Maverick ZINE — Tattoo Culture, Art & Artist Stories

I started calling it illustrative style because it wasn't quite new school. Like I didn't really do a lot of like exaggeration. I didn't do a lot of forcehortening or anything cartoony. Like I was always more like let me take this real thing and put an outline on it and color it in an interesting way. I almost quit tattooing because of how bad my back hurt. That was one of the main motivations for I got to make this tattoo studio thing or this side hustle tattoo smart thing really make it possible for me to not tattoo if I don't have to because I'm only getting older and this hurts. [Music] What's happening? This is Austin Spencer with uh support your local tattooer.

We are super excited to be a part of the Metaninoia Tattoo Gathering in 2025. We're here with Russ Abbott. Who's going to be doing a presentation seminar? You got some good experience in that. I do. Yeah. I honestly have no idea how many times I've done this. So, doing a long time.

So, I'm I'm going to lean on you this weekend because I'm doing one too with my wife, which will be fun cuz ours Yeah, ours is going to be like tag team little basic business structure and stuff. And then yours is going to be on Okay, so I forgot what yours is on. I do these workshops where it's it's not so much that I have like a slideshow and I have a plan. Okay, cool. It's I mean I have a plan, but everyone hopefully brought their iPad along. Hopefully they were all warned that iPad is Yeah. needed for this. So, there are a few steps in Procreate that I've noticed a lot of tattoo artists are missing.

So, even though they're using Procreate, they're using it like just one step beyond paper. That's where I'm at. I'm like elementary level, like I definitely lean on the guys in the shop like how how do I do this? How'd you do the tippity tap thing? You know, I'm I'm here with all the tippity tap things, but my goal is to make sure that they actually retain them, you know? So, So, I I want to demonstrate basically a process for how to think about your layers and how to think about a few of those little hidden secret gems in Procreate that are essential. And um I'll give them a custom brush set that I made that has like locked in sizes for liners. So, I'll give them something that will be really useful for creating line drawings.

A few different tools for that. I want to make sure that they understand how to think about where the line drawing, the value study, and the color study fit in the process, right? Because I like to take it all the way. Like I I want to start the tattoo with a completely rendered drawing, but I can't take a long time to do it. So, this is all about an efficient process to be ready to tattoo. That's a process, dude. Like, especially when you get busier, it's hard to find time to get all the way fully rendered, but dude, you can tell when people do it, the obviously you get a better return on your tattoo. It's like for me I died right like I I still want to leave a little room for you know creative discovery in the tattoo.

Yeah. But I also learned early on like when I first started doing digital and I was aiming for that completely rendered design because that was the reason I wanted to switch to digital. Like I felt like in the past I was doing that the best I could with like colored pencils and tracing paper and like lots of Yeah. you know horribly inefficient things. Yeah. And I couldn't always do it right. So I'd have to start the tattoo with just a line drawing and I would make mistakes, make bad choices about value relationships mostly, you know. So then I realized that figuring out just a value study, even if it was a quick scribbly value study, like figuring out where the blacks are, figuring out what's going to be empty and how you're going to arrange those in the composition was like more important to me than color.

Yeah. And so my process in Procreate is, you know, to start with a sketch, then to make a really clean outline of it. So I have my stencil and then I quickly value study using a few tricks and then I really quickly color study. Like the color study comes from the value study. So like for example, if there was like a red rose that I colored in and only gray values. Yeah. I can apply the red but keep those values intact. So I don't have to think about dark red, medium red, light red, pink, you know, all the way to white.

I just think about it in gray and then I pop that color in and I can infinitely adjust the colors of different colored components when the client's not happy with the red I chose or something like that. For the listeners that aren't like super um savvy on the terms like just say values for instance, you know, you're talking like what are the values to you and how do you express those through like the Yeah. So in in art theory we talk about hue, value, saturation. These are the three components of really color theory. The hue is which color it is, yellow, red, blue, purple. Yep. Value is how dark or light is it? So it's usually represented as a scale from black on one side all the way through all the tones of gray to white on the other side.

And then saturation or chroma is how intense or dull is the color. So any color can be described in these three ways. But when we talk about a monochromatic approach, black and gray or opaque gray um or even only blue and all the shades and tints and tones of blue, that would be a monochromatic, right? So value is the most important consideration because you don't have hue in that situation, right? So I believe and I think a lot of other people who have studied this and thought about it believe that value is more important than color. And so if we have a good value study and we we know where the darks and lights and grays are and we've thought about how key moments in the composition are going to benefit from a certain decision about dark and light from there we are very likely to have a successful tattoo even if we make [ __ ] choices about color.

Yeah. Yeah. No, I totally agree. Yeah. That's wild, dude. We kind of talked about I for some reason thought I want to go all back into the history and everything that you were you were like an art school graduate. like you really nerd out about this [ __ ] dude. And I've been watching you do it for so long.

It's really fun. It's a total opposite of like kind of just how I have always just like played with things and had fun and never really got super in-depth. So when I definitely ask those things, it's because like I sometimes genuinely don't know the difference. Like you get really deep into color theory and all this stuff. It's super fun. I love it. And you found all these unique ways to express that through like your brushes and everything like that. That's it's really fun.

So that's more of what you're going to be covering, but like you said, you want them to comprehend it. For me, somebody that's like a artist that just kind of gets lost in the sauce. Like sometimes I'm just get like zone out when it starts getting super technical. How do you uh approach them or like what are the exercises or anything that you're going to kind of be going over with them to get them to retain that stuff? Well, we have a lot of time here. I think um when I've done this in the past, I did it in like an hour and a half, but I think I have two and a half hours this time. So, I'm thinking of kind of creating a little project that we can all do together. Some simple tattoo design, you know, so that it has the sketch, it has the outline, it has the value study, and it has the coloring process.

So, sometime between now and 2 days from now, I will have a better answer. Yeah. Well, I'm excited to sit down and just do it myself. Thinking about like I cuz I can demonstrate it. Um, and and I try to not demonstrate it with anything that's too overwhelming and fancy. Although I do like to pull those those designs up and let people see how far this madness can go when you when you really know how to think about layer structure and layer blending modes. You know, things like overlay and uh multiply layer blending mode, which usually when I say that to tattoo artists, they're like, "No, I don't. " But those are important, right?

