Selling drawings to tattoo parlor??...?

Question

im a teenage gril..who can draw some pretty cool designs that would be great to have as a tattoo...im asking for any info or advice on the price and how to sell the drawings..do i just go into a random tattoo place and offer...advice from anyone, epecially people who work with tattoos, would b apreciated...thanks

Answer 1

Think about open your own web page. There are several people who can get 100+ dollars for making tattoo designs. The thing you need to think about is you have to be able to make a outline of it first and then a color on to.Check out some of the places. Goolge free tattoo designs. You will see a lot of people that do this.

Answer 2

i would go in and talk to them, just tell them what you want to do and see what they say, or call them?

Answer 3

Most tattoo artists are just that, incredibly talented fine artists in their own right.  The chances that they will want to buy your drawings for use in their work is slim.  think about it.  

Put yourself in the tattoo artist's latex gloves for a minute: you are a tattoo artist who creates awesome and original art on people's skin.  Your mom said get into accounting, but you stubbornly chose art.  And now you hire accountants to keep track of your impressive income from tattooing.  And one day in walks this teen-age girls with some sketches she thinks people would like as tattoos.  They are ok, but she has no formal art training, nor any idea of what makes a great tattoo.  She has not learned color theory or solid design principles in school yet, but hey, she CAN draw pretty well.  What do you do?

First, what if one of your designs became a big seller.  And let's just imagine you got paid $150-200 for this one drawing.  But within the year it is being done in every tattoo parlor in the land, making the cover of Tattoo Art and Ink magazines.  Did you get paid enough?  Do you get royalties?  You sold the copyright for your art for a measly $200 and now the tattoo parlor is building an addition on the money they made using your drawing. . . .

This is a make-believe scenario, mostly because tattoo artist, while they make good money, don't very often make THAT much!  It is also pure fiction because a winning design usually evolves out of demand for a specific image, not a particular pice of flash art.  And I have yet to see a tattoo artist who is all into using other artist's designs, unless the artist is the one requesting the ink job.  I did that once.  I supplied the design, he inked.  And my next one will be my design too.  But I would doubt that i would want a design the artist did not do but was done by some teen who wanted to make a buck.  

But, hey, post your sketches.  I may be full of it, and you may be onto something.  We will never know unless you share.  Share a little one, so you are not revealing your entire cache of tattoo flash.  But I would not expect you to be able to sell sketches to other practicing artists.  

That said, if you find a few friendly parlors who will give you some time, you may get a few pointers from some seasoned artists when you take in your portfolio.  Ask if you can see some of their flash and if there is a market for it, they may just give you a leg up toward marketing your drawings.  But take in inked and colored pieces . .  . a few pale graphite drawings will likely not be as impressive as a few finished color pieces. . . .