Maverick ZINE — Tattoo Culture, Art & Artist Stories

I always was of the mind that like, man, I wish I could be an artist for a living. I wish I could like be paid to do my art. And I had been tattooing for 5 years and I was still having that thought. I've seen people who they color it like they would any other tattoo. They outline it, they fill it, then they throw highlight lines in on top of it and, you know, for a photograph it looks great, but for long-term healing, it it doesn't hold up. They're teaching a a drawing class and they use an AI image of a drawing class and they a bunch of kids sitting around easels. Oh. With their [ __ ] up fingers.

Yeah. All AI generated. Like if you're going to advertise a drawing class, maybe put up a sample of your artwork. Something [Music] What's happening? This is Austin Spencer here with Support Your Local Tattoer. We're here in fabulous [ __ ] Las Vegas as usual. A gorgeous day today. Uh we are with Dos Frank, the one and only me.

Does me. He is an incredibly talented illustrator, tattooer. I've known this man for a very long time. So, I'm excited to sit down and [ __ ] talk. We talk a lot, but we don't really get to do this. I just did the math real quick. That's 22 years I've known you. I met you the day Studio 21 opened at the original location.

Damn. Because I moved 2003. Yeah. I moved to town in May of 2003. Come out here for graduate school. When you guys opened, I had come out to search out an apartment and uh start getting all that prepared before I actually moved out here. Yeah. " cuz this is I was going moving into an apartment on Tro and Decater and you guys were really trop.

" You guys had a piercer at the time. He pierced my other ear. Like I met everybody there. It was it was the day you guys opened and it was just it was like the most random thing. Oh [ __ ] Damn. " You were a strong like an heavy illustrator back in the day. I mean, you went to school for lighting design. I I moved out here for graduate school.

Well, I was a lighting designer for musical theater for the better part of a decade and I was doing a graduate school program at UNLB. I won a competition back on the East Coast for lighting design when I was in my undergrad and it got the attention of the entertainment engineering track at UNLB, which was brand new at the time. And so, they offered me uh a graduate degree if I came out here and designed lights for Nevada Conservatory Theater. And so, I was doing it was a three-year graduate school program. So, I designed lights, took classes, taught classes, and by the time I was in my the end of my first semester, I met a guy named Dan Stevens. Everybody called him Dano. Oh. And we were we were bar friends, you know, like we weren't hanging out every day.

We didn't weren't going over to each other's houses, but we drank at the same place, which was a bar called the House of Bruise in the same parking lot as Pussycats Tattoo. Oh, okay. Yeah. And that was back in the day when they had the Jimmy was there and uh Ryan Downey was there. Yeah. Stellar lineup. Yeah. Yeah.

So I hung out at the bar with him and one night we got to talking and I said, "Man, I wish I'd learned how to tattoo. " And that was it. That's the easiest. Like I' i've listened to I've listened to this podcast and I've heard everybody's horror story about finding somebody to teach them and having to go through a bunch of different people and like man it's it I hate saying it but it was super I I literally fell face first into tattooing. You guys just clicked and I showed up on on that Saturday and I I apprenticed for like the next year year and a half. Yeah. What was your apprentichip like with him? I mean he was he was kind of a wild dude, right?

Like some wild stories about him. Oh yeah. Yeah. He's in the wind. I am the foggiest. I haven't heard from him in years. I tried reaching out to him a couple times. He drank the Kool-Aid, moved to Texas and like I haven't heard from him.

I don't even know if he's still tattooing. Oh well. He was, you know, single, Foot Loose, fancy free when I was doing my apprenticeship, and we had a lot of fun running around doing stupid [ __ ] But yeah, by the time I had been tattooing for eight or nine years before he he bounced. But by that time, he married, had a family, and he was and he was all about his family. Yeah. He's in the breeze. I haven't heard from him in a long time. Where was that at?

Was that on the That was on the strip. Yeah. So, yeah. The the family that owns Diversity, all the diversities also, which is like a chain of smoke shop, tattoo shops back in the day, they were real famous, but they were really clever about it because they owned all the diversities. And then they owned what looked like a small independent shop nearby. So, if you go in there and you're like, "Oh, I'm not going to the chain store. I'm going to this little mom and pop place around the corner which they also owned which were pretty wild locations. Like I remember going in there like in high school and being like what the the one that I did my apprenticeship at mostly was place called Tattoo Heaven which was directly next door to the diversity that was on the strip Sahara and Las Vegas Boulevard.

Yeah. And this is at the peak of like runchiest areas in our whole entire city. Nice. That was the base of the stratosphere tower was where like Bum Fights was filmed and that was the era of Bum Fights. Yeah. Yeah. So, the characters were just insane. Like crackheads and all sorts of wild ass humans of all walks of life living in the streets and walking in and out of those tattoo shops.

Yeah, it was it was still wild west out there. Still cops didn't care. Street justice. Don't [ __ ] with the wrong guy. Look at somebody sideways. You're going to get cut. I remember sitting in front of that tattoo shop and watching a guy just walking through traffic just hitting cars with baseball bats. Just mess like [ __ ] everything up like Oh yeah.

And those are the type of people that were coming in. Like I remember buddies that had worked at those shops and they were like there would be homeless people that would like lock themselves in the bathrooms and smear [ __ ] all over the walls and just make the like the weirdest [ __ ] up. That happened during my apprentip at at Tattoo Heaven. I had to clean that up. Oh my god. It was Yeah, it was it was the wild west. Yeah. All walks of life.

Like everybody's walking in hammered and you know, you're on the Las Vegas Boulevard, too. And like if you're in that neighborhood, you got a real cheap hotel room. So you Yeah. Well, I mean that's it was right out the back door. Like there there was diversity. There was Tattoo Heaven. And on the back side of it was, you know, a rent by the hour motel. The Circle K was in the parking lot right next door.