Those are like a critical component of of and and they are in my opinion like basic digital art knowledge. They're just not things that our peers are using. Yeah. So for me like stuff we make for Tattoo Smart is is aiming you know people like accelerating their you know abilities digitally. Yeah. And the frustration or the difficulty in doing that is that we still have to get people to remember to like somehow know the basics. So Yeah. And dude, when you say they go you go deep, like you get I was going into your all of your threedimensional models and everything that you're building.

Like I still haven't played with that. Like I'm still old school and I'm I'm looking forward to like sitting down and hopefully obviously learning something this weekend. I'll demo that process too because people even the people typically people who have purchased model humans and they're working with those 3D models have also missed some of those little things that make all the difference in how easy it is and how useful it is. So, there's a lot of work for me to do to like educate people on how to use the things that I've made. And a lot of times I feel bad because I haven't done that work, you know, like I've been more like, "Oh, what's the next product? " So, now I'm working a lot slower. Like I just released a new a new set called the washi set and it's Yeah, I'm excited to check that out.

I was watching all your promo videos. Super fun, too. Yeah. So, that one it has a uh tutorial 30-minute tutorial video, which is not something I've ever included with any of the previous sets. So, that's cool. So, I'm really um slowing down and I'm making sure that like Yeah, that's great. That I think that is personally an awesome idea. I was digging through your Instagram last night and I like going back to the body models, those silly ass videos you made.

I don't know how you did it where the where you open the door and the body models there. I don't know. I just I'll tell you. Yeah. I was like, how did you do that? Yeah, I'm glad you such a technology not savvy human. It's um it's view and AR. So, you've got any 3D model that you pull into Procreate.

Okay. You can click a button that says view in AR. What? I didn't know that. Yeah. And so, after a few seconds of thinking, it will project that little tiny per It actually comes out really small. Yeah. It's like a full person, but it's like an inch tall on your screen.

And so, you have to get really close to it and you have to pinch zoom it bigger and get closer and pinch zoom it bigger. And eventually I got him to be like 6 feet tall. Yeah. And I'd put him on my front porch. Okay. Yeah. Right. And then so you're filming through your camera.

Um you screen record on my iPad. Okay. Okay. All right. So like I'm screen recording the view of my iPad's camera while it's seeing him in real life. Yeah. And that's how I did it. Whoa.

Okay. And then I have open the door and I pretend to talk to him, but he's not really there. Oh, okay. Okay. Okay. Cool. Yeah. I I don't know.

It's it was just creative and like fun little thing. And thank you. One thing that I find real fascinating about you is that you seem to you kind of drive me crazy sometimes because you execute everything so well. It looks like from an outsider. So, you know, like your shop is beautiful and when it comes to like your education, it's you take a lot of time and energy and put in that and it shows and it's and you've been doing it for a very long time, too. It's like it's fun to see and watch from an outsider. Thank you. I do it mostly for me cuz Yeah.

No, you just just I just call it nerding out, right? just having fun and applying it to like tattooing and um you seem to always be like at the forefront of like technology applying to tattooing, right? I'm assuming that's like that's your thing, right? Yeah. So, if we could go all the way back and get to know Russ a little better like how did you get into tattooing or do you have any fun like interesting references in time where you were exposed to tattooing and and it lit something up inside of you or Sure. Yeah, I have two. Um, one I had a next door neighbor with a Donald Duck tattoo on his upper arm. Okay.

You know, he used to like mow his grass with his shirt off and you know that I remember that tattoo specifically cuz I would have been like seven or eight years old. Okay. But I also have my grandfather Matt Abbott had a eagle and flag that he got like right before he shipped off to be at Pearl Harbor when it was attacked by the Japanese. Yeah. So like his tattoo and his story are a big part of like my connection to it. That's cool. You were obviously a little guy there like always around like high school or something where you started like really kind of Did you ever venture out and like sneak into tattoo shops and [ __ ] underage? Yeah, we would go, you know, I grew up in the suburbs of Atlanta, you know, so you know, kind of like shielded from whatever culture really kind of was happening.

Okay. you know, so but I was into skateboarding, you know, and I was I was attracted to that type of music and things like that. So, like when I was like 16 or 17, we thought we can go to Little Five Points and try to get an eyebrow piercing. Okay. Right. And so, like I wasn't old enough, right? And you needed your mom. So, like then I went back and brought my mother, you know, and uh she signed for me to get this eyebrow piercing.

And then I went back to my, you know, conservative town and was the first kid with a body piercing at that like moment when body piercing was like all of a sudden a thing. Like every, you know, people were getting their tongues pierced all the time and like Yeah, dude. I watch my friends do that [ __ ] in my bedroom when with like a [ __ ] safety pen. And we were doing the earrings like like we would we would like pierce each other's ears with a hold ice to it and like stick a needle through and get, you know, only a left ear, you know, you got to be safe in the '8s. Yeah. But um you know go to the skating rink for the for Friday night and then come back home and take it out before our parents saw it. You know that was like the kind of [ __ ] we did when I was like 13.

Yeah. So piercing was first, right? And then you know tattooing. I had a friend met this guy who moved up to my town from like South Florida and he had a bunch of tattoos and he had a tattoo machine. He got like a kit. Oh [ __ ] Yeah. And he was a tattoo artist. He did my first two tattoos.

Okay. And I remember um looking through the catalog. I was 18 but didn't have any money. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Or maybe maybe just about to be 18, but I didn't have any sense either. Like how do you pick a tattoo artist when you're still living at the time?

Okay. So, you're hiding that [ __ ] from your mom and dad? I didn't have to hide it. I don't think I don't remember hiding it. I don't think they really like were that kind of parent. Yeah. So, he did my first couple of tattoos and I remember seeing the I think it was Superior brand. Okay.

Um, but he also had a Spot and Rogers catalog, the one with the Flash in it. Yeah. And I remember looking through all those little thumbnails of Tiny Flash that they sold. And um, I was just like blown away by the artwork, you know, I loved the tribal stuff. I loved like Japanese looking stuff like dragons and these types of things. And so that's when I realized and I think I asked and he said that you could just send off and they would mail you one of these cataloges for free, you know? So I guess I like like write the letter, send I think I did. Yeah.

There was no internet, right? So I this would have been like 1997ish. And so I got the catalog and then when I started going to college right after that at Georgia State, I was staying in the dorms and I would just look at that catalog and draw, you know. Yeah. And it wasn't even like at first an idea of look at the other catalog that has all the starter kits in it. That just came with the book with all the pictures, you know. So, I remember kind of just like finally just getting the idea because at first I would have thought, man, I can't do this. Like my my buddy does this already, but I had like left there, you know, I had like started a new life.

