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I had never dreamt of becoming a tattoo artist and knew little of the advances being made by artists throughout the world in this field.
Tattooing is a very serious art-form. You have to be at your best every day, no mistakes and no room for error at all.
I work with a team of incredibly talented artists who constantly motivate me to raise my bar because they are forever raising theirs.
Our staff is made up of a small group of professionals hand picked because of the excellence they have displayed within this field.
With such a diverse range of artists available, i am sure it would not be difficult for you to pick the one that matches your requirement and need.
We are a newer tattoo studio in Town. We pride ourselves on offering professionally custom-ed tattoos in a clean, hygienic, safe, friendly, and fun filled environment. The atmosphere is welcoming and friendly and no booking is needed when coming to discuss a tattoo.
We understand how personal a tattoo is to every individual, so we strive to give you the best custom
work and customer service we can offer in a friendly, relaxed atmosphere. Our artists will sit down with
you and discuss your ideas, whether you already have your design picked out and ready to go or if you
would like to utilize our skills to design a one-of-a-kind work of art. We believe that tattoos are an exciting form
of personal expression and as a result each tattoo should be as unique as you are, we enjoy collaborating with you on the design.
We encourage our clients to bring any reference material and ideas you may have, but in the end we are willing to
work with you no matter how developed (or underdeveloped) your idea is. We thrive on creativity and pride ourselves in being able
to handle whatever tattoo challenge you can throw our way.
We welcome any new and existing customers to drop by or give us a phone call if you are interested in getting a tattoo or piercing, and discussing your ideas and turning them into permanent and personal works of art.
Check my ink
Sunday, July 17, 2011
Monday, January 24, 2011
Friday, November 26, 2010
Tattoos my way "Body Art"
I love this topic. I can talk about it endlessly. I will be the guy throwing out advice and helping friends get and create a pattern that is deemed suitable for them. Yes, we are now in the domain of tattoos.
I get these questions many many times:
i) Why do you want to do this ahhh????
ii) Not pain mehhh???
iii) Do you know what your tattoos mean or not ah (trying to take a jab at me)???
Sometimes I don't bother answering people as a minority are narrow-minded. However, the people usually will end up into 2 groups:
i) Wei, I want to do ahhh.....what to tattoo ahhhh???
ii) I think its stupid, only stupid people do it (you get my drift).
The practice of getting inked dates back a very long time. If you'll probably want to do some research on this practice before getting inked yourself. What I do know is that most-tribal groups around the world has their own respective motifs and themes. To most of these tribes, getting a tattoo is usually reserved for the coming of age ceremony of a person. Of course, the more travelled or experienced you are, the more tattoos you have. Here is a fantastic resources on tattoos around the world on Wikipedia .
I get these questions many many times:
i) Why do you want to do this ahhh????
ii) Not pain mehhh???
iii) Do you know what your tattoos mean or not ah (trying to take a jab at me)???
Sometimes I don't bother answering people as a minority are narrow-minded. However, the people usually will end up into 2 groups:
i) Wei, I want to do ahhh.....what to tattoo ahhhh???
ii) I think its stupid, only stupid people do it (you get my drift).
The practice of getting inked dates back a very long time. If you'll probably want to do some research on this practice before getting inked yourself. What I do know is that most-tribal groups around the world has their own respective motifs and themes. To most of these tribes, getting a tattoo is usually reserved for the coming of age ceremony of a person. Of course, the more travelled or experienced you are, the more tattoos you have. Here is a fantastic resources on tattoos around the world on Wikipedia .
Thursday, November 25, 2010
Tattoo Portfolios HOW they Should Be .
Portfolios are the tangible version of you. As a new tattoo artist / apprentice you should focus a lot of time and effort in the way you present yourself artistically. It is always hard to get a solid portfolio going if you are new to the tattoo industry because you don’t have a lot of higher end pieces in skin to show off. This is why as a new tattoo artist or apprentice you should have solid graphic design pieces that show your artistic ability. I have said it before, but I will say it again: Almost anyone can trace stencils and fill gradients or solid color, but not everyone can create very attractive unique and original works of art. If you don’t have a lot of tattoo pieces in your portfolio – you should try to get as many pieces of custom artwork as you can in there. This will show the tattoo studio that you are auditioning for, that you have the ability to excel in the field. Tattoo techniques come with time, but you should already have a solid artistic background before attempting the medium of tattoo. If you don’t already have a solid portfolio of custom paintings and drawing, then you should focus more on that – than trying to create a tattoo that looks like it was on the cover of a tattoo magazine (which more than likely you don’t possesses the skills to achieve the quality of the tattoo you want yet). Keep with the artistic background and you will get there. Just stay focused and try to draw and paint every day, a pastime that most of the seasoned tattoo artists seem to forget these days.
