Maverick ZINE — Tattoo Culture, Art & Artist Stories

My biggest fear when I was apprenticing was that I was going to get fired cuz you know I put so much of myself into this I was like I need I need to do this that's the thing cuz sometimes I'll do small tattoos in my head I'm like oh I'll knock this out in 2 3 hours not an issue start getting in there you're like oh I was like oh this has more lines than I remember or the client doesn't sit good or the client doesn't sit good yeah dude if you want to make money if you don't have a college degree Las Vegas is the place to be you know like it's insane so what's happening this is Austin with uh support your local tattoo super excited today we got Jeffrey Bowser in the house yes sir super excited this dude how many times am I going to say super excited I say as many times as we need to right every time I do my intro I'm all super excited I need to fix that but anyway so yeah he's American traditional tattooer based out of Las Vegas here fantastic dude I've been tattooed by you multiple times myself so I was excited to share your interests and stories and how you got into the industry with everybody and so what's up thanks for coming thank you for having me yeah this is awesome you got a Super Rad setup here yeah we're in the house yeah we are so yeah like so what's up you've been Tattooing in Vegas for like five years now you yeah coming up on five years uh this past October was five years actually and uh yeah dude it's been amazing I love it I love tattooing um I don't think I'll

ever do anything else ever ever unless you become a famous gamer we talked about that yeah definitely even definitely even then dude like there's just something that tattooing does for me that nothing else has ever done in my life uh I've been doing a lot of different things growing up and probably this is the thing that stuck the hardest yeah yeah so me too man what uh like so how long you been in Vegas for I moved out to Vegas when I was six years old I'm actually from Turkey really yeah so uh my mom's Turkish my dad's American Way um he was in the Air Force so I was born and raised in Turkey we moved to Vegas when I was six no okay so bilingual then I am biling I speak Turkish yeah definitely um yeah dude I read write speak you know all self taught all right yeah I don't even pick up on any type of accent or anything too so that's why oh yeah for sure but uh I grew up on an American Air Force Base out in Turkey so uh like all the schooling everything was all done in like American educational system process okay yeah was that so it wasn't as dramatic Pro well I mean it's culture shock still still but getting out here yeah for sure I mean you know being a 6-year-old there's really nothing like Las Vegas anywhere in the world you know sure so um I I remember seeing the lights for the first time all the neon lights going onto the strip it blew my mind dude it blew my mind it was Insanity gambling in the grocery stores like everybody was Al so what year what was that roughly

cuz oh man I I moved here when I was like eight and like but I was 89 that had to be like 2003 dang so you were six when you were 2003 oh you're young I forgot I I don't know yeah it it had to been around the early 2000s um okay so I opened my shop in 2003 oh no kidding oh wow yeah see I was just barely walking so straight from Turkey that's great yeah dude um I don't really get to go back as often as I would like to uh it's a beautiful country too man like it's amazing out there filled with history filled with culture but being a dual citizen for turkey themselves it's they have mandatory military service for men oh okay Israeli does that or is Israel yeah yeah Israel does it a lot of a lot of countries actually do that and uh and I understand why they do it it's just hard for me to understand why I would have to do it when I'm living you know in a different country oh so for you to go back you would have to serve is that what you're saying I would have to serve wow exactly um um so uh a couple years ago I had to go through the Consulate in La for the Turkish Embassy and I had to jump through hoops trying to tell them like hey like I live here I'm from here like everything I know is here if I do go and serve like my reading and writing is probably at an elementary level you know so it's not like I'm like fluent fluent so like what what are you guys going to have me doing you know like throwing me in the sh or something you know like so oh that's wild dude yeah dude and

uh because of that thankfully I was able to extend the uh like the service uh until I turned 35 so we got we got some years to kill before okay I have to figure out what to do when that time comes but damn that's crazy okay damn yeah so so you just jumped right into Vegas and like I don't know then yeah where were some of the culture shock things that that H you oh man I mean uh when I was younger I had a speech impediment okay yeah so uh when I was younger you could tell that I wasn't 100% assimilated to American society or however you want to put it um but yeah dude but you know also growing up on uh an American Air Force Base there wasn't much of a culture shock when it came to coming out here because on the American Air Force Base everything was American anyways the housing the cars like everything was just that's a trip shipped from here to there so there wasn't much of a difference and um culturally there's honestly not much of a difference because turkey is also like a Melting Pot of different cultures yeah um there wasn't much of a like oh wow this is this is massively different than what I'm used to uh thankfully yeah um and you know like I also grew up not really caring about like what people thought and like how people reacted to who I was yeah there wasn't any like huge shock when it came to anything like that yeah that's R yeah do you have any being on Air Force Bas back in Turkey did you have any like memories of tattooing or being exposed to tattoos when

you were young not when I was that young not when I was I don't really remember too many that young I I kind of do but like I remember my but my dad's buddy had a gold tooth and a neck tattoo see and I was like that's tight that's yeah that was kind of like my early kind of no man I uh I remember my first encounter with actually seeing my my parents had tattoos growing up as well so like my dad had a couple tattoos my mom had a couple tattoos seeing those obviously like I was like yeah I need some of those you know yeah for sure and my dad had this really cool like Cobra on his on his leg and and you know this was back probably when he got it in the early 90s so like there was that different style and it it was really cool but um the very first first time I really remember noticing tattoos was actually when I got into Middle School yeah um when I got in the Middle School uh you know Avenge Sevenfold yeah yeah yeah I loved that band that was my favorite band growing up okay so dang they record right next door sometimes the guys recording studio next door the guys his brothers in Avenge Sevenfold no way I don't know any details other than that I only met him once but yeah dude I love those guys and this was back when MTV used to still play music so I'm seeing these guys online and or on MTV in the early mornings getting ready for school and I'm like this is so awesome exactly dude I was blown away I was like these guys look so sick and then you know being a little middle

schooler I'm thinking to myself how can I look like these guys you know and um this was still back in the day where like tattoos were still kind of STI matized and like people were still kind of like oh if you get tattoos you're never going to get hired and I grew up hearing that yeah you know so um the way my little brain worked was well what can I do to be able to look like that without ruining my life essentially you know okay and um coming up with a solution already yeah you know the first step actually which is hilarious was to start playing music cuz that's what they were doing you know and um so I picked up a Guitar uh I was in Orchestra in middle school and dude I was atrocious oh my goodness I was so bad with music no it did not dude I was like all right well music's not not it for me like what else can I do and same thing dude little little brain was like why don't you do the tattoos then you know oh no way yeah dude and um specifically that was tattoos was your motivation to start illustrating exactly and but like you know uh like I knew that's kind of it's crazy to think of that all of it was based off of just an aesthetic I just wanted to have a specific aesthetic I wanted to be able to look how I wanted to look and and that drove me which is crazy to think of I think I mean that's when you found out you're an artist yeah 100% um and even like you know in Middle School my counselors were like hey you're not doing good in Orchestra and I'm not kidding dude I

used to play the cello do you know what the cello is the one that you're sitting in the chair right exactly dude I used to go into class I would set up my cello and I would just put my arms down wrapped around the neck of the cello and I'll just pass out I'll just put my head down in between my arms wrapped around this cello just cradling this thing yeah just knocked out and um to be fair like yeah that was that was not the move for me uh music was was not the move for me but uh my counselors actually were like hey why don't you try art instead okay and they had no idea about any of these you know thoughts that were going through my middle school mind but dude like I had an amazing art teacher named Mr shootz uh this guy was amazing like this dude was such a good teacher he cared about all of his students um and that's what actually kind of got me into the whole becoming an artist thing and um yeah dude that's right yeah I would love like I don't know I mean yeah anytime you have you that one teacher I have young kids right now so I think about their schooling a lot and how minimal amount of teachers I feel like actually make an impact on my life oh unfortunately but it's fun when you have that one and luckily that was an art teacher for me my uh senior year was my art teacher that made that click for me too but that's awesome in high school yeah yeah yeah but well I mean I've been drawing ever since i' been a bab a little little man but yeah yeah so he so he motivated you