I wasn't seeing him anymore and I was like, I guess I could do this, you know? So, I I had a credit card and I just bought, you know, I got Huck Spalding's tattooing a toz and I read it cover to cover and um No [ __ ] Yeah, man. Were you illustrating ever since you were a kid? I mean, I was always drawing or like where was your creative outlets like? Yeah, I was always into drawing. Um, you know, I my high school voted me like most artistic or something like that, you know? All right. Like people knew me as the like art nerd, but I wasn't really all that great at it.

You know, I feel like I learned most of what I know about art through, you know, wanting to be a better tattooer. Yeah, that's fascinating. I I always find it fascinating. Like I I interviewed a dude the other day that had never even illustrated until he saw a tattoo and was like, "Well, [ __ ] I can't play the guitar very well. " And so he got into tattooing. But that's fun, man. I see. I've been drawing ever since I was a little kid, but which doesn't make me any better than anybody, but that's for damn sure.

But so you didn't have like a lot of creative creative like influence in your home. Are you like the one art artist that kind of came out? I didn't really have I mean I guess my mom's sort of into crafting, you know, like she would do stuff like like make fake stained glass with like gels and stuff when I was a kid and stuff like she makes like she likes to make greeting cards and Yeah. like stuff like that. And then um my grandfather was a a draftsman. I have I have incredible illustrations that he did that architectural. Yeah. So yeah, I guess there's a little bit of that in my jeans, but yeah, it was more like me just kind of like I was into several things.

Like I would define myself as like an artistish, you know? I don't think I was that good back then, but like it was important to me. A musician. Like I play guitar since I was a kid. Yeah. And banjo too, right? Or something. Yeah.

So many different stringed instruments over over the years. Banjo is was a phase for a while, but these days it's mostly just ambient guitar, you know? Like I love to do like strumming, you know, playing like songs and singing. This is all stuff I do by myself. Sometimes I'll put it on Instagram. Yeah, it's cool. I like it cuz I don't know. I just always like it's always fascinating to me when artists have like all of these outlets that they can grasp.

I cannot play the guitar. I cannot do anything other than just maybe draw and do some graffiti type [ __ ] But that's cool. That's fun. So, okay. So you got into tattooing and you started tattooing in your college dorm. Yeah. Like your buddies and [ __ ] like you just [ __ ] around? Yeah.

My roommates, you know, guy from across the hall. I probably did like 10 or so and it was just another set of circumstances occurred and I ended up stopping college for um probably what would have been one semester. It's a long story. It's not that interesting. But I I moved back to live in my parents' basement at this point. I skipped my old bedroom and went to the basement. Okay. And um I remember I slept on a couch that my friend's parents had had decided to discard.

So it was like a 1970s like velour like striped orange and put green stripes. All right. Couch. That was my bed. It was also my tattoo table apparently. Yeah. Another funny thing is um like I didn't want to be dirty but like the the book itself was written like 15 or 20 years earlier than that. Yeah.

Yeah. And that was the guidance that I had, right? Like I was aware that there was a thing called an autoclave, but they also sold you a bottle of sterilizing liquid with the kit. So it was like the and the implication is that you can use this safely. And so I would like my needles were new, the tubes were stainless steel, and I would I would do my best to scrub them out. And I remember thinking like, how do I change colors? Oh, yeah. Cuz the book didn't cover it.

Oh, no. And so I thought that what I needed to do was completely disassemble the machine and rinse it out in the sink between colors. Oh wow. And at one point I was like, man, maybe I need to use some dental floss and I'll feed some dental floss through there and then I can like run the tube up and down the dental floss. And I tried that for a while. But it wasn't until I got my first tattoo from a pro in Panama City Beach on spring break. Oh, okay. Not my first tattoo, but the first time that went into a shop of age.

went into Black Hat in Panama City and um I met a guy named Vampire Brian and he did an outline of a koi on my upper arm that I have since had covered and then lasered. Yeah, it's not his fault. It's just um it was it was just the wrong tattoo. But I remember he him being like strangely helpful, you know? He wasn't he didn't like adopt the persona of like [ __ ] you kid, I'm not telling you anything. Um, and and one of the things he told me or I quickly noticed was that there was a rinse cup that you could like run your machine in the rinse cup and then you were good. Um, but like so yeah, that was a funny story, but I went back home after spring break and I ended up going to the local CD shop in in the town where I lived. Yeah.

They had started doing body piercing. Okay. So, so like the conservative suburbs now had a guy doing body piercing. And I was thinking, I wonder if that guy will let me bring my dirty tubes up here and use his autoclave. So, I went in to see if I could broker a deal to have a sterilizer. And um as soon as I told him that I tattooed, that was enough for him. He was like, "Why don't you come in here and run one on me? We'll see how you do.

" What? So, I I did. I came up there and I ran one on him. Ran one on him. Yeah, that's that's how he said it. I still remember it, you know. Yeah. So, I I ran one on him and um I'm imagining him wearing a top hat for some reason.

Weird like neck tattoo. He had he was he was cool, man. He had he was probably a like 10 or 15 years older than me. And he had like a like kind of a blondhaired mullet. Yeah. Yeah. And he was a white guy, like blonde mullet, kind of like southern accent. And he wore like a Native American like choker Oh.

thing, you know, dude layers tall. Just piercing out of the back of a CD shop like a badass. I like it. Yeah. So I I built a little I went to like Home Depot and I I bought some countertop and some 2x4s and like made a little station in the closet in the back of the CD store and started tattooing. And so I used that same little catalog of get the [ __ ] out tattooing him or customers too. No customers. We I made a sign.

I made a sign and I said now available tattoos and we hung it outside and like people just started filing in. No [ __ ] And you were like 1920 or something like that. It was like Yeah, it was 19 early 98. Okay. It was a few weeks, right? And I actually ended up calling Vampire Brian and I said like, "Hey, man. How does like the tattoo business work? cuz I got a job tattooing and I need to know how the business works cuz they were asking me and I don't know.

" So, I went to them. I said, "I'm going to buy all my supplies. " So, dude, who were the owners? Were they just like just super Let the story go long enough they eventually wisen up. But like Yeah. At first they they they were making some really really shady decisions honestly. Like I didn't really know any better but Yeah. Yeah.