Invasive Body Art and Hepatitis C Understanding the Risks and Knowing How to Protect Yourself
What is Hepatitis C and How is it Transmitted?
Hepatitis C (HCV) is a viral infection that causes inflammation of the liver. It was first recognized in the 1970s, but there was no test for it until 1989. HCV is one of the viruses (A, B, C, D, & E) which together form the vast majority of cases of viral hepatitis. It's classified into eleven major genotypes, many subtypes, and about a hundred different strains based on the genomic sequence.
The means of HCV transmission are primarily through contact with human blood, and as anyone who has a tattoo or body piercing knows, these practices involve a definite risk of transmission if not properly done in a sterile and careful environment.
A Viral Time Bomb
It's of vital importance that proper sterile procedure be followed when receiving or performing any type of tattoo or other body alteration. The artist doing the procedure and the client both have a responsibility to themselves, each other, and all of the people that they come into regular contact with.
Hepatitis C has been compared to a viral time bomb. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that about 180 million people are infected with HCV and that 130 million of those are chronic HCV carriers at risk of developing liver cirrhosis and/or liver cancer. It's also estimated that there are three to four million people newly infected with HCV each year. Hepatitis C has no known cure nor any known vaccine. Few people recover from HCV--most (80-85%) cases become chronic; monitoring the disease can be difficult, and suppressive medication is very costly and many times ineffective. HCV is responsible for 50%-76% of all liver cancer cases and two thirds of all liver transplants in the developed world.
The incubation period for HCV ranges from 2 - 26 weeks with many infected people living life symptom free. Often, symptoms don't show until ten or even twenty years later. A majority of infected people have no idea that they're carrying HCV, largely because HCV is typically asymptomatic and the tests used to find it are not sensitive enough to truly measure zero virus in the blood.
Hep C and Body Art
Here is where hepatitis C and the body art industry meet. Prevention through sterile procedure and thoughtful actions on the part of the artist and customer are of primary importance. There is conflicting information out there about how long the hepatitis C virus can survive outside of the human body. Some sources cite two weeks and some say as long as a month. What is known is that the virus outside of the body forms a celluloid shell around the rna strand that enables HCV to live outside a host for an extended amount of time compared to most any other blood borne infectious disease. Other diseases like HIV and AIDS are very delicate and only survive outside a body for a few seconds and the CDC reports of no known cases of transmission through tattooing or piercing. HCV, on the other hand, has the potential to be an epidemic within this industry. Careful practice and overkill (as if there is such a thing) on sterile technique seem to be the only means of securing the health and well-being of all involved.
So, when you go to a studio to receive new body art, be informed and educated about what to ask and the right answers to those questions. Do they know how HCV spreads? Are they as educated and informed about the risks of HCV as they should be? Do they follow sterile rocedure? Do they use a viricide that is capable of killing HCV? Do they even know what kills it? Unfortunately, from my personal experience, that is rarely the case.
There are only a limited number of products that kill the hepatitis C virus--make sure one is being used. Unfortunately, tattoo artists often only have access to a very limited number of the products that do kill HCV. Most are for sale only to licensed health facilities. (Tattoo and piercing shops are not considered within this category.) Incidentally, just because a hospital or ambulance service uses a product, that doesn’t guarantee it will kill HCV. Read the labels. I had a discussion with a local EMT about this very subject and she argued with me about it. The next time she came in, she told me her and her partner pulled every cleaner they had on the shelves and checked them to see if they were effective against HCV--none of them were. Governmental agencies don’t always keep you safe, but a well-informed, educated and caring tattoo artist will.
Tip: One simple option is chlorine bleach. According to the EPA, a solution of at least 2.4% is sufficient. (Remember that when mixed with water, bleach is only effective for a limited amount of time.) Bleach is hard on the surfaces in the stations and leaves a residue that needs cleaning constantly, but it’s also affordable, easy to find, and it works.
