We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Jacob Danhi. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Jacob below.

Jacob, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.

I learned how to tattoo by woking in a good solid shop and did a proper 2 and a half year apprenticeship till I was ready to tattoo walk in clients. To speed up the process I guess I wish I just had more people to practice on more often so I had more of a chance to improve a little quicker, but everyone learns at their own pace.the. OST essential skill to have that early on is just have your line work on point first before learning technical shading and such.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

My name is Jacob Danhi, I’m 32 years old and originally from redondo beach, ca. I started as a shop helper at a tattoo shop in Venice, ca. I did essential tasks like cleaning, booking appointments, greeting a taking care of clients and making sure all the artists were taken care of. Going into that job with no desire to learn tattooing and having no real previous art experience, I got hooked on the process immediately. About 6 months in I started learning and practicing drawing everyday. Eventually the artists took notice and started giving me tips and even let me make their final stencil drawings for the tattoos. A little time went on and I got the opportunity to learn the tattoo side and my passion grew even more. I spent all day and night for two and half years studying every era and style of tattooing, watching everyone tattoo in their own ways. When it got time for me to start tattooing on people I did my best to stick to what I was told and respect the process. But those couple years in my apprenticeship were definitely my hardest working years, after almost 8 years of tattooing, I’m still studying and trying to improve every day. Problems I have solved I would say has been fixing up old faded tattoos that need to be brought to life again and covering up unwanted tattoos. Also if a client doesn’t have a clear idea of what they want, I suggest everything I can to help. I think what sets me apart from others in my area is just the way I design and execute my tattoos. In the South Bay where I live and grew up, there’s a mix of people who mainly do one type of style which is amazing but that was never the way I wanted take my career. I love mixing more neo traditional tattooing with heavy and fine line work with a mix of soft black and grey and stipple shading. I’m most proud that I haven’t ran out of ways to push myself and steered away from the most important goal which is to just do good clean tattoos. I love all styles which is why I try to do my best to accomplish everyone’s requests.

Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?

If you truly want to be in any artistic career, you have to put the work in. I went into tattooing with the very basics and learned so much in such a little time just by practicing every single day. It should always be on your mind, not thinking about the future or how much you want to tattoo already. Just stay humble and be patient. Everything happens when it should. It’s so important to respect the process of learning how to tattoo, it’s so hard to see more now a days when people are apprenticing for under 6 months and not pushing their work further and don’t want to learn more. But that’s best advise I could give is just stay humble and focused, study and draw everything you possible can.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

Definitely drawing something that came randomly in your head and spent a lot of time making it look the way it should, then having a stranger want that on their body forever. It’s the best feeling you could ever have as a tattooer.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @jacobdanhitattoos

Image Credits
Julie Nguyen