No. Everybody was they should have going for it. Yeah. Yeah. Which is pretty fun especially when you look back at it. Yeah. I mean it's legally and this is the same town I still live in now who still won't allow me to open a tattoo shop. But at this point in time I don't believe we ever asked anybody's permission.

They already had a business license and so thug life. We just started doing it. But and nobody else was doing it. So they're really just like [ __ ] it. Let's just Yeah. We haven't We haven't even thought to outlaw it yet. Yeah. Yeah.

Dang. So, you became Did you come become like a legend in the neighborhood with all the youngsters? No. I tattooed a few people. Um I probably did about 15 or 20 tattoos. Okay. At that place. Yeah.

And at that point in time, I met this guy who was visiting his brother and he and his brother came in. Actually knew his brother. We worked at the uh food delivery early version of Uber Eatats. We worked there together. Yeah. We used uh CB radios and um and maps. Okay. And delivered food.

Yeah. But I worked with his brother and they came in and that guy's name is Eric Campion. Eric told me he was from New York City and he was a body piercer and he had the best tattoos I'd ever seen cuz he was from New York. Yeah. And so during that week, we hung out. We became buds. And Eric needed a ride back home. And I was like, I have a car.

He said, "Well, let's go. We'll hang out in the town I live in. It's like an hour from New York. I'll take you to the city. Yeah. You know, you'll tattoo my buds. Damn, you went straight to the Yeah. All right.

So, I went to the owners of the CD shop and I said, "Hey, I got this really cool opportunity to like learn more about tattooing and go to New York City. " Yep. [ __ ] So, I left. A week later, I came back and I remember and all those things happened like we hung out. We had incredible time. It was like one of some of my best memories in life were from that trip. And um I came back and the now available tattooing sign had been taken down and I kind of knew what was up. You know, I started to put the pieces together and then I went in and the piercer had moved into my station.

Okay. Okay. And my stuff was in a box and um they were like, "Yeah, okay. So, this is maybe not so awkward. " And that was roughly one week before I decided I needed an apprenticeship. and and I got one, you know. So, yeah. So, all of the scratcher stuff like ended.

Yeah. Yeah. And it switched over to um you know, a much more like professional kind of tattooing. Yeah. And was that was that overall pretty good experience? Was that in New York or No, no, you said you just went there to I just went to New York to get some culture. Yeah. Yeah.

Exactly. And then you came back. So then you got somebody to teach you how to tattoo in your hometown. Exactly. Yeah. But it's still connected to Eric, right? because I was looking in the local um creative loafing. It's like the magazine that talks about culture in Atlanta.

And there was an ad in the back that said in the flesh tattoo seeks body piercer. And I knew that Eric wanted to potentially I don't know why anyone would want to do that but he wanted to move there cuz he had family there. Yeah. So that was like my reason to go meet the people at this tattoo shop. They weren't looking for an apprentice but like I was like I know a piercer. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

So, I got the I went there. When I got there, there was one person um Billy Brown, still tattooing out in um Hawaii, but she was there that day and she wasn't tattooing. She was the only one working. She had just started the job like a month earlier. Yeah. And she was telling me about the owner. His name was Troll. Okay, cool.

Everyone had a nickname that I never got Brian Troll. Um, but she told me that, you know, Troll was cool and that he would probably maybe talk to me about an apprenticeship and I hung out and talked to her for a while and and she said he really likes Jack Daniels. Okay. I'm not yet old enough to like purchase Jack Daniels legally, but I went got a friend and we we I didn't know anything about Jack Daniels, but I bought the most expensive bottle available. Okay. you know, it was like a special label and um so when I'm went to meet Troll, I was like armed with the um the secret magic ticket in cuz he had been like at a convention when I went in the first time. So he came back and I remember him standing there wearing all purple, you know, he really loved purple and uh it was be like a purple vest to hide his two pistols.

He had he had like under under each armpit he had a gun. Okay. Yeah. And um like full harness thing. Yeah. And so like that was his vibe. So it'd be like um his vibe. Imagine like a feel like he sells cocaine too on the side.

Maybe. I didn't see that. But no, there was like a beard with like probably braided maybe with like some beads on it. I'm thinking I don't know. Yeah. Rest in peace. Troll. Troll is no longer alive.

RP died a few years back and I don't have any anything awful to say. It was it was an incredible lucky experience to have someone take me in. But he was he was cutting up flash cuz we had like a system of like the line drawings had to go into the file cabinet, right? Cuz people actually came in and picked Flash. And so like he had just come back from a convention. He bought a set of Flash and he needed someone to cut the line drawings and number them and file them. Yeah. And then he had other flash that didn't come with line drawings.

So he needed someone to trace them. Yep. Yeah. And so like that became my job. Like I had to trace all this flash cataloging and organizing artwork. Yeah. That's great. Dang.

And I had to paint things purple cuz like all over the shop there was like Well, I remember there was one unfinished booth. There were four total booths, but the shop had been open for like a year in this location. And the one that I would eventually get to tattoo in was not painted. So I had to paint all these things purple. And um That's badass. Yeah. One of the first shops I worked in, there was everything was blue neon and diamond plate floors. So when you're sitting there trying to like work on talk about color theory, but being thrown into a challenge, it's just blue neon lights on you and then blue neon reflection from the bottom.

It was like all the old school tattoo shops were like they have chain link fence in there with it. It wasn't that cool. But that Yeah. Slayer playing 24 hours a day though. Yeah. Yeah. That was the vibe. So Troll, he guided you to the light.

He was your tat lord. Yeah, he was like he he we started with what I just told you. That was like my first thing. And it felt like every job that I got to do like got taught to do was like an achievement. Oh, cool. You know, so like the next job and it seemed like he would even hold back on things that he I knew were horrible for him to do. But I think he made me work there for 2 weeks before I learned to scrub tubes, for example. Right.

Once I learned to scrub tubes, I was scrubbing a lot of tubes. Yeah. And then later I learned to make needles. So that was scrubbing tubes, making needles, tracing things, painting things purple, working third shift at a gas station, you know, and trying to do my weekly drawings because I had like 10 drawings a week that were due. Oh, cool. Not having any reference, right? Like this is crazy, you know, cuz like now I'm in the reference business big time. But like at this point in time, dude, I was looking through the [ __ ] yellow pages for little like from logos from businesses to give me ideas.