I have personally asked Health Department inspectors about what actually kills HCV and they are no more informed than any person off the street. Another thing is that here in India, anyone can open a tattoo shop as long they pay the required fees to open the shop. There is no requirement that anyone working within this field have any blood borne pathogen training for cross contamination procedures. There is not even the guarantee that they learned how to tattoo through any legitimate means. Your tattoo artist could have been your cable installer last week.
I’m not trying to point fingers at anyone or say that a self-taught artist can’t follow proper cross-contamination procedures; any person within this industry has an obligation to become well educated about all aspects, good and bad, of their job. Your health and life are in your hands. Do some research, ask questions, and if your artist doesn’t know the answers, go somewhere else.
Hepatitis C (HCV) is a viral infection that causes inflammation of the liver. It was first recognized in the 1970s, but there was no test for it until 1989. HCV is one of the viruses (A, B, C, D, & E) which together form the vast majority of cases of viral hepatitis. It's classified into eleven major genotypes, many subtypes, and about a hundred different strains based on the genomic sequence.
The means of HCV transmission are primarily through contact with human blood, and as anyone who has a tattoo or body piercing knows, these practices involve a definite risk of transmission if not properly done in a sterile and careful environment.
A Viral Time Bomb
It's of vital importance that proper sterile procedure be followed when receiving or performing any type of tattoo or other body alteration. The artist doing the procedure and the client both have a responsibility to themselves, each other, and all of the people that they come into regular contact with.
Hepatitis C has been compared to a viral time bomb. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that about 180 million people are infected with HCV and that 130 million of those are chronic HCV carriers at risk of developing liver cirrhosis and/or liver cancer. It's also estimated that there are three to four million people newly infected with HCV each year. Hepatitis C has no known cure nor any known vaccine. Few people recover from HCV--most (80-85%) cases become chronic; monitoring the disease can be difficult, and suppressive medication is very costly and many times ineffective. HCV is responsible for 50%-76% of all liver cancer cases and two thirds of all liver transplants in the developed world.
The incubation period for HCV ranges from 2 - 26 weeks with many infected people living life symptom free. Often, symptoms don't show until ten or even twenty years later. A majority of infected people have no idea that they're carrying HCV, largely because HCV is typically asymptomatic and the tests used to find it are not sensitive enough to truly measure zero virus in the blood.
Hep C and Body Art
Here is where hepatitis C and the body art industry meet. Prevention through sterile procedure and thoughtful actions on the part of the artist and customer are of primary importance. There is conflicting information out there about how long the hepatitis C virus can survive outside of the human body. Some sources cite two weeks and some say as long as a month. What is known is that the virus outside of the body forms a celluloid shell around the rna strand that enables HCV to live outside a host for an extended amount of time compared to most any other blood borne infectious disease. Other diseases like HIV and AIDS are very delicate and only survive outside a body for a few seconds and the CDC reports of no known cases of transmission through tattooing or piercing. HCV, on the other hand, has the potential to be an epidemic within this industry. Careful practice and overkill (as if there is such a thing) on sterile technique seem to be the only means of securing the health and well-being of all involved.
So, when you go to a studio to receive new body art, be informed and educated about what to ask and the right answers to those questions. Do they know how HCV spreads? Are they as educated and informed about the risks of HCV as they should be? Do they follow sterile rocedure? Do they use a viricide that is capable of killing HCV? Do they even know what kills it? Unfortunately, from my personal experience, that is rarely the case.
There are only a limited number of products that kill the hepatitis C virus--make sure one is being used. Unfortunately, tattoo artists often only have access to a very limited number of the products that do kill HCV. Most are for sale only to licensed health facilities. (Tattoo and piercing shops are not considered within this category.) Incidentally, just because a hospital or ambulance service uses a product, that doesn’t guarantee it will kill HCV. Read the labels. I had a discussion with a local EMT about this very subject and she argued with me about it. The next time she came in, she told me her and her partner pulled every cleaner they had on the shelves and checked them to see if they were effective against HCV--none of them were. Governmental agencies don’t always keep you safe, but a well-informed, educated and caring tattoo artist will.
Tip: One simple option is chlorine bleach. According to the EPA, a solution of at least 2.4% is sufficient. (Remember that when mixed with water, bleach is only effective for a limited amount of time.) Bleach is hard on the surfaces in the stations and leaves a residue that needs cleaning constantly, but it’s also affordable, easy to find, and it works.