to start drawing and did you start drawing tattoo specific artwork oh no man like you know how we would do uh like school school projects we were just you know self-portraits um some of the more abstract styled stuff yeah uh but he was so rad dude like he would let us kind of do anything and um I was a huge doodler like I would just constantly always dude just always just drawing nonsense like even stick figures even like little comic book strips like just just drawing nonsense all the time and um that was what got me into art like as a whole and as I grew up uh and you know like I was still finding my way and uh in middle school I was uh skateboarding okay and that was actually the very first thing I ever fell in love with doing yeah um outside of video games and and art that was the very first thing that I enjoyed doing the most and um thankfully I got really good at doing that as well um do you remember extreme thing yeah yeah yeah yeah uh back when extrem par at Desert Bree yeah dude they used to have the skate competition okay so like I would join that we would do the skate competition so you've been a pretty you I mean it sounded like you've been real competitive at other things you were telling me some other so we'll get into that I'm massively competitive man like um it's a good thing and it's a bad thing for sure you know um but yeah dude like and I felt like skateboarding kind of went hand inand with art as well because you get to you know well the whole industry

is Art driven to like everything that I based any of like my kind of branding or anything like that I always think back to like the 90s and skateboarding like what this company did and how they did this and what you know I'm my whole illustration style is just based on like skeletons doing weird partying and doing you know like pal Peralta ripping out like those were all the things that like were definitely huge influence on me too it's like it's fun how skateboarding and tattooing go hand in hand so many tattooers are inspired by 100% dude 100% so you how were you winning competitions or comp you were in it and you had the balls to get in there and do it which is badass exactly and uh and I used to be a silly ass kid dude uh this was still

back in the day when um we were like sagging our pants you know and I was taking that to the extreme I was like putting my pants below my butt just kind of walking around hella Goofy and and uh this was also like my style was so so weird because I had this like skateboarder um hardcore seeny weeny mixture of styles where like skinny jeans with long hair with baggy shirt and yeah yeah sagging the pants it it was insane um but like it was you know like being a kid growing up like I didn't I didn't think anything of it you know uh looking back at it seeing photos back then I was like wow what the hell was I doing I love it all man like those were all really great memories I have um yeah back then you dra drawing too while you're skateboarding and everything to you kept doodling once you started stop okay uh doodling was always just something that I would do um and like these weren't great Doodles either you know you know like these were just like just crazy types type drawings and um yeah dude I loved it I thought it was a lot of fun to do that's fun yeah I just I just lost no you're basically back to like uh I don't know we just kind of seeking for inspiration and like first um you know you're like tattooing like what kind of like you know as you're drawing are you seeing tattoos on your parents like what kind of maybe fast forward a little bit few years like what were some of your first experiences to getting into like watching some a friend get tattooed or something oh yeah

no well uh I start I got my very first tattoo when I was 16 yeah so I started pretty early on uh it was done professionally in a shop uh mom mom took you or some or it was my dad yeah my dad was like you know what he wants it okay let's do it and uh and we found someone that was willing to do it you know and it was challeng at times oh you went right on the chest went straight for the chest it was just some lettering some lettering uh so it's really small yeah but yeah I got that signed off but as soon as I man what was this I think this was I think this was precious dude like this was over 10 years ago down on Charleston that one yeah the one over on Charleston yeah yeah yeah and like I said 10 years ago you know so like those memories are

kind of blurry but um I I remember walking into that shop and smelling the green soap and like just seeing everyone doing what they were doing listening to music and all the art on the walls I was blown away and this was back when the shops had those um those like flash sheets that yeah oh like the racks on the wall I still have mine dude I love that and uh you know this is the first time I'm seeing like art at this scale yeah you know so like before this like I never knew anything about references or like how people would you know change designs and kind of create it their own and yeah and then seeing it and then watching them do it because this guy's drawing out what I want just straight up in front of me that itself was blowing moting and um that was one of my very first moments where I was like all right you know what this might be what I need to get into yeah um and I always told myself growing up I was like you know what like I want to get into doing this I want to do this when I'm 18 I want to try to get into it as soon as I can unfortunately that's not how life works you know uh but I got lucky either way you know uh I started my apprenticeship when I was 23 okay uh my apprenticeship was shorter than the average it was only a year long um it was a very traditional styled apprenticeship uh come in every day clean the shop answer the phones um set up everyone's stuff and don't complain you know and that's a great rule actually I'm a huge fan of that rule I am too I

love it you know and and I'm that type of person anyways I try not to complain uh I try to have a pretty positive outlook on a lot of things so but you know what dude like I told myself you know like hey I want to do this let let's let's just do it yeah you know and um I was getting tattooed a little a little younger than when I turned 23 I want to say like 19 or something and uh one of the artists that used to work at the shop uh was like hey they're looking for an apprentice oh okay like do you still want to do this and uh I was like dude more than anything in the world that's Co you were already pursuing it and being vocal about it while you're getting tattooed exactly yeah so the artists that were tattooing me knew I wanted to become one um and you know it's it's like even now like five years in I still don't really have a great understanding of how that really worked you know like I just feel like anybody does it's just kind of crazy right we all get in in the weirdest ways and like I'm here for it I'm here for itally and uh yeah dude he he told me he was like Hey look man like this isn't probably what you think it's going to be like uh but if it's something that you want to do I'll put in a good word for you uh couple hours later uh the shop owner hits me up he's like hey so and so said that you're looking for an apprenticeship word for word are you sure you want to ruin your life is what he says to me and I'm like more than anything in the world sign me up dude sign

me up let me get into this and uh but dude I was so excited you know and um and at this point I have like a portfolio you know it's I have no idea how to really do anything correctly you know so like this portfolio is kind of filled with some some Madness were you copying like a I don't know more traditional stuff right right out of the gate right out of the gate when I was doing my drawings back in the day even today I still you know I'm still doing traditional but like I wasn't sure about how to like utilize black I wasn't sure how to like create different line weights things like that uh like my knowledge to drawing was still at a very very basic level but dude took me on anyways they're like you know what come on in bring your stuff let

me take a look at it uh and this was actually really funny I come into the shop I introduce myself to everyone I introduced myself to the owner that's nice um and we're all just hanging around like he's not really asking me many questions he's just like so you want to do this and I'm like yeah uh I do like yeah what whatever you need me to do I'm here for it um one of the other artists actually had hit one of uh like a newborn baby okay in the shop with them just not to like hang out but he just came in to say what's up but uh yeah I know probably not the best place for a baby to be but um they're not walking yet they can't get into the Sharps Containers or anything exactly but he had a bowl of Cheerios the baby had a bowl of Cheerios spilled it everywhere all right as soon as the baby spills they're like they don't even say anything they just look at me they look at the Cheerios and that was was it dude and literally I look at them and it clicked with me I knew immediately I was like oh they want me to clean this up so I was like where's the broom you know like where's the mop where's the broom I'll take care of this right now oh good and um I go into the back I grab it I start sweeping everything up and as soon as I did that they're like all right when do you want to start oh good dude yeah that self motivation it was dude yeah what shop was that that was Timeless that was Timeless tattoo um unfortunately it's no longer around uh I think they closed down shops like two

