iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Better Than You'd Ink @betterthanyoudink.bsky.social · 14h

I'm alive, summer was extremely hectic and stressful, but my main stressors have been eliminated and now I need to get back to it! Just did paper practice today to re-acclimate my hand motion. Both art panels are mine~ Pokemon (c) Game Freak and Nintendo and Marth (c) Fire Emblem and Nintendo.

line practice of two panels from my comics; one is Piers looking stunned at the nervous and sweating Obstagoon sitting beside him since the interviewer has just informed him the Obstagoon has a criminal record, the second is an angle looking upwards at an exasperated Marth (Fire Emblem) and Mewtwo looking down at something on the ground.

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Better Than You'd Ink @betterthanyoudink.bsky.social · 14/05/2026

Hand was acting up a lot today, I'm probably going to try getting a second opinion health-wise. I'm almost to my 5k goal for tuition with a new mentor and a new front desk job, so hopefully we'll get out of this little road block soon. Wish me luck!

fake skin tattoo practice with basic shapes like squiggles, circles, stars, triangles, squares, and curves.

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Better Than You'd Ink @betterthanyoudink.bsky.social · 22/04/2026

4-22-2026 still need practice with 3RL, but we're getting there. Also tried stabilizing the needle with my middle finger. I think I did a little better! :} I MIGHT have a job/apprenticeship opportunity coming, just need to finish finalizing some details. Fingers crossed!!! (Main art is mine :} )

fake skin tattoo practice with two cat girls sleeping on their backs holding each other's hands with cherry blossom flowers surrounding them

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Better Than You'd Ink @betterthanyoudink.bsky.social · 31/03/2026

I haven't practiced shading in a while and I forgot the 20% greywash still packs a punch, but overall I still think I did decently. Also tried baby oil again to clean the skin; Idk what I did the first time (apart from residue from previous cleaning attempts) but it worked SO much better this time.

Tattoo practice featuring my previous skin with packing and shading practice applied.

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Better Than You'd Ink @betterthanyoudink.bsky.social · 11/03/2026

And caught up! Unfortunately my eyes and hands didn't want to cooperate today, but I lowered the voltage more. More experimenting later~

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Better Than You'd Ink @betterthanyoudink.bsky.social · 11/03/2026

Was finally able to do more practice as of 2026; a different tattoo artist friend told me some tips and tricks and helped me quite a bit. This time I also did color packing practice and I think I did a MUCH better job than previous attempts. <3

fake skin tattoo practice with spirals, Jack Skellington's head (Nightmare Before Christmas), soot sprites (Spirited Away), the Naruto Konoha and Akatsuki logos, a generic ghost in front of sunflowers, a generic moon and sun design, and stars.

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Better Than You'd Ink @betterthanyoudink.bsky.social · 11/03/2026

More practice! The holiday months kicked my butt with job and Christmas stress.

fake skin tattoo practice with an anime girl with a kitsune mask, stars, Mew (Pokemon), rice balls, Squirtle (Pokemon), Luna (Sailor Moon), a frog with a sumo wrestler undergarment, a Luffy from One Piece with a Ditto (Pokemon) face, lips with fangs biting into the bottom lip, a lucky cat, and generic curves and swirls.

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Better Than You'd Ink @betterthanyoudink.bsky.social · 11/03/2026

The obnoxious anti-AI watermark is for posting on Instagram. This was my first practice away from my former mentor's shop. Design with Adeleine and Tracey (top) is mine, the "Stay Positive!" is Steven Rhodes.

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Better Than You'd Ink @betterthanyoudink.bsky.social · 10/03/2026

Sorry for the delay!! Getting more practice again, and also posting to my Instagram (hence the obnoxious anti-AI watermark because fuck Meta and Instagram) under the same name. I realized I never posted the shaded progress of the previous post!

fake skin tattoo practice with a shaded version of the last post with a fox/Pokemon character named Berry.