And that place, the sun goes down, you don't make eye contact. Zombie land. Oh. Goes out of control. But the tattooers were making crazy amounts of money back then at those locations. Like stupid amounts of money, like thousands of dollars a day and not giving a [ __ ] not treating anybody with any respect. Absolutely not. Like there was some pretty wild tattoo like they still they you know the kind of tattooers have a code of like we're going to do the best job that we can but we were going to get paid along the way and that was definitely how it was.

But they were still doing solid work. There was No, you're right. There was like some seriously talented people down there like well Joey Hamilton was was working in Tattoo Heaven when I started my apprentichip. He was there just for a little while. He had a solid portfolio even way back then. I loved his stuff. Like his his some stuff I saw in the magazine. " Yeah.

Downey was in and out of those like shops in that area too around Downey. And they had uh Twig Twig came through. Super good. Actually, uh, Blanco was there. He worked at Tattoo Heaven when I was doing my apprentichip. No way. I didn't That's That's when I first met him. Really?

Okay. Yeah. So, [ __ ] Yeah. You were down there. You were learning how to tattoo. Well, I mean, you were still you were you got out of your apprentichip pretty quick. You're like a Did it last like a year or year, year and a half? Yeah.

And you kind of jumped right in. And I had to. It was well my apprentichip was going for about uh a year and then we were sitting in the front room of Tattoo Heaven and this lady comes in and like do y'all have any apprentices? Yeah. Uh I raise my hands I want you to do my tattoo cuz it'll be cheap. Okay. And it was and Dan turns to me. He's like you're So my first tattoo in tattoo heaven ever touching needle to skin was uh a cover up.

She had a teddy bear she wanted to cover with a rose and it was awful. Oh, it was so bad. So, that was that was the thing though is like Dan taught me how to be a tattooer. He didn't teach me [ __ ] about tattooing. Oh, no. No. It was like it was a lot of like uh figuring it out on my own and he would stand over me and you know, you know, yeah, you're doing that right, you're doing that wrong. But no active like here's how you fix it.

Here's how you adjust things. Here's how we grow together. Yes, it was it was definitely. But man, he taught me the right attitude, how to approach people like from from a business standpoint, he taught me how to handle myself in that environment. And that was a very dangerous environment to be in, especially where we were. Yeah. So, like I'm very grateful for the lessons that he gave me on how to carry myself in a street shop. Yeah.

Confidence and get through things that are when you're peeing in your pants, not to show it. Oh, yeah. No, that's the the first the first paid tattoo that I got when I got cut loose from my apprenticeship. Uh they sent me over to a shop on Maryland Parkway called Stanky Danky and I would spend my days there, but I would come back to tattoo heaven on the weekends because I was around really good tattooers and my learning curve just dropped right off because they stuck me in Stinky Danky 7 days a week, 9 hours a day with nobody else except for myself. So I wasn't I stopped learning. m. m. on the strip.

So, I just be around other tattooers. But the first time I got paid for a tattoo was uh in tattoo heaven. This lady comes in, she wants a the butterfly with the cat eyes in it. Oh, yeah. And she I'm all set up and I'm all fumble fingers and oh, I'm going to get money for this. " I'm like, "What? What? " Turned around and jumped right into it.

And it was like a terrifying exchange. But if I hadn't learned those lessons from Dan on how to like handle people, you know, being ridiculous in that situation and being just as equally ridiculous back, that place would have eaten me alive. So [ __ ] you go, let's go back. Did you finish school and or did you just drop out and jump right into tattooing? I did my second year of graduate school and my first year of my apprenticeship over overlapped. Yeah. So I was graduate school, part-time job. I was working the counter at the shop.

I was working. I was there. Whenever Dan was there doing that and graduate school all together at the same time, I was burnt out and I was I had to I had to make a choice. Yeah. As crazy as that environment was, like what was it that like drew you to it and made you want to stick through it? Were you from like or had you been exposed to tattooing or like any other wild environments like that before you got into the culture? grew up in uh uh Richmond, Virginia, and there's a tattooer there named So I did art school in Richmond, Virginia, which is, you know, a wild town in and of itself. I mean, it was an art school, art college.

Okay. Home of Gu. I mean, like there was great music scene, excellent place to hang out. There was a tattooer there named uh Reverend Bob. Uh he works at a shop called Lucky 13 in Richmond, Virginia. Uh I try to visit him as often as I can. He was my tattooer. He did all this over here.

All this right here. He did my first like below the t-shirt tattoo. Okay. So, you'd already been getting tattooed. I've been getting like ever since I was 18. I got my first tattoo the day I turned 18. I was like, "All right, I got that done. " Yeah.

3 months later. Um, getting my second tattoo and then I'll never do it again. Okay. Two weeks later, I got my third tattoo and I Yeah. I was Yeah. Uh, I didn't do uh neck or anything until I had been tattooing for a while. Nothing's like something that couldn't been covered with a dress shirt. Yeah.

And then after I've been tattooing for a while, then I went neck. You actually did both sides. Yeah, I did both your sides of your neck like 20 [ __ ] years ago or something. I don't know. 15. 15 years. 15. Yeah.

Okay. All right. I like it. Yeah. Dang. So then, yeah, you were jumping around shops and stuff like uh No. You were with that same company, so you would actually move? Yeah.

I'm shop to shop, but it was the same owners and I'm very I don't move around a lot. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. When I find a shop that I like, I stick with it. I mean, I was did my apprentichip and then I did a year with working for Diversity Tattoo Heaven Family. And then I went right across the street to uh Starboard. Okay.

