‘Careful, careful,’ I whispered to myself, as I slowly brought the tattoo gun down on the slab of pork skin. ‘Here we go…’
‘Woah, what’s that!’
I jumped, jabbing the needle into the poor chunk of pig, ink spilling in a blotch.
‘Dammit!’ I turned around to glare at my brother. ‘Didn’t you see the sign on my door?’
‘Yeah, but I ignored it like I always do,’ he frowned, like it was obvious. ‘For real though, what’s that?’
‘I’m practicing,’ I huffed, swivelling back around and readjusting my lamp. ‘I want to be able to put together a nice portfolio, so one of the tattoo shops around Brisbane will hire me and I can afford to put a lock on my door.’
He laughed and sat down on my bed behind me. ‘What sort of style are you shooting for?’
‘What?’
‘You know,’ he said. ‘What’s your speciality? Are you gonna be a tattoo artist who specialises in realism or what?’
‘I guess I hadn’t thought about it,’ I frowned.
‘Ooh, big mistake,’ he shook his head. ‘You want to be noticed by one of the big shops, you’ve got to be able to specialise.’
‘Is that so?’ I rolled my eyes.
‘Yep,’ he nodded. ‘Jump on literally any website, you’ll see I’m right.’
‘Say you are,’ I sighed. ‘What else could I specialise in?’
‘Realism not your thing?’
‘I’m so bad at it,’ I admitted. He laughed.
‘Maybe check out something more cultural?’ he suggested. ‘You could be a tattooist who does Japanese artwork. Around Brisbane it could be niche enough to make you stand out.’
‘Interesting,’ I mused, scrolling through a few search results. ‘You don’t think that’s… culturally sensitive?’
‘I’m just a fan of the art, dude,’ he shrugged. ‘I’m not opening that can of worms.’
‘Fine, fine, I’ll keep looking,’ I sighed. I glanced down at my piece of pig skin.
‘Hmm,’ I snorted to myself.
‘What?’