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Better Than You'd Ink @betterthanyoudink.bsky.social · 12/09/2025

I'm alive, just had to pause my apprenticeship due to a number of factors, but with a friend's guidance, I MIGHT be able to start on guinea pigs here in the next couple of months. (plus I REALLY need to get my Insta worked on.)

media.tenor.com

a person is laying on the ground with blood on their feet

ALT: a person is laying on the ground with blood on their feet

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Better Than You'd Ink @betterthanyoudink.bsky.social · 11/06/2025

6-10 and 6-11 practice! I will start running the pictures through Ibis Paint's AI disrupter so I can get Insta going again 😤 The Berry character on the right is my art of PicklesArt's Braixen character :}

Three tattooed practice skins; top one consists of circles, curves, stars, a Meowth head, a Zim head, the Fullmetal Alchemist crest, and the FMA oroboros symbol. Bottom one has two flashes with a hand coming out of a grave and a cat "disconnected" in the middle showing its ribs, a Chain Chomp, a Tina Belcher head, a five-star Dragon Ball, a Mario mushroom, a Squidward head, a Nibbler head, a pentagon, stars, squares, triangles, the jolly roger from One Piece, and some typewriter font letters. Third skin on the right is practice of my own art, featuring PicklesArt's Braixen character.

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Better Than You'd Ink @betterthanyoudink.bsky.social · 04/06/2025

6-4-25! Redo of the Houndstone piece from October. Lines are getting better, and shaders kinda confirm my theory from yesterday's practice. We're getting there!

Redo of October piece featuring a Cubone crying to the right of a Houndstone who has a bone in his mouth, and Marowak is trying to pull the bone away.

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Better Than You'd Ink @betterthanyoudink.bsky.social · 04/06/2025

6-3-25, felt adventurous and wanted to try glowy effects! Unfortunately the brown didn't stick well and the skin tone got rejected completely (why his hands look scalded) but I think the fake skins just don't like round mags because the shaders seem to work fine.

Practice tattoo progress with some typewriter font letters, 3 crescent moons, and a panel from one of my comics featuring Pit getting pummeled in the face with a Bonsly, with a sound effect of WHUMP!

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Better Than You'd Ink @betterthanyoudink.bsky.social · 30/05/2025

As much as I LOATHE Meta/Instagram for wanting to AI scrape every picture, Bluesky still isn't as widely used and I NEED to expand my reach. I will be reworking my Insta and adding anti-AI deterring filters to my pictures once I find a good solution. :)

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Better Than You'd Ink @betterthanyoudink.bsky.social · 30/05/2025

May 28, 2025! Back to using bigger pieces of my own as practice :}

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Better Than You'd Ink @betterthanyoudink.bsky.social · 17/05/2025

Basic shapes are still kicking my butt, but we're getting there! These designs are not mine, again just grabbing a bunch for practice's sake. Hydrate or Diedrate skeleton by DaInsaneEmporium on Etsy.

Tattoo practice with Studio Ghibli characters

Tattoo practice with Studio Ghibli characters and other misc designs

Tattoo practice with Zelda logos, shapes, flashes, and sticker designs

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Better Than You'd Ink @betterthanyoudink.bsky.social · 29/04/2025

April 29, 2025! I think I did really good on my lines today! I don't claim any of these designs, I put together a bunch to practice on from various artists and flash sheets online.

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Better Than You'd Ink @betterthanyoudink.bsky.social · 29/04/2025

There is a cruel irony in practicing your lines and doing what you think is a fantastic job--until you realize you forgot to take the looseleaf paper out before stenciling 🫠

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Better Than You'd Ink @betterthanyoudink.bsky.social · 29/04/2025

April 22, 2025, forgot to post! Please go check out starsalts on etsy and buy this incredible sticker (and their even more incredible Pokemon stuff!!!)

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Better Than You'd Ink @betterthanyoudink.bsky.social · 16/04/2025

4-16-25, I was really shaky on Yoshi, but I did better on Dry Bones. Trying some different techniques next time. Mentor says I'm doing really good so far!

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Better Than You'd Ink @betterthanyoudink.bsky.social · 16/04/2025

4-8-25, squares are NOT my friend apparently, so still need to work on fundamentals, but we're getting there!

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Better Than You'd Ink @betterthanyoudink.bsky.social · 08/04/2025

April 2, 2025! Mentor popped in after a week of recovery from surgery to give me praise, and then I completely butchered the line art 😂 BUT the goal is real skin by the end of the month!!!

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Better Than You'd Ink @betterthanyoudink.bsky.social · 08/04/2025

April 1, 2025! I'm doing great with greywash.

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Better Than You'd Ink @betterthanyoudink.bsky.social · 12/03/2025

3-12-25, worked on lines of my husbando! Original panel by Takeshi Konomi, author of Prince of Tennis, featuring Atobe Keigo. Will try hiding the stencil stain with shading next week. :D

Manga panel from Prince of Tennis showing Atobe Keigo with a text bubble that says "Atobe Kingdom" and fake skin tattoo line art practice below it.