That was Cornfed Shop right there. Right across the street on Sahara Boulevard. Still the same wild neighborhood, but yeah, just just different perspective. Yeah. And there was some good tattooers that worked in there. Oh, there awesome tattoo there. There were some guys there that couldn't tattoo their way out of a wet paper bag, but there was also some guys that just absolute talent. And then the owner of Cornfed, uh, he was just absolutely the nicest guy I've ever met.

I wasn't supposed to be hired by him. I was very tired of working for the people that I was working for. And I was taking an opportunity to just, you know, go someplace else. Not that I was going that far, but I got a chance to interview with him. " Uh he's how long you've been tattooing a year. He's like I don't hire anybody who's been working for less than five. Like oh gez. And then I let me see your portfolio.

I showed it to him and he tore it to shreds. Just absolutely everything in there. This is awful. This is bad. This is bad. And then I was like well you know any opportunity to learn I might not be getting a job but at least you know I can talk to somebody who's got decades of experience. Yeah. I was like can you show me what my portfolio should look like?

actually pulls out his big giant portfolio and he starts flipping through it and I start asking questions like, "How do you do that? " And then it turned into an impromptu sketch session and like, "Oh, this is how you do that jeweled effect for that. " This stuff is like very very ethereal. It had a lot of fantasy elements to it. So, the jewels and gold and Viking women and stuff like it was great stuff. Like very bikerish. Yeah. So, we talked for like a good two hours and then he's like, "Oh, bring your stuff down.

bring a friend. No, let's see if you can do something. Yeah. And so he gave me opportunity to audition. Write a friend down. And I sure [ __ ] added in everything that we talked about in that conversation and sketched out and stuff like that. And I did a drawing and I added in those elements that we talked I wanted to show that I was willing to learn if I was just given an opportunity. And he's like, "All right, what are you doing tomorrow night?

" Yeah. Like bring come back. I want to see if you could do some black and gray. come back the next night, same friend. Okay. Did a second tattoo on him. That's cool. And he's like, "All right, hang out.

Meet the people. " Excellent. And I was with them for 5 years. Okay. I uh until uh I got an opportunity my uh it was like 2010 and I got a had a kid on the way and I was trying to like maximize the amount of money and I got an opportunity to work at the Vince Neil tattoo shop that had opened up up the street. Yeah. So TV was you like pumping out tattoo shows. Vince Neil had a shop on the strip directly across from Caesar's Palace right there front window.

Was that actually owned by him too or did they like have like a licensing agreement or something? They he didn't own it but they licensed his name and he was there. Yeah. The casino the casino it was casino run they licensed his name. So the breakdown was 48% to the artist, 48% to the shop or to the business and then uh the the extra 4%. No, it was 46. 46 46 and then 8% to to Vince for use of his name. And he'd come in there all the time.

I tattoo that guy a bunch of times. Really? Oh, yeah. He was so incredibly nice. For people don't know, Vince Neil is the lead singer of Molly Crew. Exactly. If you watch Rock of Love and watch somebody get kicked off of that show, they were in in there with him like a couple nights later. So Brett Michaels would kick him off the show and then they'd come strolling in with Vince Neil a couple nights later.

And you're right in the midst of the strip. I mean that that shop didn't open up to the strip, but it was like right there. It was on the front. There's the front door of the casino and the front door is like right there, which is a big deal. Like a few never been to the Las Vegas strip and you're sitting there like there's a lot to learn. I mean a lot of the places that are still you got to go through a mall or you got to go all the way back to the parking deck or something like that to find where they've hidden these tattoo shops. That one was just had a fishbowl right there on the Las Vegas strip. And it was it was such a good location.

Like on nights like New Year's Eve or Halloween or something, they tell us, "Oh yeah, go ahead and get on out of here. " We just close up the shop and sit there and watch the show from from the front window. We'd pull up the chairs to the front window and just watch the the parade go by. I feel like so many younger tattooers haven't been put in that position to where they had to I don't want to say turn and burn, but like really move through tattoos and with different people, different illustrations, you know, like that's a that's a challenge, dude. And that like thickened my skin a lot by working in a really really busy walk-in shop. It just kind of bums me out when I hear that. It's almost like everybody just like tries to go to these like private little studios now, but I feel like you really do learn so much just about yourself and how to carry yourself and protect yourself and all those things, you know?

It's definitely a learning curve and having street shop experience. It really can't be beat. I don't do a uh a lot like when it comes to working now. It's it's appointments. Yeah. Uh, I'll do the occasional walk-in when they they come in, but you know, the shop that we're at now, it's it's mostly appointment and and we'll get the occasional walk in, but you know, my day is filled with, you know, appointments. But every year I tattoo out of a shop in Stures, owned by my friend Barnaby, and me and him managing it for Jesus, I this will be when I go this summer, it'll be my 13th year going, and we've been managing it. Sturgis is the largest well-known American bike gathering in in the country.

I mean, it gets it gets out of control there. m. m. lying out the door tattooing. You enjoy, right? I mean, it's not something you can you daily live with, but it's just it refreshes it and makes it challenging in, you know, unique ways. a passion for for for doing the interaction like we used to like meeting characters. I mean, you're up there meeting Oh, yeah.

I've sent you a few pictures. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Which is it's just cool and I like that. It's fun that you get to go up there and you have that experience and then kind of calm back down and go back to your regular nice grind. But, and I feel like there's a lot of value that comes from that.

And it's cool that you do that every year. And I really enjoy that. And you make a full-on road trip out of it. You're camping up there. Yeah. Like I don't know. Tell tell us a little bit more about that. Like Oh, it's uh I have uh a couple really good friends that they live in Florida, but they own a house in Sturgis.