I didn't have any access to anything to give me inspiration and give me something to draw when I was sitting at the gas station all night. So, you didn't have like a great collection of books or anything like that. I guess I didn't think through it deeply, you know. I I could have just brought that flash book that I had, but [ __ ] it. I like the the sourcing images through the yellow pages right now. Yeah, it's a pretty weak way to learn tattoo design, but was there some characters in there? Was that shop like you said overall was a pretty positive experience? like did you get to work with some other unique just fun Yeah, I still keep up with um Timothy Kid.

Mhm. He was Troll's first apprentice and he ended up moving to Colorado like Boulder, Colorado just a little bit after I started. So I was with him for like 3 months and then you know we always kind of kept in touch and eventually I started doing guest spots in Boulder at the shop he worked at. We did some conventions together. He started building tattoo machines and I used to use his machines. Oh, okay. Cool. Um but yeah, he's still he's a a shop called um Live Easy.

Really really cool shop in the uh Denver area now. Okay. And um we still keep in touch. Nice. That's cool. Did you ever have to dive into like machine building or anything like that? Was Troll having you like things? I definitely had to learn the parts of a coil machine.

Wanted to learn the parts, you know. I think Machine Gun Magazine was really helpful with that back then. I don't know if you ever saw those, but yeah. I don't know. I feel like there was definitely one laying around, you know, and I looked through it. I defin I for some reason never really just gravitated towards the machine. I always thought the mach I thought they were beautiful. Um and I collected them, but like not to the level of like really nerding out on them, you know?

My machines never worked that great. Yeah, that's why I was always irritated with it. Like I was just like I just want to [ __ ] draw, you know, and like paint and and tattoo. And the machine always was pulling it out, filing my contact points or like you know the [ __ ] it was just always something and I never my mentor didn't really like give me a whole lot of information on that but we like you said we took things apart and whatever. So, well, Troll was self-taught and I think when I met him, he'd been tattooing for 6 years. So, okay. Like, I don't have a strong like tattoo lineage where there was someone who delivered that knowledge, but even still like he had managed to figure out a lot of great information that he shared with me, but I still felt like there was more I had to go out and get, you know.

So yeah, you know, I I remember um sitting with Tommy Steaggle. He used to be a a popular machine builder around our our part of uh the world and he was really nice about bringing me in and giving me lessons. Oh, cool. You know, I definitely found other like mentors with that. But you Yeah, you're not a shy dude. It sounds like you always like put yourself in the position to be around good people and and that thirst for knowledge was always a good drive, right? Yeah. Yeah, for sure.

So, you were tattooing there for a while or like did you tattoo there and like work with Troll for years? I think it was like about a year in I became the shop manager cuz Troll Troll was um traveling and I would say he was mostly traveling down to the Benigans down the street spending a lot of time at the bar. Okay. Um he was kind of like getting to a place where he was thinking about leaving and he wanted to go travel Europe. He wanted to like backpack across Europe. And so he ended up selling the studio to another guy that I work with there that quite frankly didn't love the fact that a 19-year-old kid was his manager. Oh, no. Yeah.

You know, and so we didn't have a really good relationship. And so like so my mentor was leaving, the guy who was buying the shop openly hated me. Yeah. And so I began to think about moving and getting out. There were like three options that I knew of in Atlanta. There was Psycho Tattoo with Dino Cook. Oh wow. Oh, I didn't get Timeless Tattoo with Capsumsky and there was Sacred Heart with Tony Levas.

But those were the three, you know, big shops that, you know, would would be a level up, right? So, but I was strangely a little nervous at that point to even go ask. So, I ended up making a little bit of like a lateral move and going to a shop down the street that were we were friends with. did that for like two years and really like kind of like developed up to a point where eventually I ended up at Psycho Tattoo and um that was like my first kind maybe maybe three or four years in where I was like okay now I'm around Dino Cook and I'm around guy coming to do a guest spot you know Tom Renshaw coming to hang out you know dude you're in a great environment dude and like at that time I mean Dino Cook he was [ __ ] the magazines were where you were at if you were anybody and he was crushing it.

That's crazy. Is that shop still around? I don't even know. Yeah, he changed the name to Sinker Swim a couple years back and he's still there and he's That's awesome. He's still doing amazing color realism tattoos, mostly like underwater photography t like he does the photography and then he he tatto. Oh, that's red. Okay. So, dang.

So, the environment there was awesome and that was like just gassed you up even more and got you really Yeah. It gave me access to, you know, a higher higher I guess echelon of big and great the world of tattooing is, you know, and can be. That's fun. So, you got to meet all different kinds of people through there. And then you worked there for years or worked there about 2 years. Got restless again. I think I'm like a two years in place until I opened my own. That's pretty much the pattern.

So, I worked there for two years and then at this point I'm in Marietta, Georgia, which is like still the kind of the suburbs, you know, still thinking like Atlanta's where I need to be. And I got an opportunity to go work at a new shop that was opening up in East Atlanta and super cool building, awesome location. And we ended up, you know, just like shifting over there. Oh, cool. And I was a part of that crew. You know, that was the last place I worked before I decided to open up Ink and Dagger. Yeah, you know, that was just I think 2007, right? So from 1998ish when around the time I did my first tattoos to 2007, I worked in those shops.

Nice. When did you have like a certain style that you were kind of clinging to at the time? I mean, it was starting to be like I I did everything, right? Like I I I did lettering, I did tribal, I did so many lower back tribal Yeah. tattoos. I never got to do a Taz. like I just missed it. Just just [ __ ] missed it.

I did Japanese. I tried to do it traditional. Um I did um black and gray. I tried to do realistic portraits. I just wanted to be capable of everything. And I I felt like at that time that made a lot of sense because I was sitting at the shop hoping someone would walk in a lot of the time, you know, and so it was like I need these skills. I need to be able to say yes to almost everything. Yeah.

That's how we were all we were raised. you know, my our kind of age group that where we were learning how to tattoo was there was no such thing as niche. " Oh, yeah. Famine. Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, the the style came along through I think early influences. Joe Capabeno, Jimmy Litwalk, Gunner.

Yeah. heavy illustrative like gray bold texture at some point would have been an influence. Um, you know, pretty much just watching like religiously looking at Dark Side Tattoos website when Joe was there. Yeah. Um, Eric Merrill was there, you know, just really getting inspired by that. Also, Guyen, you know, his his book Reinventing the Tattoo and the earlier books that he made before that, those earlier books were all in in Troll Shop, you know, big ass binders like Yeah, there were like I think there was like three different seminar booklets that he had. So, I was I was learning a lot of like tattoo theory through that and being inspired by those those artists that I mentioned illustrators like unique all unique illustrators, which I've always been a sucker for, like any tattooer that has their own real good touch.