or three years ago um it was a very reputable shop for sure I know uh that was right down the street too right on Eastern or something like that that was over on Las Vegas Boulevard actually oh oh when they moved out south or something yeah yeah okay yeah yeah uh the very south end of the strip for sure uh across the street from the South Point yeah yeah and um right now I think it's I can't I can't remember what the new shop is called uh but some someone took over yeah a couple years back so you were there for a year grinding it out doing yeah dude um first three months uh I was there seven days out of the week during good yeah you were you working too at the time I was yeah uh that was I'm not going to lie that was the hardest moments I've ever had in my life that was a challenge um cuz I was working grave shift at noou hotel in Caesar's Palace really yeah and that was from 11:00 p.m. to 7: a.m. yeah and what were you doing no bo I was front desk oh okay I was front desk I was just checking people in yeah you knew how to talk to people and like be correct with people when being shitty and all that stuff like most old school tattooers never had that experience and never had real jobs before that right so like your young the younger generation your generation already had it they seem to always have other jobs and know how to kind of like react with or just work with people before they went into this industry which made my life as a shop owner and like bringing people in so

much easier dude trying to tame like a old school tattoo especially when I was younger than them was I'm not trying to you can't tame them you're just like like hey man could you please not call the customer a you know it's like please no seriously a you're like all right I get it but like can we find something in the middle I love it you know and and I feel like there needs to be that yeah there needs to be that mixture like some people it it works for them you know it works for some people to be a little bit more like sandpaper you know I'm not I'm not that person I'm more of a really laid-back like I'm chill I'll listen to what you got to say type of deal but um but I respect it you know and I and I like that old school mentality too yeah well and add some flavor to the shop that's damn sure if everybody's like super well behaved and shows up and no one's hung over no one's like stay up late playing video games still five we don't have anything to talk about just like how was your day okay cool I'm gonna get back to work like yeah no um you're grinding it out down there you said three months and you were just not doing anything but just uh yeah dude the first three months um like I said dude 11:00 p.m. at night 700 a.m. in the morning I'm at I'm at my hourly job right uh my my apprenticeship was unpaid it was uh and I didn't have to pay for it either okay so I I lucked out 100% yeah dude so like I I worked for them for free and they taught me what they knew but I was I

had to be at the shop from 12:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. every day seven days out of the week and my body could only handle that for three months graveyard shift alone is very difficult thing I I know it just because of a lot of us in Vegas have had to work that it's it's a hard hard thing to I don't know just to deal with daily going to sleep at that's in the morning it is crazy and the Desert Sun it's so hot already it's like 1:0 in the summer 8:00 in so and you're hot in your and you can't get the blinds there's always like laser beam shoting through the dude uh and so then to go you went did you go home take a nap and then go to the shop 100% yeah 100% I would uh not a full eight you know no no no it was 2 hours sometimes maybe an hour and a half uh and and that was the same thing like I would have to get off uh get out of the shop go home and do the same thing so each day I was probably getting about three to four hours of sleep and when you're get into the shop no one gives a about it no one cares no no one cared at all they were just like yo make sure you're not lifeon though you know no dude I feel like it taught me a lot I it definitely taught me that my body was not able to do that yeah you know like it was just like yeah you could do that for a while yeah but dude like it it changed uh I felt like my brain activity was changing um like I was be becoming extremely irritable yeah for the slightest miscon misconvenience so like the slightest thing would would trigger me and

I would explode dude and and I'm not that type of person I'm not the type of person to start like wilding out and acting crazy you know uh but there there was moments really there was moments like with the co-workers or I mean you're um no I always try to keep my a levelhead with my co-workers uh at at work um at Caesar's as well as uh in and my biggest fear when I was apprenticing was that I was going to get fired like cuz you know I put so much on myself into this I was like I need I need to do this and um that was my main focus that was my main goal uh and I came to the conclusion that like you know what like I might not be making an hourly wage but I should be focusing all of my energy into this and it took like I said it took me three months to kind of get the brain juices flowing to come to that idea uh and I just had to I had to quit working at noou ah okay so um was a good job that's too you know yeah it's great location and Company um definitely dude and uh and you know like dude that if if you want to make money if you don't have a college degree Las Vegas is the place to be you know like it's insane you could do anything and everything here and like School wasn't for for me uh even middle school high school like I just it was started losing interest 100% And U boring exactly and and like I'm not a morning person yeah you know so not being a morning person going to school at 7 a.m. 6: a.m. that's crazy to me you know yeah you're dead asleep halfway through your

classes I dropped out pretty quickly dude it it was thankfully you know shout out uh Obama for the No Child Left Behind situation cuz that helped me for sure I was failing classes they're like yo push this kid on he don't it don't matter just get him out of here that's funny but you know but I had no um like academic strive you know like I did not care about it same um and and I always thought to myself I was like well like I'll go into a trade school oh I don't need a college degree I don't need one of these or those uh and that that's not for everyone you know um but it it worked out for me yeah so you quit and then like how so how were you kind of making it work like uh getting through that apprenticeship yeah dude uh well you know I was

still young I was still living at home at this point as well you had a little help there yeah my mom was a huge help those first couple of years dude 100% And um she always supported me as well so like she was the backbone to to pretty much everything I was able to achieve you know um because without her like there's there's no way I would have been able to survive she was smart enough to just know you needed to be happy and probably saw that you had Drive in you so whatever you're going to do just just do it do the best you can and she knew she was like all right uh this kid is definitely not going to be doing well in school he ain't going to be a doctor he's not going to be a doctor exactly and uh and I have an older sister as well but uh

she's very academically inclined okay so uh uh like you know she could do that but let me let me try my way you know and um and it worked out you know and I I wouldn't change any of it dude like I feel like all of the things that I went through with my apprenticeship with uh working two jobs the graveyard I feel like that all built my character and um it taught me life lessons as well you know yeah dude those days were tough 100% those days were tough well and you're and you're also like my experience youngster in a tattoo shop everybody feel like they amplify their personality around you because you're young and they see you like there's definitely guys that gas it up and they just want to on you and talk to you and like you know just to see like how almost from their upbringing too it was just them testing you even more which was I think a super valuable 100% no there was there was called every name all the dude I used to have to get down like when my mentor would walk like whenever he said I had to get down on my knees and kiss his belt buckle no way some degrading ass but I don't know I just looked at it as like all right bro like I want a tattoo I'm I'm not going to blow you but exactly dude whatever it takes though man just it like they humiliate you in front of your friends and whatever you're like whatever bro like man ah some very hum humiliating things I remember my my hazings were not crazy thankfully uh they would make me do weird things they were like uh eat eat

this packet of crickets you know yeah yeah yeah but the that's like dumb you do with your friends anyway after watching jackass exactly and uh and and the thing is is I see this guy he brings a box of crickets I I don't know where he got this you're like shaking your head right when you see him yeah and I'm just like but you know like I'm also I like to think of myself as worldly yeah I know people eat crickets around the world sure I'm I'm not I'm like it's not poisonous it's not going to kill me it's not going to upset my stomach so and on top of it the box says sour cream and onion flavor it's built for eating yeah yeah yeah so I'm like I'll eat these yeah let me see a couple of these and I start eating them I'm like yeah dude they're they're actually pretty good iron protein delici soon as I say this dude as soon as I say this the dude that brought the Box in yeah he's like oh wait let me see some of those and uh yeah dude and you know uh one of one of the craziest things was uh you know how shops have sauce drawers right okay so like just from like fast food restaurants just a compilation of a million different sauces well they thought it would be hilarious to mix all the sauces all of the sauces all right and I'm talking like suicide sauce oh my goodness dude like Teri from Jack In The Box hot sauce from canes Ranch yeah some ranch from somewhere where you know just and some of these are expired some of these have been sitting in this drawer for for quite some time

