When you’re learning how to tattoo, either with an at-home kit or through an apprenticeship, you’ll want to practice your skills on skin alternatives. Fake skin can get costly, and pig skin is really gross, so that’s where fruit comes in. It’s easily accessible and inexpensive, comes in a variety of sizes, and many fruits mimic human skin well enough.
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Related: Best Material To Practice Tattooing On
How Can You Practice Tattooing With Fruit?
No matter how skilled you are with drawing and art, tattooing is a different experience altogether. It requires the development of a very specific expertise, since you must learn exactly where ink is deposited in each and every skin type for it to hold properly and create beautiful art.
Along with perfecting your tattoo design skills, the best way to practice tattooing is to simply grab a tattoo gun, some high quality ink, and to try your hand at tattooing on skin alternatives. This not only keeps you and others safe, but it also shows your passion and dedication to the professionalism of the industry.
Some folks use fake skin, but that could get costly. Others like pig skin because it mimics human skin the best, but it’s gross and certainly smelly. Fruit is definitely a skin alternative worth looking into.
What Fruit Can I Practice Tattooing On?
Ink and needles are expensive, so you don’t want to waste your time trying to tattoo on fruit that just won’t hold your art. You also need to consider that many fruit skins don’t hold transfer stencils well, either, so the experience might be different then regular tattooing, where you are constantly wiping the skin as you tattoo.
Based on the experience of professional tattooists who offer suggestions to their apprentices, the best fruits to practice tattooing on are:
- Grapefruit
- Honeydew melon
- Lemons
- Oranges
- Banana
Fruit you should avoid practicing on include watermelon, apple, and kiwi. These will not hold the ink and could also severely damage your needles or machine.
Why Should You Use Fruit?
There are a few reasons why fruit is a great option for practicing tattooing.
- It’s cheap and easily accessible. It can be purchased from most stores for a small price, so even if you “waste” one, you can try on another without issue.
- They have bumps and grooves that mimic real human skin.
- They are curved which is better to practice on than flat fake skin, as human skin also curves around bones and muscles.
- They give you a good feel for how deep ink must be to settle safely.
- You can practice big or small designs, depending on the fruit you choose.
Is There Anything Negative About Practicing on Fruit?
Firstly, if you have issues with being wasteful, practicing on fruit is definitely a concern. You certainly cannot eat the fruit after tattooing it. Something such as pig skin is likely to be discarded anyway, so even though it’s a gross option, it’s definitely less environmentally impactful.
Second, because fruits are usually round in shape, it may be difficult to hold the fruit in place as you are tattooing it. Perhaps you could create a “donut-like” apparatus to hold the fruit and stop it from rolling around as you are tattooing it. You won’t have this issue with bananas, obviously.
Our Final Thoughts
Before you even think about touching that needle to your skin or anybody else’s, get extensive practice through tattooing fruits. Grapefruit and honeydew melons are the favorites of professionals and will give you a realistic idea of what to expect when you do finally put ink to skin.