And the shop that I work at is the longest running continuously operating shop in Sturgis. It's uh called the American Tattoo Society, which of course the acronym works out to try to avoid saying that as much as possible. It's so cheesy. It's awesome. It really is. It's it's it's coming back around to being awesome, but every now and then I look at that sign that we have out front there like tats. Jesus Christ. You're going to embrace it.

I have I have I have fully embraced. Yeah. It's been It opened in 79. It was run by a guy named Buzz. And Buzz passed away the year before I started. So, I never got to meet the guy, but that guy's legend hangs over top of that shop. He is constantly mentioned. You get old-timers rolling through the shops.

Is Buzz here? Oh, man. He hasn't been here 13 years. It's like, oh, all right. Hobble on back out the door. Is the shop open all year? No. Okay.

Yeah. Like most of that time badass popup. Yeah. It was Well, it's been in the same location. When they started it, it was literally like in a parking lot. It was like a tent, a pop-up tent and a parking lot. And then they made a deal with a guy named Glenn who owned a like a like a flea market space there. And so they moved it inside and it was still like out and then we're we're talking like in the in the mid 80s here.

It was still like a flea market kind of thing. It was just kind of roped off and like like a convention. Yeah. Any unairconditioned convention and then uh they made another deal in Glenn and then they were able to put walls in and then they put air conditioning. So it was like a big draw when they got oh you come on in here in this ice cold air conditioning and get tattooed. Yeah. And then what do they use it for all year long? That building does not exist.

Like most of that town, it's shuttered. Really? It's a town of 5,000 people. Yeah. Yeah. Little tiny that turns into a town of half a million people. Good lord. And then it goes back to And as soon as it's done, the same guys that you see cosplaying as bikers for those two weeks, come back like the next week are cosplaying as rodeo guys.

Yeah. Yeah. Like the Viva Las Vegas kind of crowd times, you know? So, yeah. Like I I love that. This is kind of what I want to talk about too with you is just the the not you're not shy about getting out there. I shouldn't say exposing yourself to the public. Just getting out there sharing your art.

I love that you know like you so you go up to Sturgis once a year for like two weeks at a time. You also do like two comic cons. I do uh an art convention and a comic con. Yeah. Uh so I have a booth at New York Comic- Con uh in the fall for selling uh my artwork. Yeah. And then there's a art and design convention. It was started off as a vinyl toy show, but it's exploded into everything else called Designer Con, which uh when I started it was in Pasadena, and then they moved to Anaheim for a few years, and now they're here in Las Vegas, which is so cool.

It is my favorite show of the year. Not my big money show. It's It's not where I'm, you know, like, oh man, just I'm sold out of everything. It never has been my big money show, but it is the high school reunion of of of shows. All my friends that I've made as artists uh in graphic design and illustration and poster art, stuff that I love doing uh outside of tattooing are always there. And it's just a constant stream of your friends coming by your booth or you going by your friend's booth. Yeah. Catching up for the year and then you know go out for drinks afterwards.

Yeah. And like to kind of to clarify like you're you're here at these shows on the side not necessarily pushing tattoo art style or your tattoo style artwork at all. you're out there. You have your own whole entire catalog of collection of beautiful artwork and illustrations that are all stuff. They're all like u I don't know. Can you explain like what your style is that of illustration? A lot of it is I don't want to butcher it. Oh, no.

No. It's it's very easy to butcher. It's it's all very tongue and cheek. I love doing stuff that's ods to the things that I love. So, I mean pop movies and old movies, pop culture references. I love any opportunity to take a style like that and turn it on its ear a little bit. So, one of my most popular pieces was I wanted to do something that sounded like a 70s exploitation film, action thing. And that's the title sounds like it's an exploitation film, but it definitely isn't.

So, I did a an action movie poster for Golden Girls. Okay. Yeah, it sounded like it should be it should it sounds like it should be a 70s exploitation film. And then you know you have so you have uh Golden Girls you know explode the house is exploding and they're all there with guns and the plane landing in the background and do it as a movie poster. This actually uh I did that for a movie poster art show that we had at Studio 21 years ago and that's easily one of my most popular pieces that I've done. I like a good mashup and not necessarily in like taking two things that you won't see normally together, but taking something and doing it in a in a particular style. Uh I did a piece I call American Horrors and it's Audrey and Seymour from Little Shop of Horrors.

Yeah. But I did it in such a way that it was reminiscent of uh the Grantwood painting American Gothic. Yeah. So, which was only called American Gothic because it had a Gothic style window on the on the farmhouse behind the characters. Instead of having that there, I did uh the the eclipse of the sun and it's all symmetrical. Uh the dress that she's wearing is the same calico as the the farmer's wife in the uh thing. And instead of wearing that flowered brooch, she's wearing the same cameo that it's just like taking as many elements from from Grant Woods painting and then throwing it into this with the Little Shop of Horror characters. I love doing stuff like that.

Yeah, that's awesome. Do you have you seen like a good crossover for, you know, from people you meet at your art shows versus merging of clients, you know, like And that's what I think is so awesome and and important about us getting as tattooers and getting out there and pursuing other things and all these other that's the thing living in a transient city such as Las Vegas is everybody that you meet out there and they come through town, man. They always eventually there's always a convention, there's always uh a vacation, there's always a bachelorette party like, "Oh, I'm going to be in town. I remember you from this. " Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I like that, man. That's awesome. You keep real busy with that stuff. And that's like another thing, too, is like you're not not shy about promoting yourself like online. You you're building a website. You're real good with your social media. You're not shy with it. Like I feel like that's incredibly important.

Keep on top of it. Tattooers need to like I don't like it's crazy to me if people don't have their own like websites and stuff. And bowing to the algorithm is awful, but it's, you know, completely necessary. If you're not present, then you're not present. It is what it is. We are all [ __ ] to the algorithm, but at the same time, it pushes me to make new things and produce. And it's like having two jobs. I Yeah.