dude and they put it into a rinse cup they mix it all together they're like drink this they're all circling around me watching me and I'm looking at it I'm smelling it I'm like this is not good like I can I'm telling you right now this is going to make me throw up and I'm trying to make sure that they don't they're like all right don't drink it don't drink it n they wanted it they wanted to see me throw up dude as soon as I I and it's like a taking it's like taking shot you know as soon as I took it took one little swallow it goes halfway down to my throat and I taste all of it I taste all the flavors of all of these sauces most distinguished sauce was this expired teriak sauce from Jack In The Box I knew this was the one that was going to make me throw up dude it immediately my mouth goes and I'm about to just spew all over the shop I run to the bathroom I start throwing up like I'm literally throwing up it's not even in my stomach and it's coming straight out dude and they're laughing their asses off and you got to clean it all up and I have to clean it all up Insanity I loved it though I thought it was a lot of fun man like I felt like uh like a ride of passage in some ways you know and uh and the way that I looked at it you know you you get an idea of how these things kind of go while you're in it you know and like I'm thinking to myself well like they're just making me do that they all had to do yeah you know probably lighter than what they had to do too exactly cuz dude

I've heard nightmare stories you know and uh and I I'm truly blessed you know like mine was not that bad I was not with as hard as a lot of people I know were yeah um so I am thankful for that uh but the downfall of it was no one really wanted to teach me how to tattoo see they're all just they're clowning on you and clean up but yeah you're not getting no I know yeah so but that that was fine because you know same thing like I I was telling myself I want to be here yeah it pushes you to be the one that draws the information out of them exactly yeah that's how I was and uh I remember specifically uh there was this one time I was hovering and you know how some people don't like that at all especially in the back oh yeah so I was hovering uh and this is my boy Jesse all right uh this was back when Jesse was still working at Timeless uh this was early on in my apprenticeship so I didn't really know anything all right the one that did your arm the one that did my arm Co yeah and uh he just kind of looks back at me as I'm hovering over his shoulder trying to see what he's doing and he's like what the are you doing oh and I and like I don't know I'm just like I'm just watching yeah and he looks at me he's like I didn't say you could watch oh yeah and that's when it clicked I was like oh like I'm being a nuisance right now oh yeah so I went straight to apologizing I'm like Yo dude my my bad like I didn't I didn't know I was like please don't fire me please don't fire me cuz at that

time I was also the Shop's Apprentice too so so yeah everybody's kind of like yeah taking taking you on but that was one of the very first lessons I learned I was like all right you know what some people aren't going to want me to be on their back just kind of looking over their shoulders some people want to keep whatever they know to themselves that's perfectly fine you know like I'm just going to have to find this information however I can yeah or yeah you always insert the question first do you mind if I check you know like at conventions you learn that real quick too like peeking over somebody's head and you're like hey you mind if I take a peek can yeah step into your space yeah yeah and uh and that was another thing too I was like all

right you know what I like my personal space everyone else likes their personal space I should respect that yeah yeah and uh and that's kind of where that kind of came in but it also made me a little more timid you know I was like all right well like I I don't want to piss anyone off because if I piss them off they're just going to make me do more up things right it's an art form to this man navigating through it dude if you're not aware and watching everybody's actions all the time and being on your toes yeah and uh and you know like trying to pay attention to like people's moods as well like because artists are Moody as oh yeah yeah they are dude yeah they are the dude you were best friends with yesterday comes in today no sleep dude what

whatever fight with his lady or some and he's going to knock your lunch off the table GL that happened to me I'm just a young guy and they just throw your sandwich on the ground you're like tight tight nice there goes the lunch and I am not going to say nope just going to sit here and go back to drawing now my desk is clear thank you yeah thanks um guess uh it's just going to be like that today no man you know um it's it's a good time it's a good time I feel like uh it seems like it's a little bit more different nowadays with how people are getting their apprenticeships it seems like totally different yeah yeah I mean I don't really know much about it but it seems like now people are getting paid for their apprenticeships and yeah that's that's crazy to me that's crazy to me as well I mean like hey if it works for you by all means let it work for you that's not how it was for me you know yeah I don't really really have a strong opinion about it I don't really care like if you whatever you guys come up with and that's your transactional thing those of the details to your agreement that's cool yeah exactly like um my my goal was to make sure I didn't have to pay for mine because like I was already like in a scenario where I couldn't afford to pay for it anyways so I was all about the I'll work for free yeah yeah you teach me and I'll work for free um yeah and you did a year though yeah a year 100% I think I did year like I definitely like you get signed off at eight they drag

it out eight months and then you you know yeah this is your sign off but that don't mean like where you're at and don't get too cocky you know I get it I get it oh man dude I was humbled quick um I remember one of the very first tattoos I've done was some dude that walked in and wanted to get a Panther full body and uh I remember the owner being like hey this is my Apprentice if you let him do it will give you a deal on it yeah and uh if I do it it's going to be this much if he does it it'll be our minimum 100 bucks uh and I mean a $100 tattoo that would you know otherwise be 300 for sure you know dude was like yeah run it up dude I'm starting to sweat cuz I I don't want to do this I'm scared oh yeah so yeah you weren't even prepped like you didn't know you were going to do it he just called you out right then and there right then and there dude he was like Hey like you want to be here earn it yeah I like it uh and I I was terrified I was terrified I wasn't telling anyone I was terrified they probably saw it on my a little sweat running you know just and I'm I'm hoping this guy's not noticing this either and I'm trying to play this cool I'm like oh yeah man I got you I could do this I could do this a tattoo that would take me maybe an hour and a half now yeah took me maybe three or four hours to do dude yeah and I'm I'm sweating and like I'm terrified of uh of like butchering in people's skin early on as well dude like uh like I've I've heard about nightmare stories of like

you know turning people's skin to hamburger meat and yeah yeah and just like scarring people and this was a melanated man as well so uh I've heard stories where like you know if you have a lot of melanin in your skin like you could kilo it a lot easier so and you know like I'm just like I don't really know about any of this right now and I'm just getting thrown into it but I wanted it dude I wanted it I was like we're going to do it if we're going to learn we got to do it now uh thankfully the tattoo I mean I I wish I kept in contact with that guy uh so I could see what it looks like today but um I mean i' I've done tons of tattoos on like some of my best friends you know earlier on and oh man some of those were were really rough yeah you know overstepping your boundaries and stuff too trying to get into you shouldn't have been into 100% and uh you know thinking that my myself oh I could do this I could do this and then next thing you know you wipe a stencil and then half of it's gone and you in your pants yeah like oh what trying not to lose it in front of the client too like those are all super strong lessons I've learned from tattooing like keep it cool like oh dude don't trip seriously though and um and I feel like th those situations help with everyday life situ yeah yeah for sure that pressure yeah it it's it's a lot it's a lot it could be a lot and uh in the earlier days it was a lot dude yeah uh there's a couple times where I've tattooed some of my good friends and

right then and there I was like I'm not cut out for this you know I was like I'm I'm my friends up they're going to have these tattoos for the rest of their lives I'm going to have to look at these tattoos for the rest of my life yeah and you know as you get better and better you're just like hey let me let me run that back real quick yeah come back here touch that up but yeah dude there is uh and one one lesson that actually stuck by me that uh my mentor told me um he was like I I just got done tattooing one of my friends uh it was a traditional styled mermaid this was earlier on uh scales are hard as to do uh even now I have difficulty with scales yeah especially contouring them or something yeah choose to do that yeah dude when they twist and stuff for sure dude but I'm I'm not even kidding dude like I'm in tears at this point my buddy already left he loves the tattoo you know he's like no dude like you did a great job I love this tattoo uh don't even trip about it uh but in my mind I'm like dude like I know what it's supposed to look like and I know what I did you know uh so like I'm in tears talking to my mentor I'm like yeah dude I don't think I'm cut out for this like all I feel like I'm doing is is people's skin up like they're going to have to walk around with this for the rest of their lives and my name's attached to it you know like I'm not doing this the right way um and he and he just sits me down and he's like Hey listen you see everyone in this room right

