A quick little piece done for more of a nostalgic purpose. Something someone might get with his friends when they are starting to get older and wish to remember all the times in their childhood when they "ran things". Because who didn't think they were the fricken most awesome people in the world when they were young teenagers?
I also decided to make this a more artistic photo as well.

Please do not use without my permission. Just send me a note beforehand.

If you don't know this link, here it is. www.mjonestattoo.designbinder.com
Your line work needs work, its very plain and straight forward, mostly consisting of singular lines, which is fine if you have detailed color, and your not bad with colors in terms of tattoo art, but they are still pretty straight forward in your art. But that's to be expected to a certain point, as tattoos often cannot have super detailed colors.
What You need to do is actively study tattoo art, and you probably are, but rate your work against it and come to your own conclusion. If I were a pro Tattooist I'd not take you on just yet. You'd need to show me a few things first, that you can blend in both black and in colors. your work with solids is commendable, but most tattoos worth more than a few bucks have blends. So see what you can do to learn that.
The best way to show your worth an apprenticeship is to bring something to the table any regular Joe cant just waltz in with. Anyone can copy a stencil. but artists can offer more than that. they can customize and build a persons dream tattoos from scratch. My sister is madly in love with the custom tat she had designed for her. she brought in three reference pictures and the guy came up with a master piece.
So obviously you have to hone your art skills. but also your creativity, hthat is actually far harder to hone. I'm a concept artist, meaning my art has to show something not seen, something with a pinch of originality. I may not be great at it but the more I do it the better my ideas are.
Yes You do need to learn the basic common art used in tattoos as Ive outlined before, but that's for in case someone comes in with a request that uses those basic features, That way you can fill the request. so keep working on those because they are the roots and many requests will come of them.
But when you present YOUR PERSONAL WORK to be sold to a customer, You need to show them something they could not imagine, something remarkable and original, that makes them drop that request picture in there hand and by your art instead.
Great concepts can contain the same typical elements as found in most tattoos, but have a style or a lay out unseen. For example: My Werewolf style is very uncommon, and it tends to attract people, even though a werewolf is not at all original. its one thing to draw a skull, its quite another to draw one like nobody has ever seen before, that is what sells tattoos, and what will sell you as a Tattooist.
Now this may just be me running home to my own roots, but if you want original line and color art you CAN apply to tattoos and is out of this world chock full of picture concepts, Then to start with Id recommend you go out and getting a stack of comic books, and observing how line art masters do it. Comics must show different angles and perspective ten times a page, and in stunning detail, very few tattoos have comic book style lining, mostly due to the fact the style is not common to tattoos, but also because comic style line art is by far the hardest to learn. Master that and you may have something unique to offer the tattoo world.
But even if you don't use it directly, it will teach you to vastly improve your works in one way or another. then simply apply that knowledge to the common formulas found in tattoos and you'll have a head start.
I'm going to start focusing on some more original pieces but its hard to make them not overly complicated as its even harder than blending to turn a detailed piece into a tattoo. Not because of needlework but because detail just doesn't look "right" in tattoos. You can see it plainly on google pictures of those highly detailed tattoos then all around that tattoo they have "regular" tattoos and it just doesn't look right. Think I need to step away from roses and work on some thing that have been tugging away at my mind. I've wanted to draw a few things but at the same time I usually want to make sure I can do the design as (we all know) money is scarce these days so it adds another tattoo to my book.
Any way, perhaps in a month or so I will have updated it a bit, trying to remedy what you've mentioned and you can give it another look over? You're probably the best artist I know (and talk to) so I really trust your opinions and hopefully once I've pleased you with my portfolio I can start e-mailing it out to shops and get an apprenticeship by year's end.