So, tattoo shop AUs are really popping off lately and personally I love it. What’s more romantic than bleeding for art? Nothing!
But as someone married to a tattoo artist, I have been experiencing some mild She Wouldn’t Say That regarding tattoo culture. So here’s a few quick tips that may help inform your AU. With a grain of salt for my mostly-second-hand knowledge:
NO ONE REPUTABLE SHOP WILL TATTOO A DRUNK PERSON. EVER. or even a person they suspect of any kind of inebriation. This is not just for Regret reasons, but also because alcohol is a blood thinner. If someone is on an acute dose of blood thinners, you generally do not want to stab them dozens of times per second.
Maybe this is regional, but in my experience most tattoo places don’t call themselves parlors anymore. It has a kind of seedy vibe. I see shop or studio a lot but rarely parlor.
Most tattoo artists are hot, yes, but none are as hot at my wife
Tattooing janks up your hands. Sometimes in a RSI way but definitely in a changing-gloves-every-five-minutes-fucks-up-your-skin way.
Artists themselves are rarely if ever employees of the shop. They will be independent contractors who pay the shop either a cut of their sales or rent on their station like a hair dresser. They are also (usually) responsible for taking care of their own supplies, tools, etc. except for the stencil printer. What kind of dweeb would have their own stencil printer?
There is always a line for the stencil printer. Always.
Artists generally spend orders of magnitude more time working on art, replying to emails, doing consults, etc compared to time with their needles in skin.
A typical schedule for an artist might be: wake up at noon and guzzle half her body weight in coffee, one appointment from 1-4, and another from 6-9. Home to eat one (1) real meal at 10 pm. Drawing until 5 am. This is good for her actually and good for our marriage and she’s so healthy all the time.
An ideal shop receptionist needs to be friendly, knowledgeable, and encouraging. They also need to be willing to get out the baseball bat that is kept behind the counter.
If a shop has to choose between “good people skills” and “will promptly rebuff Nazis and the obviously inebriated” the later is often a more important consideration.
At any given moment in any given shop there’s going to be at least one apprentice or someone bumming around hoping to be taken on as an apprentice. They spawn on tic and this feature cannot be disabled.
Again I can not overstate how hot my wife is
I love that RPG race trail rations post, and it got me thinking about non-Eurocentric fantasy trail rations. I focused on Central and South Asian cuisines (as I also needed the information for a project I’m working on). I looked for foods that were easy to carry (dry or dehydrated), easily obtainable in markets/easily foraged, easy to cook/not needing cooking at all, and high in protein/generally filling. Many foods had language-specific names and some overlapped into different regions, so I bare-bones’d the names. This is what I came up with:
Dried curd comes in many forms – kashk, aaruul, quroot, etc. – and was of particular interest to me, since I learned it was used since (and before) medieval times as a trail ration for soldiers and travelers because it is lightweight and high in protein. The more you know. 🌈
Tempeh is one of my favorite food options, but I should note that it originates from Southeastern Asia, Indonesia in particular.
Bamboo is extremely handy for use as both a carrying and cooking vessel, and would save a character the hassle of bringing a skillet with them (provided the character is in an area with large bamboo and a water source). It’s a method still used today because it’s extremely efficient. Storing eggs in rice is a good way to travel with them and keep them from cracking for a short time.
These are just some basics and I’m only scratching the surface, so if anyone has foods to add from these regions (East and Southeast Asia, too!), or any non-European region honestly, don’t hesitate to add them!
Because a few have asked
⚠️ Warning for super fast gifs cause they all gotta be 5 seconds or less or else my phone shits the bed ⚠️
1. Do the following exercises. Don't just think about doing them or figure out a clever way to not do them, just do them. Yes even the boring ones and the ones that look ugly
2. If you have any pride, crush it. Kill it. Crunch it up into itty bitty bits and feed it to the ducks at the park. You have no talent and don't know anything and everything you make is hot garbage. Believe that. Make yourself believe that. That is where you live now. Surrender any indignation or shame you have to the void and embrace rock bottom.
3. Read step 2 again and actually do it this time. My methods will not work if you try to make this process pretty. Don't.
4. No drawing from your imagination on these. Actually draw from real life. If it's boring like eating day old oatmeal in in beige room but your usual art still feels wonky then I'm talking to you specifically. You can't write poetry until you learn words and yes learning words is as dull as horseshit sometimes but do you wanna be Robert Frost or not
5. Pick up some cheap paper and a ballpoint pen. Grab a small object, between the size of your hand and the size of a microwave. Set a timer for fifteen minutes. Put the tip of your pen to the paper and press "start".
Now without looking at your paper, only looking at the object, draw the object in as much detail as you can. Do not break contact between the paper and the pen tip until the timer goes off.
This is a continuous line drawing, and you're doing it in pen because you need to know what rock bottom looks like and rock bottom looks like no eyes no erasers no shading no do-overs.
6. Sit down in a public place. As someone walks by, draw their their body in as much accuracy as you can before they are no longer in view. Once you can't see them anymore, the drawing is done. No adding details. Pick someone else and do it again. No "base sketch". Just them. If it barely looks human you're doing great
7. Get a black pen. Put a small object on a dark, flat surface. Now draw the surface without drawing the object. Don't draw the outline of the object. Don't do a sketch. Just draw the surface that is visible around the object until only a silhouette remains. No time limit just do it.
The ability to draw accurate proportions from sight comes from learning to see what exists between a thing and the absence of a thing and if that hurts to think about then you need to do it more
8. Keep doing these until you are Ready.
9. You will know when you are Ready. It will make sense when you are Ready. You will Understand.
10. Unwind with some goofy shit so you don't forget why you wanna improve to begin with
i know we joke about cis artists having the weirdest sense of anatomy, but also even when the anatomy is fine, no one seems to want to draw women doing normal things
guys listen
mermaids would have to be dark-skinned and chubby to survive in the ocean
water isnt a great means of protecting oneself from the sun theyd have to be very dark if they were shallow mermaids and they didnt want to be constantly sunburnt and they may be paler if they lived deeper in the water but theyd have to be buff and/or chubby as hell to resist the water pressure and cold of the deep sea
what im saying is pale-ass white skinny mermaids are just unrealistic
Oh hey, do you know what time it is? It is highly specific resource time!
Today we have the Royal School of Needlework Stitch Bank! There are HUNDREDS of stitch types in the RSN Stitch Bank.
And more added regularly, let’s look at a recent addition
I picked the first one in the 25 recently added Elizabethan stitches, the Elizabethan French Stitch
The stitch bank provides written and photo tutorials as well as a video option to learn to do it yourself. There are examples of the stitch in use, resources, references, everything but a needle and thread!
rsnstitchbank.org
Dont know if you were joking about needing catboy references a couple of weeks back but here ya go
Theres one for sheep too if you need that
the sacred texts.... thank you for bestowing it upon me
A side blog where I'll *try* to keep things organised.yeahthatsnotgoingtolastlong
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