I have personally asked Health Department inspectors about what actually kills HCV and they are no more informed than any person off the street. Another thing is that here in India, anyone can open a tattoo shop as long they pay the required fees to open the shop. There is no requirement that anyone working within this field have any blood borne pathogen training for cross contamination procedures. There is not even the guarantee that they learned how to tattoo through any legitimate means. Your tattoo artist could have been your cable installer last week.
I’m not trying to point fingers at anyone or say that a self-taught artist can’t follow proper cross-contamination procedures; any person within this industry has an obligation to become well educated about all aspects, good and bad, of their job. Your health and life are in your hands. Do some research, ask questions, and if your artist doesn’t know the answers, go somewhere else.
THE Tattoo Apprentice
If you've been doing a lot of tattoo designing, a good way to get your foot in the door in the industry is to take sheets of 11x17 cardstock and create sheets of tattoo designs (flash) in sets of 5 or 6. Then take your flash around to tattoo studios and conventions and get people interested in your designs. Submit some of them to magazines, like International Tattoo, Skin and Ink, Savage Ink and Tattoo Flash.
Once you get yourself out there as an artist, ask around about apprenticeships. The average apprenticeship costs about Rs.50,000 to Rs.100,000 depending on the artist that trains you. Some shops let you work it off, usually you will work for free for about 2-3 years. Another good way to find an apprenticeship is to ask around at conventions, however, more often than not, this requires flexibility as far as relocation is concerned.
When looking for an apprentice, a professional artist looks for a person who is eager to learn, an exceptional artist, and willing to be humble during the apprenticeship period. I will say that being an apprentice requires a great deal of humility, simply because working with skin is nothing like any other artistic media. It's not like paper or canvas. Skin moves, people move..it's not easy..the skin varies from person to person in texture, flexibility and moisture, not to mention sensitivity. So you have to be open to everything you are told and taught by your mentor. In addition to open-mindedness, patience is a requirement. Being an apprentice means you get to answer the phone, watch the artists work, take out the trash, do the shop cleaning, clean the equipment and all the other dirty work around the shop that no one else wants to do. But if tattooing is your life's goal, well, it's all worth it in the end.
What you absolutely SHOULDN'T do is order substandard equipment off of the web and start tattooing in your basement or living room. There are many important things to be learned through a legitimate apprenticeship, and they can't be learned on your own. Self-teaching, unqualified tattoo artists (scratchers) don't receive much respect from the professional community, not to mention, it's against the law in every state. It is also a dangerous breeding ground for bloodborne pathogens, no matter how clean you are, since the average at-home artist does not have proper sterilization resources. The industry is already swamped with a large number of underqualified, self-taught artists who don't know what they are doing. They put out horrible work and they still carry alot of "rock star" attitude. It's not the kind of artist anyone dedicated to tattooing wants to be.
I hope this information is helpful to you. Take care and good luck!!
Once you get yourself out there as an artist, ask around about apprenticeships. The average apprenticeship costs about Rs.50,000 to Rs.100,000 depending on the artist that trains you. Some shops let you work it off, usually you will work for free for about 2-3 years. Another good way to find an apprenticeship is to ask around at conventions, however, more often than not, this requires flexibility as far as relocation is concerned.
When looking for an apprentice, a professional artist looks for a person who is eager to learn, an exceptional artist, and willing to be humble during the apprenticeship period. I will say that being an apprentice requires a great deal of humility, simply because working with skin is nothing like any other artistic media. It's not like paper or canvas. Skin moves, people move..it's not easy..the skin varies from person to person in texture, flexibility and moisture, not to mention sensitivity. So you have to be open to everything you are told and taught by your mentor. In addition to open-mindedness, patience is a requirement. Being an apprentice means you get to answer the phone, watch the artists work, take out the trash, do the shop cleaning, clean the equipment and all the other dirty work around the shop that no one else wants to do. But if tattooing is your life's goal, well, it's all worth it in the end.
What you absolutely SHOULDN'T do is order substandard equipment off of the web and start tattooing in your basement or living room. There are many important things to be learned through a legitimate apprenticeship, and they can't be learned on your own. Self-teaching, unqualified tattoo artists (scratchers) don't receive much respect from the professional community, not to mention, it's against the law in every state. It is also a dangerous breeding ground for bloodborne pathogens, no matter how clean you are, since the average at-home artist does not have proper sterilization resources. The industry is already swamped with a large number of underqualified, self-taught artists who don't know what they are doing. They put out horrible work and they still carry alot of "rock star" attitude. It's not the kind of artist anyone dedicated to tattooing wants to be.
