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Practising tattoos on our pig skin

Our pig skin is the BEST medium to practice tattoos on, NOTHING is the same as real skin.  The experience you gain from working on real skin in unparalleled.  No need for practising tattoos on your friends!

Pig skin to practice tattoos on

Pig skin has long been used by tattoo apprentices to practice on.  Being a favourite medium as it is so similar to human skin. With pig skin you can see the needle entering the skin and get a much better handle on how to control needle depth which you just don’t get with plastic practice skin.

Pig skin is quite stretchy so you can get to understand how important the stretch is to a good line. With pig skin you will get the “vibrating drum skin” effect. You will need to get the stretch right to stop this and get a good line in. This is not something you will learn with plastic practice skin.

Pros of tattooing pig skin
  • Reacts more similarly to human skin than any other practice medium, as it IS real skin. Nothing manufactured can come close to that.
  • You need to stretch it like real skin.
  • Takes ink well, especially good for practising lining.
  • Allows you to see and understand depth of needle in a way that plastic practice skin doesn’t.
  • Is exceptionally good value and now easy to get hold of!
Cons of tattooing pig skin
  • May not take grey-wash very well. You will need to learn to whip shade.
  • Takes colour a bit differently to human skin.
  • Tattooing colours such as yellow and white can be misleading. As they are discoloured by skin reddening on live skin.

Preparing pig skin as tattoo practice skin

The best way to do this is…

  • Buy prepared tattoo practice skin from us!
  • Store the practice skin in the freezer. Freezing the practice skin breaks it down a little and makes it softer & easier to use.
  • When you are ready to tattoo thaw a piece of practice skin by placing in warm water for a few minutes, don’t microwave it.
  • Don’t scrub the tattoo practice skin or you will end up with loads of little scratches that hold the wiped ink and mess up the tattoo.
  • Do your tattoo.
  • If the skin starts to feel leathery and hard during the session, put it back in warm water to soak for 5 minutes.
  • After the tattoo session – if you want to work on more later, return the skin to the freezer. Don’t store in the refrigerator or it will dry and go leathery. It doesn’t matter how many times you freeze and thaw as you aren’t going to eat it.
Example pig skin practice tattoos

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