now and he points at everyone in the shop has been in the same shoes you're in right now yeah look at where it got them yeah and he just told me he's like slow yourself down just trust the process let it work for you and as soon as he said that you know like I'm just thinking to myself I was like you know what dude like you're absolutely right like no one's going to be good at doing anything when they first start off you know and like there's going to be some prodigies and like there's going to be some people that are just you know they have that elevated experience where they could just do correctly as it comes that wasn't my experience but you know right then and there yeah it was great advice uh and you know considering that I didn't get

much advice that stuck with me a lot and that stuck with me for the longest period of time as well good yeah can't be too hard on yourself but also got to be super hard on yourself you know finding that balance is a challenge you're going to overstep the boundaries exactly on both both sometimes you get too comfortable and you're like there I am again I up again you know like I should have stayed in my lane and made sure that this I treated this like it was the first tattoo I ever did exactly and um and thankfully that mindset like it transfers over to to so many other aspects of my life you know and I feel like I got to learn so many different just lessons through tattooing that that kind of transfer over to everything else as well um and I I've always had this mindset where like if I'm going to do something I want to be good at what I'm doing yeah give your all give it my all what we should do with everything exactly uh so like you know being bad at Tattooing in the beginning yeah was was just more drive to be like you know what like I need to get good you know and even to this day like it's still a learning process like there's so much to learn dude there's so much personalities change the canvas changes the skin imperfections are you have never seen before pop in after like 10 years I'm like man that's weird like why is that one spot just randomly leaking lot of blood D what the is that seriously i' I've deal dude um have you ever had tattooed someone that didn't really

exfoliate their skin like very bumpy skin uh yeah a lot of desert skin skin desert skin exactly dude super Le leathery um lots of bumps that that was very difficult for me to get a get an idea of um we did a lot of that like in the early 2000 there was a ton of construction here so there was guys outside in the sun all day long they all making a ton of money we were tattooing them all and I swear some of these like never had ever put on lotion before noen their skin is super dark it's super dry but it's also super thin and it'll blow out real easy and man it was it like I think of like a dry lake bed like what I was working with and then there would be pockets of moisture and then dry as and you're like I don't know what's going on in the middle of this and you learn how to work through that though a for sure though you know and um it's very humbling if you care yeah and and that I cared yeah 100% um cuz I I wanted everyone to walk out feeling uh you know happy with what what they just got you know and uh I always looked at tattoos as like an extension of who you are you know so like you get a cool ass panther tattoo you get a cool snake tattoo you know like that's just something that you're into even more you know Memorial styled stuff whatever it is man like I feel like it's all it's all like tells your story exactly it's very healing you're privilege to be able to help them tell their story too exactly and uh you know like personally um like I don't open up to strangers

you know um like I kind of keep my personal stuff to like my circles you know uh but not everyone has those kind of circles so I feel very blessed for people to come to me get something permanent on their skin and then also them telling me their stories yeah you know that's a fun part that's one of my favorite Parts about tattooing just hearing those stories and seeing all different types of walks of life dude I love it I think it's awesome your bedside manner is real good is that something that you learned in uh your apprenticeship uh 100% the hotel dude 100% the hotel you come in you're on it dude like was a pretty much a stranger you know like I we had sold some tattoo needles to but I came in as pretty much a stranger but like I showed up your drawings were done it was ready to go was like boom boom boom boom and we sat down we tattooed we leave shake your hand good I was like all right get it bro like you you bro was good I like that um I like to be prepared yeah that's for sure um I don't like to leave anything to Chances well you know like I I like to make sure that uh if if I'm going to do it I got to do it 100% of the way you know um and I feel like doing color studies making sure the design is ready uh the night before uh these are all things that kind of help me not have anxiety for the day for you know and uh that that's my biggest goal like I don't want to feel like I'm stressing myself because if I'm stressed it's gonna you're going to be able to tell you know

yeah I could have always definitely prepared a little more at times like a very Wing It person though you know like like I drew draw on I draw on a ton of my work over the years was like a lot of it was just I got three layers of markers a light one a m medium one in the dark and I just always felt like it just helped I was really into flow and I felt like I could never get the tracing paper on there and the drawing and then I put it on and then I'm like I got to draw it anyway so it forced me to be under pre like work well under pressure and stuff too which is you know things that you learn in your apprenticeship yeah dude um and you know what like I think that's sick because you get to really really test your artistic abilities doing that

you know uh being able to draw on with Sharpie that is definitely a skill I want to learn how to do uh I very rarely do anything just drawn on uh and if it is it's it's got to be like it's either fillers or let's say it's like someone wants to flail to fit in a certain SP uh spot on their body and I'm just drawing in like the chain part of that uh but I've never drawn on like a full sharped on tattoo that's a skill I definitely want to get into learning how to do you you stick with pretty much like what's your ideal day like two tattoos a day that are like Palm or like little hand you well I the way that I like to tattoo is I definitely like to do smaller style things uh I don't work in large scale uh that's definitely something I'm trying to change oh do you you would like to I would yeah uh I'm actually going to start a couple of backs these next couple of months yeah been doing a lot of prep drawing and like oh yeah pitching essentially to clients literally um and like it's it's super cool I actually got in contact with like a group of friends that I've known since middle school high school and I was like hey um like I'm trying to extend my portfolio I need to get some larger pieces out which one of you guys want to start their back or your front oh and a couple of them were were like me and I was like all right here's the deal you have to come in one a month and and it's got to be something that like I want to do yeah and I'll give you a deal on this tattoo we'll make it

happen but you have to commit to it and they were like say less dude so so now you're gonna start cranking out some big yeah I'm excited to see that that's cool that's fun yeah I I I I had a hard time with big stuff my um first of all getting people to commit to it is a challenge you know and and I just I don't know I just my attention span can't comprehend that dude I I feel the same way uh that that's why I like working in the smaller smaller style things um my my ideal day is doing two tattoos uh none of them take longer than three hours to do okay uh like I I like to work in short bursts uh yeah and I feel like doing it that way I really get to focus um so I'm not like stressing about anything you know like I get to just bust it out do as good of a job as I can do and it's done in one sitting yeah you know immediate gratification too immediate gratification and it's kind of easier to charge like that too you know I I like the in your head you're like all right I'm gonna get x amount for this x amount for this and then you can kind of like almost map out exactly what you're gonna make for the week what literally dude and um I feel like things like that are key yeah you know clients aren't left hanging you know that finished tattoo for yeah and it's easier to give a rough estimate to for something like that than you know having to be like I don't know how much it's G to cost you know how about you just pay me how much I want you know like I don't I don't want to be that guy

