Will you send me a proof before my appointment?
Nope.
Why don’t you do this for people? I want to know what it’s going to look like and make sure it’s what I want before coming in for my appointment.
The majority of those who ask me this. Have given me exact images to work from. Though I do not reproduce other artist’s tattoos. I will use images you send me as reference to build my own design for you. Based on the perimeters you have provided.
My goal is to stoke you out on your tattoo. As well as my liking the outcome. If you send me reference that you found on the first page of your google search. I will know. And may ask you to dig further for better reference. Or I will on my own time. It’s understandable when first getting into tattooing to need proof. Fearing the tattoo won’t look anything like you had imagined or the reference you provided. Not knowing me personally. Not knowing how to navigate through all the zillions of artists that claim to know what they are doing. I get it.
The truth is, the leap of faith, is part of the tattoo experience.
Most everything I make for people is pretty straight forward. At our in person consult or by email. You provide the elements, the styles, the basis of the work and I will pull it all together for you. Which I do on my own “free” time. I do everything by hand. I will provide a line drawing or stencil (proofs) for you on the day of your appointment. If any minor changes need to be done, they can be done so in person and on the clock at the time of your appointment.
I spent an incredible amount of time pulling people’s ideas together.
Many times, I spend more time working out the math of the project than it takes to do the actual tattoo.
Study my work to see what I am capable of.
The pieces you see on my website took trust in my process on the part of my clients. I do my best to make people happy and to listen to their wants or needs. I take detailed notes. I save all of our online communications so nothing is lost in translation. I have had some very complicated pieces to compose over the years that took an incredible amount of mind math to figure out how to pull together, so that it makes sense, flows properly, reads correctly and most importantly holds up for for a lifetime. All tattoos just like their owners, have a mind of their own and may need to be revisited. Polishing, adjusting contrasts, blends, or touching up areas that did not heal well or areas that need more saturation. I wish I could just print out a perfect tattoo for you and be done with it. But I am not a copier machine and skin is not always a compliant medium to work with. So, email me if you have any questions. I want to make sure the tattoos I am doing have reached their best potential.
As I like to say to people, “you provide the ingredients to the soup and I will make it for you.”
To quote Deb Yarian, “Sometimes you are only as good as the tattoo you’re asked to do.”