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Better Than You'd Ink @betterthanyoudink.bsky.social · 12/03/2025

3-5-25 and 3-11-25, did the lines and Marth last week and finished Mewtwo yesterday. Hand was struggling a lot with circulation, so I couldn't practice colorpacking on the sky. ):

Original refs from one of my comics featuring Mewtwo and Marth above basic greyscale practice on fake skin.

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Better Than You'd Ink @betterthanyoudink.bsky.social · 02/03/2025

February 18-19, 2025: practiced greyscale, did the right side on the trees on Tuesday, and then forgot I used a round mag and made the left side a little less attractive on Wednesday, lol oops. The shading looks great on the character, at least!

Original art reference next to fake skin with the dragon girl character shaded in greyscale now.

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Better Than You'd Ink @betterthanyoudink.bsky.social · 02/03/2025

September 2024 (left) versus February 12, 2025 (right)! Huge progress! (Forgot to color in the black spots before outlining the blood on Barry in red, but that's also a tattoo I highkey want one day)

First two Ew doctor tattoo practices on fake skin from September 2024 (left), with recent Ew doctor practice and a small Barry the Chopper practice from February 2025 (right)

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Better Than You'd Ink @betterthanyoudink.bsky.social · 02/03/2025

February 11, 2025; basically sat January out due to severe wrist inflammation. Stencil hadn't 100% dried and apparently Mast ink is NOT great with fake skin and turned the area black when I tried wiping. Considering I couldn't see what I was doing and a month rusty, not too bad!

Original art of dragon girl character surrounded by cherry blossoms as reference, fake skin practice below it with just the lines done so far.

Fake skin tattoo practice with lines of dragon girl character surrounded by cherry blossoms done.

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Better Than You'd Ink @betterthanyoudink.bsky.social · 02/03/2025

Progress through December 2024! Sanji's hair was going to be colored last since we saw what happened to Mimikyu. ^^; image on left is the original piece for reference, I did a lot of my stenciling practice by hand.

Original art of Sanji next to the tattoo practice. Tattoo practice is halfway colored and shaded.

Tattoo practice color packing on Sanji continued.

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Better Than You'd Ink @betterthanyoudink.bsky.social · 01/03/2025

November 13, 2024; continued Sanji with color, starting with roses and trying a few different techniques. The roses may have been done over 2 days, I believe.

Previous Sanji tattoo with bottom roses colored in.

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Better Than You'd Ink @betterthanyoudink.bsky.social · 01/03/2025

November 5, 2024; another practice with my own art, starting with lines. Getting better!

Tattoo line practice on my fanart of Sanji from One Piece.

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Better Than You'd Ink @betterthanyoudink.bsky.social · 01/03/2025

October 30, 2024; more color packing practice, also greyscale shading practice! We found out this particular fake skin HATES yellow ink, as you can see from the giant yellow stain. ^-^;

Tattoo practice of a Mimikyu peering out from behind a wall. Most of the fake skin is yellow because the ink stained.

Previous tattoo with Marowak, Houndstone, and Cubone, with greyscale shading practice on the Houndstone, and rectangles to practice dark to light and fading with greyscale.

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Better Than You'd Ink @betterthanyoudink.bsky.social · 01/03/2025

October 8 and 9, 2024; practiced shading on a second Ew Doctor, and started color packing the next day. Unfortunately, the super light brown color we picked ended up being that disgusting muddy color on the lighter parts of Cubone. :')

2nd Ew Doctor added to previous skin with shading practice.

First color tattoo; image is of a Marowak trying to pull her Cubone's bone back from Houndstone who is biting firmly down on it and quite pleased. Cubone is crying.

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Better Than You'd Ink @betterthanyoudink.bsky.social · 01/03/2025

I THINK this one was right after Squirtle on the same session and was slightly rushed at the end because my mentor had to go pick up her nephew. (I have a bunch of people already wanting to be a guinea pig for this design, I'm very pleased with it!)

First and slightly rushed practice of my plague doctor design, who is squinting in disgust with a ribbon beneath him saying "Ew"

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Better Than You'd Ink @betterthanyoudink.bsky.social · 01/03/2025

First few practices on fake skin, August 2024. Rockruff and Squirtle were yoinked off internet ONLY to practice on, everything after these two are my own designs or art. :}

Fake skin with Rockruff as my first practice tattoo

Rockruff and Squirtle tattoo practice on fake skin

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