New Biomechanical Tattoo by Terry Ribera
Latest sketch from Terry Ribera. Follow Terry on Instagram @terryribera. Stay posted for the new updates.
About Terry’s Tattooing
When I first started learning how to tattoo, I was very excited, I really liked being called an apprentice. It had an old ring to it like I was the student of some long lost secret culture of artists. Today, people just expect to be given a chance simply because they’ve asked for it. That’s not how tattooing works, or at least not how it used to. I remember being taught how to make needles, and the owner of the shop explaining to me that it was a secret. That this thing that he was teaching me was what the “scratchers” at home tattooing in their garages wanted to know and how I was not to share this precious secret. I remember being showed how to tune machines, I remember seeing these carefully chosen companies to buy product from, machines, pigments. Being told that these where the real companies, the rest where crap. I remember that you had to be told these things, we even made some pigment at one point, although that is mostly a lost art, it used to be an important part of tattooing. I have tattoos on me from ink that we made, needles that we made, machines that we tuned. But this whole secret isn’t being passed down carefully any more. So many artists just give it away to less than deserving individuals. I remember learning to hand paint flash designs because it most resembled tattooing, not just in it’s appearance, but in the process; dipping your nib into the ink, carefully laying down a line, being very fearful of failing during the process. In both mediums you only really get one shot. That’s what I miss, that tattooing used to have a lot of magic to it.