I remember I was sitting at a convention one time and I was standing over Jimmy while he was working and he's talking. " And I was like, "Uh, I don't know. I think I was I was kind of being shy about doing conventions and I had only been tattooing for a little bit and I don't even know how I knew him but uh he was like well that's a shame you should be out there sharing your talent and I was like and I I don't know you know he speaks like him and Joe like speak so direct to and I was just like oh [ __ ] and then I just started doing conventions after that it was fun but he just was always one of those people that just said one little thing to me and it was a little pivotable or pivotal mo moment you know my tattoo career was cool those are good dudes like I wonder if he gets to hear this someday.

And yeah, maybe maybe it doesn't. But yeah. Yeah. I try to be that for other people, you know, like I really do. I enjoy that. I've had the the cool experience of having people come back 10 years later. Yeah. " Yeah.

That's great. That's fulfilling. you're and I I mean I guess that kind of transitions us into like when did you start feeling like you had a wanted to have a voice and teach people, you know, like you kind of you've been teaching for a long time and doing a providing a lot of cool components for tattooers to use and back to like your you I mean I remember you making a color wheel and I was like what the [ __ ] that you made your own color wheel? How does that work? That's so cool. Yeah. I feel like in the the overall story I'm skipping a few years cuz like when I was at Psycho Tattoo got this really cool clientele of these like 18 to 21 year old like hardcore kids you know okay and like they were getting the coolest [ __ ] you know like this guy got a full sleeve of like army ants fighting each other like sort of like a bug's life but my own interpretation you know so I was like getting to do stuff where like Lego blocks I'm thinking like Honey, I shrunk the kids kind of stuff, you know?

Like so Lego blocks are huge and the ants are fighting and like super creative stuff. That's right. And like each of those kids was like trying to out interesting the next one with their tattoos and like I was their guy. So like Oh, that's cool. I started getting to do some incredible stuff and um you know, not really making a lot of um money doing it, but perfectly happy to be doing it for what they would pay, you know. Yeah. Building up your portfolio and presence. Were you uh at the time were you submitting your stuff to uh magazines and [ __ ] or like No, I was too scared.

Really? Yeah. Yeah, I wasn't. But I was, you know, definitely like building the portfolio that would attract, you know, the future clients and doing doing more and more creative work and, you know, starting to find my voice, which, you know, eventually I started calling it illustrative style because it wasn't quite new school. Like I didn't really like um do a lot of like exaggeration. I didn't do a lot of forcehortening or anything cartoony like I was always more like let me take this real thing and put an outline on it and color it in an interesting way. Yeah. I feel like my process has always been kind of like that.

I need an image or a picture of what the thing looks like in real life. Yeah. And then I'm going to arrange. And that's why probably I got into digital then because I can take like pictures of things, you know, that I either take myself or found on Google or whatever and start arranging the composition. And then once I can start to see what it is, then I'll start drawing and and changing it like Photoshop like you were doing renderings and like kind of collage aspect type things. A lot of my processes for that type of work has always been about collage. So I never really like developed a great ability to draw like anatomy for example. never get whatever it like the skill that I was building was more about an efficiency and a process like getting to a point where I could start tattooing.

Were people asking you about that type of stuff or like we're seeing or like you know what was kind of the moment where you're like [ __ ] why did I start teaching? Like I remember um so they just had Cigar City Tattoo Expo in uh Eore City, Tampa, Florida a few weeks ago. They brought it back, but the very first Cigar City was happening and um I'm in Atlanta. They're in Tampa. And somehow I knew someone that was connected to them. So I just reached out and asked, "Hey, I want to do a seminar. " And they said yes. And I was like, "Fuck, I got to do a seminar now.

I got to figure out how to like what I'm going to talk about and like how is anyone even going to show up? And I've heard that you can charge like 100 bucks for these. So like how am I going to do that? So I I pulled that first seminar together and I just thought I would talk about illustrative tattooing which meant you know how I think about the process, how I think about outlines, what's black there for, you know, what colors do I use? And back then you could just do a seminar where you literally were like this is the machine I use for outlines. would you like to feel how it's running? " But those those things were a little bit like more more secret. I forgot the seminars were happening back then.

Like I remember before I even started tattooing going to the Austin, Texas I think it was the not the round up at the whatever but anyway I got into the elevator and Bob Terrell came in like super hammered and it was like 2:00 in the morning and we were like oh we were going to we my dad and I were we were thinking about taking your seminar tomorrow and he's all I wouldn't he's like such a correct character I love that dude. So uh anyway, but yeah, so I guess they were going on for a long time. And so yeah, I did a seminar that one of Dino's seminars when I was working with him. Shane O'Neal black and gray realism seminar. Um and I remember Shane's seminar like a lot of like well here's what one of my stencils looks like. It looks like a topographical map.

You know, I take the picture of the person and I put it on top of the purple jelly part of the transfer paper and I draw through it with a ballpoint pen. Okay, cool. That was some interesting knowledge, right? it was worth something at that point. And then I you could feel how his machines ran. He talked about how he makes his drop system and just you know that was the seminar and DOS was was like that. It's just a process, right? Like how do I do it?

And you know, I I'm actually planning to teach a seminar like that again very soon. But it'll be less about the equipment and less about, you know, the needles I choose and more about the overall process, right? how I think about tattoo from, you know, consultation all the way through, you know, being done with it and having, for example, like really nice video and photos that I've captured throughout the process so I can make a case study and hopefully market to the next client. So, I guess the the best answer that I could give you to your question is once I started thinking about teaching, I started thinking about what what do I know? Yeah. and what's interesting about what I know or how I do things. And then I started designing my existence around documenting those things, right?

So because I started to learn like when I want to teach something like I need examples. Yeah. And so I start collecting the examples while I'm doing my work and I start, you know, like sort of chronicling my my my process a little bit just so I would have it for that future thing that I would want to teach. And like I guess I got I felt like I got better at tattooing because I was being so thoughtful about things. So like in a way that teaching or the the stress of knowing that I would be teaching was helping me develop. That's cool. Yeah. I'm doing my first co- seminar this weekend.

