One of the biggest barriers to entry for aspiring tattoo artists it the fear of permanently ruining someone’s skin by inking on some misshapen monstrosity, and rightfully so. If tattoos weren’t so gosh darn permanent then everyone would likely get them at some point, but that’s not the case. As you can see in the video above, ruining a tattoo is a very real fear experienced by tattoo artists on a daily basis. So what’s the solution? In the words of Allen Iverson: Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. Practice. That’s why Tattoo Art Magazine has created the ‘Skin Book’ made of synthetic flesh as a way for tattoo artists to practice their craft on something that resembles actual skin, instead of stabbing away at an orange or a turkey.
I forget where I first heard it (MythBusters maybe?), but several times throughout my life I’ve been told that pig flesh is the closest thing to human flesh. I’d have to imagine though that it’s expensive as hell to keep buying live or dead pigs to practice on, and then what do you do with the pig after you’ve pumped it full of ink? Surely you can’t eat the tattooed pig flesh, even though ‘pork cracklings’ are one of the tastiest parts in cooking up a pig.
One thing to note before we get to the description of the book is that Harvard has actually had their hands on a book made out of REAL human flesh for centuries, so the tattoo artists are really just playing catchup on this.
via HypeBeast:
Teaming up with agency Lew/Lara comes The Skin Book, a notebook that features pages of artificial skin for tattoo artists to hone their skill. This ingenious idea serves as the perfect canvas without anything permanent. To make practice even more authentic, the pages in the book feature body parts, so novice inkers no longer have to practice on animals, oranges or their friends. However, this project was not mass-manufactured for the public.
Some GIFs of the tattoo artist’s ‘skin book’ in action:
I can’t help but wonder how long it will be before we see things like this the black market. I’m not overly familiar with what the ‘black market’ entails these days, but I’m 99.99% certain that it will include books made of human flesh in the future.