someone decides to take the tattooing process into their own hands.
15 responses so far ↓
1 Zacc // Dec 15, 2009 at 12:10 am
That funny you say you haven’t seen any good homeade work… If possible I would like to send a pic. of my arm? Which I did myself. Think you would like to see it…
2 Alex // Apr 14, 2010 at 3:01 pm
DO YOU WANT TO GIVE ME A TATTOO FOR FREE THAN CUZ I DONT GOT THE MONEY?
3 Jeremiah // May 2, 2010 at 9:36 pm
I agree with what was explained I did my own and no matter what one person thinks about their own tats they done theirselves it will turn out crappy the first time. There is a chance you will contract a virus or worse a disease ,I caught a blood poisining from a jailhouse tat . To this day after all the antibacterial meds i take i still get boils that are soo painful i regret this hellashish tat .
4 massprillar // Feb 12, 2011 at 9:54 am
i am an artist, and i did art and life drawing up to .A. level. can some one tell me how to make a coil tat gun, i watched a program about some jail tats and the con was using a home made coil tat gun, i think he bust apart a couple of fm radios or somthing like that. and his tatooing was f**king shit hot (im english this means good) if some one can direct me or gimmie pointers or a full plan plz forward them to me at massprillar@hotmail.co.uk
5 luminus // Aug 8, 2011 at 11:24 pm
matter of opinion im down with zac my sleeve looks dope n it was my first tatt look at me now ive got my own studio with 3 artists working for me people are prejudice about home tatt artists or SCRATCHERS but with the ever growin popularity if tattooing its not very simple to just go get an apprenticship so start were you can but if you dont know what your the key is LEARN,ASK QUESTIONS,OBSERVE,ASK QUESTIONS,RESEARCH AND THE ALL MIGHTY point being knowledge is power plus dont make your own guns unless u have the proper equipment an no i dont mean jail guns
6 Yuka // Aug 24, 2011 at 4:13 pm
@massprillar……Mass i am sorry to inform you but just because you are a good artist doesnt mean you are ready to tattoo yourself….have you ever drawn on yourself? how about with a moving object? and finally have you ever done all of this while in pain? drawing on paper and piercing your skin with a potentionally dangerus object are two completely different things
7 beelzebuby // Aug 26, 2011 at 1:18 am
shit this is a crappy blog of a shitfilled opinion. ive been doing underground prick tattoos since i was 16. my first tattoo of a smileyface on my thigh is pretty damn straightforward and as i like to say, “perfect” in everything possible. the person who wrote this blog has no idea what they are talking about. every negative detail can be the same for any tattoo. professional or not.
8 evil art // Sep 9, 2011 at 3:54 pm
In total agreement with Luminus, while your researching… (before you pick up any machine) looking on the interweb you find quite a few top tattooers started learning by themselves and then start meeting other artists in which they can learn from. In this day and age with the net you can “google” alot, I suggest start with hygiene and work from there. (make sure you do this before you even bother putting needle to skin). I only decided to get into tattooing after I got half a tattoo (because he was too “scattered from a big night” twice when I booked in advance to get it finished)from some deadbeat fuck who had his own shop, It was grimey and he had terrible body odour. “Clearly he never googled the whole hygiene thing” Luckily I didnt contract anything but made me think if this cracker could do it why couldnt I. By this stage I had been airbrushing for 5 years so I had the artistic knowledge of colours and shading. Sure I have done some not so clean lines to start off with, but they were ones on myself that I have since fixed up. The best way I have found while learning was to go out and get tattoos and talk to the artists. I have recently started making my own machines (proper hand made frames.. coils are cheap in comparison to 2 fm radios ;) using info on how they work. excellent reference @ http://www.atimemachine.com. Also pre sterilized tube/ needle combinations are cheap dont reuse needles. Sure it messes with the balance of the machine somewhat but Hygiene hygiene hygiene. wow that was long winded sorry for taking up your time but its frustrating when people on forum just bag “all SCRATCHERS” props to luminus again for his comment.
9 Tanya // Sep 23, 2011 at 2:53 am
I have a question my friends brother had all his own tattoo equipment he moved from alabama to illinois he had worked in a tat shop before the move when he got here I had him tat my arm in my friends home what are the health risks involved the needle was bran new please let me know of any serious risks thank you for your time!
10 Stewart // Sep 27, 2011 at 2:20 am
Actually, if we are learning about tattoo, it will not be always good. There are some risks that may happen to you. It is being reasons why I do not want tattoo my body.
11 sydney downs // Oct 3, 2011 at 7:30 pm
true: homemade tattoos are painful, look like shit and take forever and are very risky for infection BUT i gave myself one on my upper left breast it’s a star and has a specific meaning to me, but if you are like me and considering a career in tattooing it’s a good idea to get used to the art and if , like me, you are short on cash a homemade gun is a good way to get a lil practice but i don’t suggest using it on yourself it swells up the ENTIRE area you are working on and does not work very well on human skin
12 Ortiz // Oct 19, 2011 at 2:57 pm
Man ur stupid if u don’t have artistic talent ur for sure gonna end up with a shit tattoo if u can draw on paper u can draw on a wall and u can draw on skin willit hurt hell yea but Don’t expect shoving a needle in ur skin repeaditly in the same area to not hurt risk. I did my own tatto first time and it turned out good I’m super happy with it all it takes is patience n being clean
13 dylan // Mar 18, 2012 at 11:37 pm
I have to agree I am 17 and I did my own tattoo and it looked like hell. It’s a faded ghost now but, it was my second ever tattoo I did with a gun I made in my room.my first was on my freind and his was wat worse. Take it from me skin move and tighten unlike paper making it much harder to do it on another person or yourself like I did.
14 victoria // Mar 19, 2012 at 8:23 pm
you did not put me off…. defo gona make my tattoo on my leg. once done i will know if i should buy my own machine. better on my skin first than on my friend who is offering me her foot.
15 saso // May 19, 2012 at 6:15 am
First I have to say sorry for my brocken English Im from Europe. I realy disagree with you, that the people dont take care when they do tattoo on self of course the quality its not will be same like in some tattoo studio but Iam pretty sure even you do one to your self before your tattoo careere, and probably not only to you, so everybody have to start somewhere some on on themselves some on practice skin some on other people who dont have many to do that in tattoo studio, but in any case you need to be happy becouse half of them will come to you to fix their tattoos. second Iam very angry when you guys talking do not buy crap do not buy chinese shit, betther buy some good staf from some oficial page like your, so please tell me than why you sell that chinese sheet on your page tattoo machine who cost 15 dol. You give advice what make good tattoo machine to people and you telling them to not buy cheep chinese tattoo machines but you sell the same sheet on your page and not only tattoo machines, power suply spear parts even inks.
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