The tattoo industry...

[Nawen]

Originally Posted by urs

I imagine that this lack of tattoos would kind of mar my credibility as a tattoo artist - what do you think?

I don't know about other people, but to me - it wouldn't.

My first piercer had only earrings and was some 50 years older than us (a group of us went to get pierced). My friends had some reservations, but I was confident because I saw how he handled the tools and talked about aftercare. Plus he didn't want to do some things and this read to me like 'he knows his limits and what he's good at'.

With my second piercer... Young, pierced, tattooed.
Pierced me and used sterile needles and everything... but didn't talk about it, didn't assure me that it is so.
Aftercare? Told me just the basics. And this time, I had complications. I didn't know what to do, what was happening to me, going to someone else and asking for help was extremely rude ('Hey, I thought they were better than you and gave them money, but they weren't, hah, so help me out of the goodness of your heart'), but I had to do it... And this made me paranoid about the things I had been previously sure of - was the needle really opened just for me? was the equipment really sterile?

I'd choose a non-body modified artist that knows their job and makes me sure of it over the body-moded one that doesn't any time.