So I was telling telling you how I'm honestly kind of like nervous and like oh [ __ ] Like yeah I I definitely don't want it to not make sense, you know? And we're trying, ours is like really simple and just kind of more about the basic business structure and stuff of tattooing. But it's still nerve-wracking. You know, you're getting up there and but like anything, the more you do it, the better you get and the more interest and time and energy you put into it. I'm hoping to get some advice from you this weekend, too. But yeah, I'm excited to see all your stuff. And so, you've been like kind of back to like tattooing and your presence in Atlanta and area, right? So, you're like suburbs of Atlanta.

Yeah, that's where about 30 minutes north of Atlanta. Okay. And so you've tattooed full-time there ever since you started tattooing. I obviously you've traveled the world in tattooing, but that's cool. That's that's always been home. Yeah, that's great. So yeah, as far as traveling too, I mean, have you done seminars like overseas and stuff too or? Yeah, the biggest one was the worldwide tattoo conference in Venice, Italy to about 300 people who were all wearing headphones and I was being translated into three different languages.

Wa. Okay. Yeah, that's wild. That was incredible. That was put on by Alex Depasi and uh Gabe Ripley back in uh I don't know, maybe it's been like a decade now, but yeah, you know, they you don't have that anymore, but it was it was really really cool. A couple years ago, I spoke at the Colombia National Tattoo Conference. Also being translated into Spanish. That's rad.

I still continue to get these these really cool opportunities because of, you know, and maybe you will, too, cuz people there's a really small group of people who have have, you know, kind of gotten over their imposttor syndrome and gotten on a stage. Yeah. And attempted to do this. And so, um, you know, it's it's not like the people that are putting together these educational conferences aren't asking more people that we'd all be interested to hear from. It's just they're getting really used to people saying, "I don't know, man. Like, who am I to, you know, to tell anybody what to do, you know, cuz I think that that sort of mindset is stopping a lot of people. It's a weird place to get to, you know, like it's nerve-wracking. I kind of just by doing this podcast project have learned so much.

you can't help but learn about yourself by because you're having to like edit and watch videos of yourself and the way you talk and express yourself and but then listening to tattooers or younger tattooers uh tell you like you said like a few like few nice things about you and you're like oh [ __ ] I don't know I I guess I guess I do have that knowledge you know whether you think of it or not. So, it's weird and and an interesting process to um package it and try to figure out if anybody will give a [ __ ] But yeah, but I I want to double click on that because like you said, you're doing your first seminar and in my story, I went to teach that first seminar at Cigar City. Yeah. And I think about 10 people bought a ticket and I was thrilled, you know, cuz that was as good as a great day of tattooing financially, but you know, it was a different thing that I could do.

And so I started wanting to be able to like do that at tattoo events, maybe tattoo two days and maybe also have a seminar. So yeah, you know, I did that a number of times. But the very next day after my first seminar, got two different messages. One from Gabe Ripley, who was about to have the very first Paradise Tattoo Gathering. Oh wow. Okay. With an invitation to be there. Oh [ __ ] The second one was from Derb Morrison, who had been running the Hell City Tattoo Fest for years.

I I was nervous to even reach out to Derb to see if I could maybe one day work his convention. Yeah. But now he's reaching out to me and giving me a spot to do the seminar. So like I took your one in uh in Columbus. You were at Matchm Hill. I was just looking Gunner, right? Yeah. Yeah.

That was 10 years ago. I just saw a photo of you there in the audience. Yeah, I thought that was hilarious. I think you posted it and I screen captured it and sent it to Big Mis and him and I were just sitting right next to each other cuz I was there for the tattoo fight club. We had like tried to set up and do this whole like interactive tattoo fight club thing with Derp. It was cool. Yeah. So then I just I I wasn't I don't think I was tattooing.

So I was like [ __ ] it. I'll take a seminar. You know I was I was thrilled to see you in the room. You know I don't know if I like I don't know if I knew you at the time but like when I saw you in the photo I was like holy [ __ ] Austin was there. Big niece was there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

That was cool. Yeah. That was a real fun time man. It was like a really big mis and I I think he had come out from Ohio and was working at my shop at the time and then we both decided like we were going to start going to do conventions together shortly after Jimmy called me out, you know, and I was like, "All right, [ __ ] it. " And then next thing you know, I'm like in Canada working the Calgary show right next to Jimmy and Joe. And I was like, "This is so cool. It's like such a beautiful place. Like tattooing can just be so fun and in like it's cool that you've incorporated it all in traveling and everything.

Like it's it's really rad. Have you always done a lot of guest spots or anything too? Like I never not a lot. No, I did those guest spots at Boulder that I mentioned. Um a few here and there, but you know, if I if I wanted to travel now, that would be my preference, right? Like I I'm really really over tattooing at conventions. I I'm over the lighting. I'm over the, you know, not having the comfy table for for my client or the comfy chair for me.

I've become extremely sensitive about the environment that I tattoo in I need all my things. I'm not like I remember taking the lamp from a hotel room and like duct taping it to the garbage can upside down just so I could get some light cuz nobody even thought about that. I did all that. Yeah. at this point like I I still want to go to shows but I much I value conversations and you know building relationships that can maybe I can discover people that I can work with at Tattoo Smart or I can you know have a greater impact than I would just like sweating bullets trying to finish a tattoo in time you know. Yeah. Yeah. Especially if you're going there to compete like some and plus what the guys are doing at the conventions nowadays is insane.

It's like three full days. Like why are how are clients like able to get tattooed for three full days? I've seen like an evolution in the tattoo conventions. Yeah. Right. And a rise in the gatherings and the you know more of these type of things, these intimate tattoo gatherings where we aren't working the whole entire time. We're actually learning and working on building relationships and educating ourselves. Yeah.

Which I think is awesome. like it is because look, I mean tattoo conventions at this point I think are for the general public and tattoo conferences, educational events or other other similar things are popping up and um like I'm going to a wellness retreat that's being organized by Dan Cuban, the machine builder. Oh, in Costa Rica. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. In I believe it's in August. Is this like the second one?

I thought, yeah, I believe he's he did one that was more like machine building class and blah blah blah. Yeah, blah blah blah. I'm sure it was great. I I But I I started to pay attention to this because a few of my um friends are are on the the roster. So Mike Chambers, uh Ryan Roy, and Ben Shaw are all joining with Dan. I apparently am joining as well. So cool. That's the that's the news.