no for sure that's a yeah yeah um sounds like you're going to plan out your back pieces real good too like you said you have the clients picked out you have the sessions probably what you're going to attempt to accomplish with in each one of those sections exactly so then you can have kind of like basically like a strategic layout of right to finish on it that's and uh yeah and you know like starting off with some of my friends working on these larger pieces are going to give me a a good idea of how long these pieces are going to take to do um and that's that's the thing because sometimes I'll do small tattoos in my head I'm like oh I'll knock this out in two three hours not an issue getting in there you're like oh I was like oh this has more lines than I remember or the client doesn't sit good or the client doesn't sit good yeah dude uh you know Al or my tummy hurts you know things happen man things happen but I love it like I think it's Super Rad and and I like like you said dude the instant gratification when you get to start something and finish it that's exciting it it's it really is for me too yeah dude and uh and you know like we're content creators as well man so being able to knock something out right then and there that's just one extra thing I get to throw on Instagram or Tik Tok or whatever you know um so it it feels good to do that because I I've always struggled with the social media aspect of it all I'm not inclined you know like some people are really good

with social media me not so very good and like dude I've watched YouTube videos I've tried to like you know what what do I got to do you know dance yeah like and and that kind of goes back to you know showing people who you really are like Instagram is starting to not really care about the tattoos anymore yeah they're more interested about who's doing the tattoos um so that's that's a learning curve for me cuz like you know me and you were talking about this earlier um I just don't find myself as a very interesting person you know uh but that's just because like I am myself yeah we forget that what we are doing is actually interesting to your client or to you know your co-workers and stuff might be over there even if they may not say anything they might be watching your ass and like exactly fascinated by it yeah dude and um and and and it's weird to think because it's like you could look at anyone on the street and you could imagine like like I wonder what that person's life is like you know so I like doing that yeah me too and like I I do it literally every day yeah so like thinking about that it's like well people must be looking at me and thinking the same things yeah you know so like I'm just trying to get into a role where it's like all right let me attach more of myself more my personality into my artwork to try to you know yeah it's a challenge for us all that's damn sure and like you know I love that you came out and did this H you know you look at your

Instagram and it's 100% just a beautiful portfolio but I was trying to dig like for some more things to talk about and I was like damn uh this showing up so but it so it kind of comes across as like almost maybe they're an introvert or whatever but like you know you're you're you are interesting you have a lot of different things that you're into and um it's you know it will be a challenge to figure out how to I struggle with it on my own social media I'm like am I supposed to be self-branding you know everybody says the person with the self brand I'm like and I do the same exact thing am I not fun or like I just don't find myself like wanting to document all my yeah yeah me too so it's it's an exercise trying to find that for sure and honestly dude like I I love what you're doing I think this is Super Rad uh just being able to talk to other artists you know is it's exciting it is exciting we we get these transactions together we just maybe run into each other at art shows or or just worked with somebody for a small amount of time and you don't sometimes always get to like really get to know people and and this is such a unique experience to like you know find out that we all have so much in common and if we weren't sitting around not the we're doing it but a lot of people just sit around and judge each other you it's too easy to do that these days we're caught up in our own algorithm just looking at the dumbb that they they post and you're like it's dumb you know like

whatever you're like yeah bro like you think I want to be doing that literally though yeah and uh and and some people are so good at it too man and they are Supernatural Supernatural too literally and that's great you know or that might be our perception they're over there probably doing the same thing they're probably over there stressing at night trying to figure out how the do I do this and they put it up you know maybe they film 50 things and pick one thing that works 100% that's just like what we were talking about ear it's just you're not going to be the best at anything you do right out of the gate well most people won't but right you know so just give it a shot keep moving try don't be afraid to thr out there yeah put yourself out there everybody in their or whatever who cares what people think you can always delete it yeah exactly who cares who cares not me no man I think it's great um yeah like you said though dude it's a learning curve you know and uh and it's a really good point you know we we look at everything from such an outside perspective uh so when we are like looking at other people's posts and they're like I'm thinking to myself damn they're so good at doing this yeah uh like why can't I be doing this just like them and then you know like who knows what they're thinking you know yeah what they're going through yeah it's super Interesting Man like I love it I love tattooing like I said dude I don't think I'll ever do anything else it's too great dude it's

just too great you know um I come and go as I please uh no one's no one's breathing down the back of my neck about anything uh I am mostly appointment only uh like I'll take Watkins if there's Watkins you know uh but that's it's not that's pretty rare that it's pretty rare most of the people in your you're you're a Heritage tattoo right now yeah shout out Heritage tattoo yeah Aaron what up Aaron yeah we got to get him on here too but oh dude he's amazing the Shop's cool yeah yeah where you're at it's real cool uh you know it's the only shop I've seen styled the way it is so got the secret wall thing there a drawing room back there there one day dude please come by anytime you want man I would love to show you the shop it's it's super rat in

there you'll go into the bathroom it blows your mind aon's like aon's one of those people that you you see from my perspective when I see what he posts on Instagram type stuff you're like damn the everything he does is like executes perfectly like his garden is gorgeous his Co or what you know or whatever he's got all this everything is like so he's beautiful C Shop's cool so if you're out there and you're ever feeling insecure about it you're doing a great job n dude seriously uh it it's you know but being around that you're like dude I want that too you know so like it it drives you and Aaron is incredible Artist as well you know like same thing uh getting to see him work yeah it's mind-blowing you know and uh I feel the same way about chance as well shout out chance Collective Tattoo Las Vegas Nevada yeah absolute Legend tat wizard um we'll get him on here real soon dude yeah he he honestly a gentleman a scar just the coolest dude ever uh if it wasn't like yoga teacher of tattooing I don't know just the vibe he's like the guru like the guru his energy is so like oh man so pleasant he is he's he's an extremely Pleasant man and he's so humble and he's so loving which is it's rare to find people like that man especially in what we do uh like he's willing to share his knowledge he's not he's not vindictive about anything he's just a a real gentleman and uh and he's a family man too yeah which I respect you know those kind of things like what do you uh you know you've only

you've been Tau to for about five years I think you're extremely successful and very very good at what you're doing I'm excited to see you grow and get into other things do you kind of have a vision maybe of like what you'd like to see for your career like absolutely man all I know is I want to get better at drawing for sure I want to get artistically better at doing anything uh not just tattooing but painting um and I've never really done anything else like uh it's always just been painting and tattooing you know uh I want to get better at doing more like charcoal stuff more Fine Art styled stuff as well uh but my main focus right now is to just kind of lock in and become great at just executing drawings to skin being surrounded by such talented people man like and and Sh shout out everyone at Heritage because they help out so much when it comes down to like drawing things uh like last week dude I was stressing I had my client in the lobby and like I said dude like if I tell you to be at your appointment at 3:00 and you're there at 3 o' and I'm not ready that that puts bums you out it bums me out it really does it puts a bit of pressure on me um and I think I think they noticed that and uh I think they noticed that I was stressing and they were like yo like let me help you out real quick you know oh good and um so I I give him my iPad because I am an iPad yeah that's I was wondering too yeah I draw on the iPad it's fantastic tool dude if if it works it works you know like