I hope this information is helpful to you. Take care and good luck!!
HOW DOES A MODERN TATTOO MACHINE WORK?
The tattoo machine ('gun' is a misnomer) is really a basic doorbell
circuit (you know--you push a button and somewhere in the kitchen this
little arm bangs the hell out of a bell thingie). For you techies out
there it's a DC coil and spring point(s) machine. Both doorbell and tat
machine were invented before household current was available.
It is essentially in 3 sections: The base, the mechanism, and the
sanitary tube. The base really is the bulk of the metal; a rabbit ear
with a screw in it, bent at 90 degrees to hold coils. In the front
there's a round hole to hold the sanitary tube.
Some people think the base looks like the handle of a gun. The base
houses the mechanism, which consists of two coils of wire wrapped around
an iron core.
At the top of the mechanism is a set of silver contact "points" (like
the end of a wire); one usually on a spring mechanism, the other either
the end, or on the end of a screw.
The spring connects to the base and a bar, which is connected to the
needle arm (90 degrees offset). The needle arm is connected to the
needles (which are soldered onto the bar), and moves up and down inside
the sanitary tube.
The coils connect to a DC power supply (between 6 - 12VDC), via a spring
coiled U-cable. The U-cable is called a "clip cord," designed to move
easily between machines but also stay in place and not fall out and
spark all over the place. The springs hold the cable in/onto the
machine.One side of the coils is connected to the power supply, the other end to
the point on the screw on the bunny ear, which is insulated from the
base. Through the points, the current flows via the coils and the base
of the machine. This causes the coils to become electromagnetic. The
electro-magnet pulls down the bar, which does two things: pulls down the
needles, and opens the points. The points being open turn off the
magnet. The spring assembly brings back the bar, which causes the
needles to move up *AND* make contact with the points. This causes the
whole cycle to happen again making the needles go up and down.
Most machines have a large capacitor across the coils/points, which
keeps the points from arcing and pitting, and wearing out so quickly. A
capacitor is a device that holds energy kind of like a battery, but
charges and discharges much faster (parts of a second rather than 3 or 4
hours). The capacitor charges while the points are open, so when they
close, the difference in voltage across them is nill. The points are
really an automatic switch controlled by the spring to turn the thing
off and on quickly. In old cars where there were points there was a
condenser (aka capacitor) for the same reason.
The sanitary tube sucks up the ink in capillary fashion, and the needles
load up as long as there's ink in the small portion of the tube.It's
called "sanitary" because of the cutout at the bottom of the tube, which
can be rinsed out.
My understanding is that there are three layers of skin: Scaly layer,
epidermis, and dermis. Tattoo machines are adjusted to penetrate into
the dermis layer but NOT *through* it (below it is the fat layer of the
body).
When the needles go into the sanitary tube they have a layer of ink on
and between them. The needles make little holes in the skin, and the ink
is deposited into the holes. This is why the skin has to be stretched so
blobs of ink don't stay. Otherwise, the skin will latch onto the
needles, grab the ink from them and generally make a mess.
Ink just put into the scaly layer would be replaced quickly and fade
away. While ink into the epidermis will stay, my conjecture is that the
dermis makes for more ink and perhaps a more vivid image.
Machines are really of two types: Liners, and shaders. They are-exactly
the same, but are set up differently. The gap for a liner is-aroundthe thickness of a dime, and a shader is the thickness of a nickel.
Liner needles are usually arranged on the bar in a circular pattern.
Shader needles are usually straight (like a comb), although Spaulding &
Rogers sells a 15-needle round shader. The needles are small sewing
machine needles, usually made of stainless steel. Liners are in 1, 3, 4,
5, & 7-needle combinations, set in a round configuration. Note: There
can really be any number of them but these seem to be most common.
Shader needles are in a straight row and usually are in groups of 4, 6,
7, 9 needles. The sanitary tubes are designed especially for the
combination of needles, so there's a special tube for each different
number of needles in a needle bar assembly.the artist manipulates the skin while tattooing. This is learned by experience and by hands-on apprenticeship or tutoring, and is one of the reasons that learning from another artist is the approved and safest way to get involved in tattooing. While the machine's force and physics do make a difference to
the end product, there is no way to make a machine that will
mechanically adjust precisely enough to account for variations in skin surface, texture, and tone on a microscopic level, which is what an experienced tattoo artist does while working, manually, by adjusting their stretch
and hand positions.
"Vick"
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