I tattoo during the day, and then I come home, make dinner for the family, put people to bed, and then, you know, I'm out in my studio until, you know, 3:00 in the morning. It's just working on whatever project I happen to be working on. or if I have uh a client that's commissioned me for something that'll be working on that or Yeah. I've got a workbench that's got at least half a dozen projects on it. Uh I do mild sculpting. Yeah, tell me about that. I've seen some real fun like three-dimensional objects. It's cool to see.

I have personally never taken any illustration and brought it to life with the, you know, 3D sculpted and printed and molded and you do some really cool stuff. The first time I did that was there's a art museum slashpop store. It's called the Mystic Museum in LA and it is one of the radest places. If you ever get a chance to get out to LA and go to the Mystic Museum, it is so cool. But they did a uh years ago they did a Twilight Zone art show and I wanted to be in it. I called him up like, "Well, I'd love to be a part. " Oh, well, we don't have any more room for paintings, but if you sculpt, uh, we'd love to have something. I was like, "Absolutely.

" I hadn't sculpted anything since high school, and even then it was, you know, awful. I had one month to figure out how to sculpt something, cast it, mold it, and then get it shipped off to them. And I ended up doing a bust of bust of Venus as if it came from the Twilight Zone episode, Eye of the Beholder. So, it was like the most beautiful woman in the world, but to us, you know, pig face, big head. Okay. Yeah, I remember that one. And uh I figured out how to sculpt it, mold it, and cast it within a month to get it there. And it turns out the one that I finished and got there on time for the show, it was bought by Kevin Pollock.

That's cool. It was the first time I ever heard of like a celebrity having one of my art pieces. Yeah, that's right. And who else you got in there? Well, in the lineup, people that own my stuff. Yeah, you know, I know you got a lot. I can't remember them off the top of my head, but I say Kevin Pollock's probably the uh the big the highest one that I am aware of. Uh, I know my stuff gets bought for gifts for Yeah, exactly.

The guy who was the creator of most of the cartoons for Disney afternoon cartoon, gummy bears and tail spin and stuff like that. uh he bought uh a painting that I did for Creature of the Black Lagoon and I had done it in like a gilded frame and I did LA Comic-Con one time and he he came by the booth a couple times and I would see him like looking at it and and he he come you can you sign this to uh to such and such. I'm like oh sure who who any in particular he was like oh he's the voice of Goofy. I'm going to his birthday party now. It's like That's cool. That's fun. Dang. Yeah.

So, what I mean, what else you got going on? You've been you're as far as your tattooing going, you you recently kind of just seem to be locked into these patch themed tattoos. Patches. I love It's wild. Like, and everybody's hitting you up for them big time. Well, like any other thing, like just like the the sculpture. Have you ever done a sculpture? Oh, yeah.

Absolutely. the guy came in and it's still easily the most popular one that I've done is the one that gets the most traction is the I did a patch of Rick from Rick and Morty. I did a patch of his head. Yeah, I remember that. That was that was the first patch I did. " Yes, I do. Yeah. [ __ ] yeah.

Not going to say no to that. I've always wanted to do one. No, you nail them and they're great. Like as far as like what we do, it's uh you can bang them out in three to five hours and sit down. you you could do two a day and charge great for them and Oh yeah, are super happy. I love doing them. Um I like doing ones that are more geared towards like cartoon characters and stuff like that. " I'm like, I sure as [ __ ] hope so.

Yeah. Yeah. And if anybody doesn't know what the patch tattoos themes are, it it literally looks like a three-dimensional sewn patch. So the textures of the threads are in there and the highlights and the low lightss and you can see that you know the wovenness of it. It's pretty rad. Yeah, it's really wild. I I get a lot of people asking me like how do you do that? I was like one stitch at a time, man.

And like there's there's there's way this I've seen people who they color it like they would any other tattoo. They outline it, they fill it, then they throw highlight lines in on top of it. And you know, for a photograph, it looks great. But for long-term healing, it it doesn't hold up because the the the highlight lines disappear. The the shadowing looks it looks like uh try to threedimension each part of the design and it doesn't hold. But if you approach it the same way that you would approach them doing regular hand embroidery, it's one stitch at a time. Yeah. And that's that's the time consuming aspect of it.

I think that's where a lot of people like I don't want to do that because that takes forever. Yeah. And there's no shorter way to do it then but if you're tenacious enough you'll get through it. Yeah. I I watched you go through some interesting like you're such a well-rounded artist. You can approach different styles. " I watch you go kind of go through like a stipple stage too where you're doing these beautiful just I I still love doing this. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, some swarl cactuses and all sorts of fun stuff. I remember the textures are crazy. That was one of the things I learned working on the strip. m. " Oh, no.

No. I do not work in Japanese. like that I'm not eating that night. Yeah. Yeah. That's incredibly important. I I mean I guess maybe I just think it's important. Maybe it's not today's standards important.

I don't know. It absolutely is. I think so. " Yeah. Well, we we were I mean, we were just taught you weren't allowed to have that attitude and approach, you know? So I just found myself really really just trying to spend a lot more time obviously in your evenings trying to learn everything that you can. When you stop learning, you stop evolving. If you stop trying things and getting outside of your comfort zone, I mean, you might as well just hanging up.

What's what's the point of doing anything if you're not getting better at it? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's always room for improvement in anything that you do. even like the biggest names in tattooing, they're the biggest names in tattooing because they keep trying new things and they keep going back and doing like look looking at what they do while everybody else is singing their praises. They're looking at like I could have done that better.