I started off drawing on paper yeah iPad works just as well um but I handed my iPad over to Jesse he started uh helping helping me doodle through it yeah dud and and it helped tremendously you know and having people around me that are willing to like help that way to ensure that the tattoo that I'm about to do is a good tattoo and not just some that I threw together it it it's amazing because not a lot of people are willing to help like that man yeah and you're not going to get that from a private Studio or something you know not at all yeah the camaraderie and and just bullshitting back and forth and stuff all helps you and just soaking in all that information you're around like I don't know how many guys are there six to eight guys uh there's nine nine yeah there's nine people tattooing out of Heritage all different styles too doing their thing manaz able to like soak in a little bit oh yeah and uh and I love it dude like everyone's everyone's doing their thing it's so nice to be in a shop that's just filled yeah and everyone's just bullshitting talking and it's an open floor yeah yeah so it's extremely fun you know and we're all just kind of those are the benefits of open space format for sure I love it yeah dude and you know like there's some conversations happening you know like tattoo talk or uh what is it shop talk is it can get pretty crazy you know conspiracies and and uh I'm into that kind of stuff you know like I'm not saying I believe everything but I'm not

yeah you know I'm not saying it's not true yeah but it it might not be I don't know so you're you're into some other too you were telling me back to your competitive spirit and your drive you're a gamer so like I don't know lot about gaming but you were telling me you're into fortnite and that's that's like your thing and you're competitively playing yeah dude you tell me a little bit about that that's absolutely man um I I I played so for the longest time I was playing Apex Legends okay um that was the first game that I started getting into competitively uh I would play ranked get into it man um it's a good time you know Community all I mean nowadays Everybody Plays it from all over the world they play this one game right yeah and then so they essentially when you say competitive you're like entering into competitions or I'm not entering into competitions but through the game there's a ranked system okay and you can climb that rank system okay so we yeah you're you're trying to Elevate exactly um well for for an example uh when I was playing Apex Legends the ranking system goes from bronze all the way up to a rank called uh apex predator okay right uh if you're an apex predator you're the top 750 players in the world okay uh the rank right below that is called Masters okay um and that's the rank that I was able to achieve uh in the game which is honestly I'm not really sure how you would put it like in my mind it would be like being a division one player in in the NBA okay

you know so like you're not pro leagues but but you're putting it putting it down and uh yeah dude like I've always loved gaming um it's always something that I've been super interested in um and I just recently switched from Apex Legends to playing fortnite and uh I started making Tik Tok content okay yeah of gaming yeah dude so is that kind of like your intro to helping bring more of your personality into it so yeah um exactly social media and then we talked about kind of maybe figuring out how to merge them both exactly and uh and you know like dude I I grew up playing Super mar Donkey Kong yeah that's like the extent of my yeah we got that in the house dude I love it I downloaded an emulator on my phone that has all of the Super Nintendo games on it oh okay it's fantastic dude uh so I play everything like I don't just stick to the firstperson shooters or whatever you want to Call of Duties whatever um I'll play anything as long as it's a good game yeah dude so I'm I'm trying to bring like you know kind of merge the two like if anyone ever wants to get like some video game tattoos 8bit styled that's what I was wondering if you were willing to like bring that into your actual tattooing love that okay good yeah you know great um it would be it would be so much fun and and like it's a great way to Market yourself too I mean you're passionate about it so that's obviously great and means that you'll do a good job at it you know creating your content or figuring out and

you know fumble through it at first and then get a little better and then you start introducing that following to your tattooing and and that's exactly what I'm trying to do yeah like we need to get away from like putting all our eggs in one basket the Instagram thing is not it's not good for us no it isn't dude and uh and and that was another thing like I I don't want people to just think of me as like just this one individual you know and even then it's hard to have an idea of who I am when like you said dude like you you go on my profile you don't see anything personal on it it's all just it's all just tattoos yeah everything is just tattoos so um and I and I've noticed you know like PE people are interested dude like people want to know

your backstory they want to know who you are that's why I'm enjoying this project to learn you know about all of other tattooers in town and their stories and stuff and their other interests are great exactly cuz it's it's not it's never just one thing for sure the artists are bing bing bing we're bouncing all over the place we're trying to figure out how we can do 20 different things at once and for sure dude yeah dude and and the cool thing about Tik Tok is is dude like their editing system is fantastic yeah I learned how to like three years ago though you know but I want to try to get back in into it a little playing with it figuring out how um you could split videos on the on the as you're editing and you could delete Clips like right then and there they make it so easy uh I'm still learning it as well so uh but last night I feel like I kind of got that light bulb above my head and I was like oh you know what like I'm starting to understand how to work this thing oh cool yeah yeah that's fun it is you can screen record obviously when you're playing and then add throw that in there too and like even if you're not comfortable talking to the camera you can do simple things like just here's here's my face you know exactly see that's what I need to get better at and then you can talk over it too so then you're by yourself and it's quiet and you can just kind of like try to practice at that for sure dude um but definitely I I I I have such a hard time with just being able to

like put my face onto things yeah this might be the first thing yeah yeah if it works it works dude like I'm perfectly fine with that um I I I just need to get better at doing it in the day-to-day things you know and uh and one of my goals is actually to start streaming okay um so like I want to start playing video games online uh I've done it before yeah that would be like through twitch or something like that I'm not familiar with that platform but I understand um yeah dude it's Super Rad you know everyone's gaming on it uh and the way the platform is set up like if there's a specific game you want to watch you just click on that game and then it shows you everyone that's playing it it makes sense man there's a ton of people uh playing it

they're obviously interested in learning how other people do it so that's really cool and you know you can twitch your live stream your tattoos too right yeah yeah I know there's tattooers doing that never really looked into it but and that was something that I was interested in doing as well like and I don't really know how well you would be able to like engage in your your chat yeah while you're tattooing because you know like yeah you got focusing you you got to focus on your client for sure but you know if you just want to set it up have people watch you do it you know like by all means I think that's super rat it's not like the camera's going to be right in it for sure and they're unassuming cameras like these cameras live stream exactly dude so um you just have it on a little tripod just chilling boom yeah just shows like hey what's up everyone we're out here doing this thing and that's all it is to it dude and then you just yeah you just just tattoo and then you add that to your your content through twitch right yeah anything that just helps kind of get your name out you know um do you have your own website I don't yeah dude I lag on that so hard I'm pushing people on that just more diversity more getting your search engine optimization stuff set up through your um and then that you can add all your links to your different socials and stuff that'll help like when people are searching Las Vegas tattoo or traditional Las Vegas tattoo or like and you have that those

keywords in your site and these days the platforms are super easy to use so you can set up Shopify for 35 bucks a month or whatever it is now and um buil out your own store and I don't know how to do I'm not a very technical driven person so neither am I yeah so you can jump through there and it's like it's real easy userfriendly but you could add like your prints available and your stream you know it just kind of gives like a more of a hub of like all the you're into yeah you could just add your photography side gig whatever and just type it all in and just update it like once a week which is cool you know like I just like I don't even know how to get into doing that like yeah just jump over how you make a website it's pretty easy yeah it's free platform like I dude I did it I did it all myself we just rebuilt my shops website through the platforms hell yeah our Mavericks website like all the all our is through there you said through Shopify yeah just jump on there or like um uh where the in uh I'm brain farting the other ones you know but uh that's the only one I with and it's easy so yeah it's like a old school like Myspace kind of thing with no code you just drag your logo and then drag youru that's something I would need 100% I think tattooers should definitely be doing that right now and building their own store that way you know uh one of my guys he's fantastic at it dos Frank he's like got his website up he's constantly putting new prints on there and he'll get off

get up in the morning see if anything's sold packages prints ship them out so so sick there's a a lot to do though you know you know so you got to find your balance but for sure especially when you're out like selling physical things you know like that's that's time that you're taking Tak out of your day to go to the uh yeah post office all that on the way yeah you know you could at least build the website and then you have the content on there exact you don't have to sell and yeah and even then like you said dude like you throw your Instagram your YouTube your Twitch like you could throw anything on that website and it just it's a portal yeah uh I'll push you to do that no I'll definitely have to get on to it it's not super hard so yeah Shopify I've seen a couple of couple of things dude did you see on on Instagram that when you start paying for ads they started charging a fee Apple started charging the fee to run ads on Instagram I just kind of recently saw that have you ever done that have you played with do you like boost yourself through okay um you do just the Boost thing I just boost it I don't honestly I'm like I said dude like I'm not very uh social media Savvy um but yeah dude like I'll I'll boost the post see what happens with it I've see tat stuff pop up every once in a while especially if they're traveling through just like shoot out sponsored ads you know um I I don't really try to I just let the app do its thing man like I I don't really try to specify

anything I just do whatever it recommends okay and then um and I've noticed that most of my stuff gets shown to people in California which I don't really know if that's benefiting me much in regards of getting appointments but there's a ton of people traveling through but those are people traveling through like I say 60% of the people coming through town uh or from California supposedly every single weekend but then you're not like on in that last minute kind of situation where you can just take these walk-ins so I would probably definitely when you boost like go in and you can specifically say like Las Vegas Valley yeah yeah so with that like just kind of and you know just ask ask how you do it get a little better at it but it's a challenge yeah uh uh but they never used to do that Apple never used to take a fee I was going to do a $30 boost and and they wanted $13 on top on top and I was like dude that's like almost half of the Boost yeah yeah I don't know how that works that's beef between the app they're like hey you guys are making more money than us that's not fair yeah we're going to take that from you yeah uh when I saw that though it completely changed I was like well I'm not going to boost it anymore you know because it's like why would I give you almost half of the ad money yeah I'm feeling a lot of Grassroots going back to it though like you you making flyers is super cheap you can make like 500 flyers for like 40 bucks or some on vist uh this past week