Yeah. And just standing still on like, oh, I got I got American Traditional figured out. I don't need to do a damn thing else. And it it works for a while, but after a while it starts to well me personally I I know some amazing artists who that's all they do and they are excellent at it and they probably want for nothing more. Yeah. Me personally I if I see something that is really cool. I want to be able to figure out how to do it. I like the idea of also being able to just evolve with what the clients want too, you know, like because I was absolutely I mean you saw me go through a career where all of a sudden I was just doing my specific style all the time and then I just watched the clientele just switch from like illustrative color new school stuff to all of a sudden everybody wanted black and gray and I was like [ __ ] I suck at black and gray.

I hadn't been practicing my black and gray allow me to just see what I could do here. It was an intimidating moment. But I think, you know, for a lot of younger tattooers, I'm like, I keep watching them and I'm like, I don't know. Don't get so stuck in this one way. I I don't know. Like, you know, a little wellrounded. Like, speaking of the benefits of a street shop upbringing, you know, I might not be, you know, a master of one particular style, and there's always more I can learn about anything, but, you know, I can I can knock out just about just about anything that you need. super clean version of whatever the client wants.

Like the handyman version of uh of tattooing. Can you put this sink in? Yeah, I absolutely can. I can get it done. Can Can you install a shower head? Oh, yeah. I got that. Don't worry about it.

And luckily these days you can just YouTube anything. So you you can take a quick lesson. Right. One of my favorite things about you too is a constant moving and constant like you said, you're constantly learning, constantly trying new things, which keeps you in this mental positive this positive mental state to where I don't ever hear you complain. Got nothing to complain about. I know. And I love that. And like I I feel like if we surround ourselves by with people like this and then we're constantly growing together and evolving and moving forward and never thinking that [ __ ] sucks or it's somebody else's fault.

Like we're sitting around. We should just be like if your appointment no-shows, you're right on your iPad working on your next project. If you're, you know, not you specific, yeah, you specifically, but like that's like our mentality. It's like there's always something to do. It took me a little while to figure out. I always was of the mind that like, man, I wish I could be an artist for a living. I wish I could like be paid to do my art. And I had been tattooing for five years and I was still having that thought.

Yeah. Yeah. But I was looking at it like, you know, grasses. Oh, look at those guys doing those paintings. I want to be able to do those paintings. I I didn't start painting until 2012. I was two years into Vince Neil. And as as great as that shop was, it sucks your will to live.

Yeah. Yeah. Uh it I showed up to work. I sat down on the couch until the counter kid came back and handed me what piece of Cherry Creek I was going to be doing. I would do it and then I'd go back to the couch. Yeah. There was no playing around on my It was before a lot of social media stuff. So you like you were literally just a robot.

you you go out there, you do the tattoo, you come back, you sit down, and you're in stasis until that you get handed your next tattoo, which I was incredibly busy there, but towards the end of it, I was I was dying. Like, yeah, like inside the lifespan of that is is short. We do see the value in it, but the money was great. I 5 to 10 years is a lot to do. I had been there for two years. I had just had a kid. Yeah, the money that I was making there was insanely great for being able to, you know, get a house and get uh everything I needed for having a a toddler running around, but my soul was dying. And when I finally figured out why I was so I was I can't I can't say I was depressed, but I was definitely just You think that was the people that you were around or you just didn't have that mindset yet of like No, I was around pursuing whatever.

I was around some great people, but I never thought I had been so focused on being a tattooer for so long that I didn't think that there was anything outside of tattooing. Yeah. Like this is who I am. This is when uh and then I think I saw a commercial for uh Community College of Southern Nevada. And I was like, I wonder if they have any art classes. Oh yeah. Cuz I wanted to start painting, but I've always been the kind of guy that I can't start something new without just an iota of of training in it. I feel like I'm wasting like I buy all these art supplies, but I buy all the wrong stuff and I waste all these uh time and energy and money buying the stuff that I don't need.

And I just felt stupid. So, uh I was like, I'll I'll take a class. I took one semester of an oil painting class from a lady named Loretta Degrandis. Oh, cool. She taught the class for community college up in Boulder City at their like learning annex up there. Oh, no way. And it was just enough for me to be able to like Okay. Okay.

And then I set up an easel in my studio and I started painting and my paintings were terrible. Yeah. And but you had a rough idea of where to go. Yeah. I I knew what I wanted to do. And then uh my friend Juan uh he's a local artist, Juan Munz, if you see it was bunnies around town. That's that's his stuff. He said, "Your stuff's uh your stuff's all right.

" And that was the first time I did uh designer cut in Pasadena. I took my really bad paintings and my really bad illustrations and I went there and you know some people bought a couple things and I was like well that felt good. Yeah. Yeah. And it just pushed me to do a little bit more and a little bit more and I realized that I can be more than a tattooer but I I still love tattooing and I still love the the the design aspect of them. I love the social interaction even though I do less social interacting uh with my clients now than I used to. I'm a huge fan of not [ __ ] complaining and you don't complain and I like that you're always busy. You keep yourself busy and motivated.

I was just kind of wondering if you felt like that that was who you were surrounding yourself with these these days or at some point in time, you know, when you were at Vince Neil, you're around this other certain type of people. Maybe that's just all you thought you were allowed to do is just sit there, do the tattoo and not instead of filling those afternoons or those gaps with teaching yourself something or moving forward and bettering your craft because the Vince Neil they're building the link and so the Vince Neil shop had a expiration date. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And when I learned and we learned about it like six months out and I think that's when I took the art class. I was like I need I need more. Okay.

So after I left Vince Neil, I went to work for the guy who taught me how to tattoo. Yeah. He had opened up a shop uh way down by the South Point. Okay. And uh I went back to work for him and I was there for another five four or five years. I wasn't as busy as I was at Vince Nale, but I had, you know, time to I my time at Vince Neil was great for tourist money, but I lost all the clientele that I had built up before because nobody wanted to come to the strip. Yeah. Nobody wanted to go there and pay the Vince Neil prices.

So, I mean, I lost all my So, I spent my time at Dan Shop, not just rebuilding my clientele and reconnecting with the the ones that I had lost over the years, but also I went there and painted like I I had I had time now. I I worked on painting, but like most other things, I got really close to quitting painting. I learned as an oil painter and I switched to acrylics because I liked being able to finish something. I would do like a lot of live events with ISI and uh by the time the event was over the painting wasn't dry and people were like well I can't take this now. So yeah. So I switched to acrylics and I wasn't liking the results I was getting out of acrylics. I was getting really discouraged and I discovered an artist named Jason Emiston who his Instagram at the time he put out uh step by steps of how he did this painting of Bella Losce is Dracula and like a whole new world opened up to me as far as like the process of painting.

Like I was always of the mind cuz the lady that taught me to to paint at the community college, she was like straight from the tube color, not a lot of mixing, love bold slashes, and I wanted to do more portrait style stuff. Yeah. And I learned a better way and it totally re-energized my my love for the painting. And as time went on, uh, I spent more and more time painting and it and yeah, it was it was just finding, uh, a way to, uh, get out in a different direction. You've switched over primarily digital nowadays, right? I did. Uh, that that actually happened. And you're all through Procreate.

Yeah. Which is awesome. Yeah. But the thing is my approach to digital painting is the same as uh my physical painting. Yeah. St. Build up on layer after layer. I bring it up.

So, the amount of time that I put in to a digital painting is just about the same as uh what I put into a physical painting. The only difference is I really like doing digital because I can work from my recliner in my studio as opposed to cashewing myself over top of a desk. Yeah. Well, what do you what else you got planned for I mean, how's your tattooing going? Where do you want to go with? Are you happy right now with what you're doing? And do you want to I'm really enjoying doing the patches. I always love doing good.

And you do other stuff obviously that's just kind of like a fun thing that seems to be getting real popular with you right now. Well, I'm I still have the same attitude about it as I did when I worked at Street Shops is anything that comes in I'll do. Yeah. There there isn't anything that I won't tackle. I've always been of the mind like when a project comes in my initial reaction to like ah I don't want to do that. But by the time I've I've set up and I've done the drawing and I've wrapped my head around it and I broke down the process in my head before I start, I'm I'm excited again. Like there's, you know, eb and flow to your attitude towards just about anything. But, you know, by the time I've I'm to the point where I'm putting needle to skin, I'm excited about what I'm about to do, which is easily the best part of the business, being excited about about what I'm doing.

It doesn't matter if it's Kelsey's infinity symbol on her riblets or if it's, you know, a big patch tattoo or if it's, you know, a name on a wrist. It's just I love the fact that I get to do this for a living. And I still amazes me that, you know, I forget that this June will be 20 years that I've been tattooing. And it still amazes me that I get to make my living as an artist. Yeah, it's fun. any like fun new tools or anything you're using like for your illustration or do you mess around with any of these like AI type programs or I don't know what do you think about any of that type of stuff and how it applies to tattooing and I hate seeing people that are advertising their art business using AI to advertise their art business. That's really wild.

Somebody was in town. I saw it being advertised on Instagram and I I can't think of their name to to call them out but cuz [ __ ] I would call them out but they're they're teaching a a drawing class and they use an AI image of a drawing class and they're a bunch of kids sitting around easels with their [ __ ] up fingers trying to trying to Yeah. all AI generated like if you're going to advertise a drawing class maybe put up a a sample of your artwork something if you have something that you want to teach be able to present it I [ __ ] it's frustrating as a tool AI is as a finished product no absolutely not I mean for some reason I thought you taught some like seminar like illustration seminars or something I have taught uh I did an acrylic painting class uh one time that was a couple weeks long.

And that was that was a lot of fun. I really love teaching. I didn't I didn't realize I loved teaching so much as uh until I get thrust in front of a bunch of people and they're like, "Oh, yeah. Well, let me let me show you uh what I've picked up enough stuff along the way that it always uh amazes me that I'm I'm nervous as as I'll get out when I get when I get in front of uh the possibility of being in front of people. But as soon as I'm in front of people, it turns out that, you know, I retain a lot of stuff that, you know, I could just back at them. And uh there's a uh a middle school here in town that has a tattoo drawing club and they're they're not doing they're not doing tattoos, but there's just kids that are in love with different styles of and it's basically just an art club.

They love drawing and styles. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, anything could be geared towards tattooing and I'm that's one of the things. " Our last guy moved away. Can you can you That's fine. So, I I started doing that last week. Uh and it was great.

And they're talking about different styles of uh tattooing that they like and I'm getting to know uh the kids that were there. Well, we forget that these kids grew up watching t tattooing on TV. Exactly. You know, I that's wild to me. " And there's one kid in there who uh likes uh drawing fine line cho style tattooing. " Yeah. " And another one's drawing graffiti style stuff. Oh, here's some stuff.

Actually, here's a couple local guys that you might want to look into. So, you could probably meet these guys. That's cool. Yeah, we should we should really work on putting together some fun little things like that. Even if they're free and it's just like a little afternoon of a couple hours of get people together. I don't know. I just like the idea and it gets us more comfortable and where we can confidently work through it. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, doing podcasts or or doing uh seminars like that or teaching any of like I'm scared shitless going into any scenario where I have to address people, but once I ease into it and like uh I've got a bunch of really really inane things to say that I didn't realize they were just on deck. Do you have any advice for young tattooers? anybody that's like newer to this world, this this entering this social mediadriven tattoo career. I feel like tattooing is every it doesn't necessarily have like a what we knew tattooing was these days. Tattooing is essentially an open Yeah, it's it's it's a different world, man. Drawing on the iPads and I have an apprentice now and I want her to know about all of these things, but I'm not actively teaching her.

like I I wanted to know uh where the industry came from and why certain things are done the way that they are, but there's other stuff that's like technology-wise it's just fallen by the wayside and I think the time can be better spent focusing on her as an artist. Yeah, I did my time soldering needles. Yeah, but I don't think she's ever gonna have to. It might be nice just to sit down and like learn that the basics and understanding of like how the tool that we're using adapted to what it is today. Yes. Yes. I will have her solder the needles. I'm going to have to go find my jig and put it all back together.