Aaron made uh I'm not I'm not too into like graffiti or anything um but you know how like uh when like you make a poster and you oh yeah we paste it yeah yeah funny we're doing that for the podcast that's so sick dude I was like yo like next time you do that like I want to come through I want to learn how to do that yeah I'm not very good at Kinko man just roll into Kinkos and you can nowadays you so you figure out their largest piece of paper that they can print on the cheap printers out front and then you do in your iPad you build up your graphic black and white graphic real bold and then just yeah then you just send the file directly to Kinkos they give you a code to type in when you get to the printer you just type in the code and it pops out like 500 of your posters and you just roll out with them it's pretty easy that's sick and then these days you you don't even have to put together your own wheat paste there's companies that make wheat paste for you know so you just ready to go roll it up dude and like we used to do grimy and like we used to put crushed up glass in there that way like when you went to go peel it off like it would oh shatter smart would cut your hands yeah so you Wen you wouldn't want to take that poster down but that's actually sick that's weird yeah but dude like I'm in stuff like that you know like yeah but anyway that Grassroots like I was at the coffee shop this morning and I found myself like still putting up my business cards on the pen board

know at the breakfast place all that local really works and 100 if they're seeing you on social media and then they see it there they need to see you like I don't know with the psychology breakdown I forgot it was like see it seven times before it clicks and then hopefully by like the 13th time they actually reach out to you right yeah yeah cuz it it builds that like familiarity right y y and trust and like oh if I saw it that many times it must be worth a exactly like they might you know and I feel like there's just do so many scammers now yeah uh like every day dude I'm seeing someone hey this isn't my profile like make sure you're not sending money to these people so like you know being able to show who you are actually it helps man it helps gives people the idea of like do the weat paste thing some posters some cards you know like there's you know it's a million things you can do but for sure just like anything the more competitive you get at the more interested you get in it the more you learn how to execute it all and it's so some dude will see it and some chick will come get a rad tattoo from you and that's the best yeah all I want to do is rad tattoos yeah perfect but uh I don't know you got what else you got going on you got like you're at Heritage now that's you you're gonna kind of focus on doing some bigger work and yeah dude uh just chilling do you travel much do you do like guest guest spots or anything like that not many guest spots no um I've never even done

a convention yet really you want to do something like that 100% uh but I just you know like never had the opportunity working at Heritage now I just started there at the beginning of this year so um I've noticed that they do a lot of conventions so I definitely plan on tagging along with them trying to get an idea even if you just go Noto just kind of learn yeah you just like feel out the environment that they're real different these days there's but it's still great for networking you know if you go there with that intent too and you're not tattooing all weekend it'll be easier for you to walk around introduce yourself to all the tattooers that you see or know or inspire you and and just say what's up drop your car to your flyer you know put it out there here some stickers can I watch you tattoo for a minute if you're mind like um I'm going to hover i h can I hover over your shoulder let me see can so those are you know it makes it actually enjoy kind it's a different experience like I've definitely gone to multiple tattoo conventions without even yeah yeah yeah dude it's great I just try to go there with intent you know if you're not going to do anything don't be shy walk up to dude and just say what's up like 99% these days like everybody that you talk to they're nice now like tattooers are nicer now I love it like I just did that Austin Invitational in August oh that's awesome it's great dude we we go out there and uh we're gonna do it again this year and I was like I

was actually kind of proud of myself like I was that went there with intent and I walked up to every tat I could take the time to talk to and just say hi and introduce myself and everybody was incredibly receptive it was like I love that like we back in the day people were grumpy and like get out of my space bro who the are you all right man like talk to the next guy exactly like all right man I I thought we were all in a good mood today yeah so so I definitely I think you should do it you know and plus then you get to like uh since you're not working the whole time you could put in like four or five hours of just walking around talking to people and then go eat some restaurants travel dud I love traveling I love it so much um can't go wrong dude seeing experiencing cures I eat that up dude I love it but yeah dude I definitely want to get intoing conventions uh I would love to do more guest spots that would be Super Rad um I've been to New York uh you know but that's kind of further away uh I would love to do things that are a bit closer to home because you know traveling with all your equipment can be a little stressful dude yeah yeah yeah you know when machines cost as much as they cost nowaday like yeah it's it's tough dude like I do not want to lose that thing you know sure yeah yeah you keep all that in your bag yeah I I don't leave it out of my sight dude even uh even when I'm you know in town if if I don't stop by my house before I go somewhere I'll walk into

places with my backpack on dude yeah don't ever leave that in your car I can't I get way too scared bro yeah that brings me back to when everybody would used to leave their CDs in their car you leave your whole entire collection of music it's like gone 5 600 bucks and it's gude that needs to be in your backp I don't trust anybody anywhere 100% dude 100% yeah keep your close Yeah well yeah that's cool man you yeah get out there do some conventions and um guest spots are I honestly have never done a guest spot oh no kidding I did a ton of conventions but I always like I early on kind of like had my shop and had a ton of business here love I never really I didn't really see the yeah like going and doing guest spots so like I could sit here and

work or I could sit there and do nothing but I just didn't see the value in it at that time now I see it more as like building the relationships not so much about being busy dude soaking up the vibe of another shop you know and you'll learn from that so now I'm kind of like all right now I have the ability to do that I should do that 100% yeah and I'm so not so much worried about tattooing at conventions other than just more or less just going to them to network and just meet meet people you know it's fun and it's always nice to meet new people too man yeah our goal is to get this out at conventions like so oh setup dude trying trying to get some podcast I got a project that I'm working on I got oh dude that's G to be so sick be fun yeah so

it'll be cool for that way we can talk to a bunch of different people at one SP I think it'll be really fun yeah dude that' be so rad yeah I got a a cool idea I think I think that I'm going to roll it out and I'm like dud I mean seeing how everything is right now I'm pretty sure it's going to be sick as we're going to keep going with it but man I think that's about it dude I really appreciate you taking your time D you're the man absolutely you're an extremely talented dude and I I am going to get more tattoos by you so thank you so much dude seriously it was an absolute pleasure coming in today if you want to tell them like where to find you you know your Instagram is what exactly is your Instagram yeah it's uh it's going to be JCB tattoos

that's it yeah shout out Heritage tattoo uh I'm Loc there in Las Vegas Nevada thank you so much for having me today dude this was Super Rad this was my first time doing anything like this as well so I'm hell new too so if you see me struggling through the beginning and all the I'm like ah it I'll figure it out I love it dude it was super R yeah just keep going thank you so much all right guys thank you peace