But but as you know, showing up the day of and having her solder all the needles that I was going to use for that day and then inspecting them with a loop. Different world now. Yeah. on top of the fact that they can go to straight YouTube and learn anything and everything from a million different artists. That's pretty wild, too. And in her first couple days, I was showing her setup and breakdown and it never even occurred to me. But she's sitting there with her phone videotaping me so she can study it later and then she and instead of uh watching the video, she wrote it all out in a transcript so she could have notes. I was like, "Oh, that's really smart.

" Yeah, man. Well, dude, what else you got going on? I mean, you you're we're going to get you out of here soon, but um you've got Designer Con this year, you've got ComicCon, Sturgis. People are going to be able to catch you. You started a new Instagram that's based on just your artwork, right? Well, no, actually I had I had Doss Frank, Inc. as Dos Frank Incorporated, which is the name of my business. And then I separated my tattoos out from that cuz it was starting to look very cluttered and like my artwork and the tattoos and it didn't it didn't have like a curated feel to it.

Just felt like a jumbled mess. Do Frank Inc. Ikank. So one art and illustration driven. Yeah. Cuz you know I'm clever like that. Yeah. And you do well with your online store too.

you tell me a little bit about your process like you know you you said you wake up you get the kids to school you come to work you you're tattooing all afternoon or if you have downtime you're using your time appropriately drawing then you're going home doing a little family time jumping back in the studio and that's where you'll like pack your orders and things like that and if I've got a project coming up then I'll start working on that I handle my own prints now for the longest time I did uh print on demand or print through uh a local printer And so invested in some good equipment you have in your house, which is not real crazy expensive these days, right? To get like a really nice printer. The one that I got is about the size of a bathtub and Oh.

Oh, yeah. It's it's it's good size. You're doing big big stuff, too. Big stuff. I think the biggest poster I'm comfortable printing is like a 24 by 36. Wow. Okay. So, and I can also do my own canvases, which occasionally I do.

I still outsource to the same printer for like really big canvases. Yeah. But I'll get home. I'll It's like going to a second job except, you know, really I really love both my desk. You can hang out in your underwear. Yeah. And I do. Yeah.

I'll go I'll go home in the evening. I'll I'll if I got any orders off the website. I'll pack them up. Uh I'll get them shipped out. What's your website again? com. Dossfrank. And then [ __ ] tell us a little bit of where where Doss Frank came from.

Like I feel like you went by Frankenberry for like in your early day. I don't know what that Okay. So, how are these given to you? Gifted? When I started at Tattoo Heaven during my apprenticeship, there was a guy there who he was a jackass. Was the nicest way that I could call him a [ __ ] He was a jackass who was convinced that I look like Frankenberry from the cereal box. Oh, okay. So, he was calling me Frank and Barry all the time.

And just everybody assumed that, you know, my name was Frank because uh if he's calling me Frank and Barry, it must be my name Frank. And then uh uh there's a tattooer there, guy named uh Uncle Johnny. Everybody calling him Uncle Johnny. It's Danny Knight's brother. He just started calling me Frank. Hey Frankie. He's a old old Brooklyn guy. Hey Frankie.

Yeah. So that just reinforced everybody calling me Frank. know for the longest time it was just you know Frank or Frankenberry or just cuz I was I was apprentice so I was like no no no guys that's not that's not my name it's like [ __ ] it my name's Frank years go by and I have a there was a DJ in Las Vegas named uh the goo muk this DJ goomuk and he was this German guy and he's he's back in Germany runs a a steak house he's super rad guy but uh for a couple weeks before he was uh uh before he went back to Germany, he was coming in and getting tattooed like all the time. Just wanted to get as many projects done as he could before he skipped town. " And then and then [ __ ] everybody started calling. So instead of telling this story, every time somebody asked like, "Uh, my first name's Doss, my last name's Frank.

My parents had a great sense of humor. " It's so much easier to say that than it is to tell the whole story. But now we have this so everybody knows. Yeah, exactly. So sh we got we uh you did a little collab with us. These stickers turned out badass. This chrome eagle. These will be going out real soon here.

I want to say this month. I got to double check our sketch, but thanks again for doing that. I think that's super rad. We should definitely do a shirt out of those. Absolutely. When our skill sets get there. Yeah. But um dude, I just Yeah.

I really thank you for taking the time to come down and hang today. Like, absolutely. It's super fun to do this. Um, [ __ ] What time is it? Am I supposed to be at the shop? Yeah, you got to be work here in a minute. Uh, I don't know. Anything else you want to say to the the world of tattooing?

Oh, Jesus. Put me on the spot. Put you on the spot there. Hey. Uh, no. Just Hey, hey, you stay gold, Cody boy. Done. Cheers, my dude.

We want to find your artwork and buy your artwork. com. We want to find you on Instagram. Dashfrank Inc. or dofrank inc. Take your pick. There you go. All right, dude.

Thanks so much for coming by. I appreciate you. Bye. Love you, man. Right back at you. All right, guys. Thank you so much for listening, hanging in there, hanging out with us. Appreciate everybody's support.

Thank you so much. Peace.