Um, but the is it just like an invite only type thing or is it um they're going to start trying to offer it? There's only 20 spots available and um it's a pretty pretty big price tag comparable to what it would cost to go to Costa Rica and stay in a nice place and eat good food for 9 days. It's not like Yeah. Yeah. You know, I I think it's a really fair price if if that's the type of thing that you um are used to spending a few thousand dollars on. But I think the the the point is the various things will happen. But it's at a wellness retreat which al always you know is available for people to go there and spend some time um having various uh experiences. I think we're going to be doing some yoga together.

I think we're going to be eating healthy. We're going to be um fasting from some from alcohol and nicotine and coffee. This is mature tattooing. We're tattooing mature. Yeah. Yeah. This is a very very specific thing like this is like okay you know like I think the reason that it's men only is you know to in a way is almost like a fast you know I don't it wasn't explained to me that way but I kind of think it's that way like you know like there's a different like we're at a convent or very small event right now that's for not only women only but women who are moms. Yeah.

So, I think that's that this sort of like, you know, niching down of communities is um like I'm not even sure why we're here, but I I'm I love a mom. Like, she's she's here with me. But, you know, the idea with that I think is let's have a tighter bond between the people that are there. Let's have deeper conversations. Let's build relationships. Let's really like get past the surface level and you know with this group of people and you know hope to have an incredible experience into it dude you can come. I'm constantly preaching to every young tattooer like you need to be your ass needs to be in yoga. Like it's like I'm actually missing my class right now but yeah and hot yoga specifically.

It's like the best thing I've ever done. All I'm doing is trying to just straighten out my back and it's like helped me so much, dude. Like I mean that's every every tattooer, right? Yeah, you know, at this point I'm 26 years in. I almost quit tattooing because of how bad my back hurt, you know, like that was one of the main motivations for I got to make this ink this tattoo studio thing or this side hustle tattoo smart thing, you know, really make it possible for me to not tattoo if I don't have to because I'm only getting older and this hurts. I feel like we need to do some sort of like like sounds like what they're doing is kind of longevity driven, but definitely like longevity education on um for younger tattooers that get in this and things that help their eyes and the lighting and all, you know, just there's a lot of different information there that can be thrown in, you know.

So, that'd be kind of cool. Ergonomics is a whole topic. Maybe you and I will put together something. Yeah. A small dude's yoga retreat. Do you do yoga much or no? a couple times. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. It's really hard for me. I I do strength training mostly. Um I don't really particularly enjoy cardio, so I just like pushing heavy things. Okay. Um I like, you know, I started taking TRT like Okay. A year and a half ago, so like I I have a uh healthy 18-year-old lucky man's level of testosterone now.

Okay. Wow. All right. Which is good. Um I can I can recommend that. I was working out before, but like once I started doing that, started actually like building muscle more reliably and like and you know, strength training was a big part of correcting the back pain, you know. Another thing that helped was I got a table that actually like lifts up to a height where I can stand. Yeah.

My whole career I was working on the hunch, you know, the I'm just like up literally just bent over. And then, ironically, I was in Denver like for um Wolf and Goat has this winter art show and I go over there and Van his table just lifts all the way up to where it's like 5 and 1/2 ft off the ground. He He's not the tallest dude, too. And I'm like, damn, dude, you're so [ __ ] lucky. Your whole entire career you're just like working right out like this. What was I thinking? I don't know. I never You weren't thinking an option that I knew of for that.

Adrian Lee's got a new um product where, you know, I I forget exactly what it is, but it I think it's designed to extend your normal massage table to make it higher. Oh, okay. I don't have that. I got it. My physical therapist actually sold me one of her extra physical therapy tables. Yeah. Then and so there's a rail that goes all the way around it and you just touch it with your foot and it goes up and down. Oh.

So, it's really smooth motor and it can hold like 400 lb or something like that. And um ever since I got that, I've been standing 90% of the time. Oh, that's awesome. And now I have a new kind of pain, which is like my knees hurt. I know, man. I don't know. I always joked around about getting some sort of like adapting one of those weird sex swings to where you just from the ceiling elevate. Yeah.

Yeah. You have the same idea. I always say sex wings. I don't know of anything else like that. Yeah, that's what everyone would be thinking. But, you know, it would just be like a system of um pulleys and like various things. Like I would actually if you think about like um Tom Cruz and like Mission Impossible where he comes down from the ceiling like why why would be in that situation hovering above the client. Yeah.

Right. That would be really awesome actually. Yeah. You just Yeah. All like all the weight and everything is just distributed evenly and dang. Yeah. Or if we could tattoo floating in water somehow. I would love that.

In space, right? Like Yeah. Weightless in space would be nice. Dang. There's a lot of new problems to solve once we start tattooing in space. Just catching your ink caps like flying around the room. For you, for someone that's always so forward thinking and the technology application to tattooing, like where are you seeing tattooing going? Are you I mean, we've been throwing around the ideas of the, you know, seeing the people with robots or lasers like I don't know.

Do you see anything weird that's coming in? And not coming for us, but like Yeah. Look, I mean, I think that machines that do the work, you know, autonomously are probably going to continue to be developed. They apparently already exist. Yeah. Like Austin, Texas, there's a guy that has these machines that he's making that's doing these like small square portraits and and they're actually using cartridge type setups, too, I think. Yeah. Yeah.

saw saw some of the press releases and all the panic going around, but I have always wanted to experience what would happen in the future, right? Like I've enjoyed the fact that I was born when I was born. Yeah. And I've gotten to experience so many of the major shifts, you know, from not having the internet. Yeah. From a beeper to what our phones do now. Like I had a beeper. Like I'm I'm loving this [ __ ] you know?

you know, of course I want to be able to keep making a living as a tattooer and a tattoo studio owner. And so I I don't love, you know, thinking about the I guess the doomsday scenario where it's like the Starship Troopers Yeah. version of tattooing where they, you know, all the cadets like went into the booth and they came out with new tattoos. Like that's happened in a few movies. Um that seems bad for for us. But I but then I also know like there's always a place for or an appreciation for the people who do things the old way a human experience. Before that there can be a huge like disruption where a bunch of people who do things the old way that are refusing to adapt end up having no choice but to die in this not die literally but like to maybe like not be able to make a living doing the thing they're doing.

So, one example that I can think of is um sign painting. Yeah. Right. Like I enjoy supporting sign painters and and bring people from other places to come into Incander and do this because I think it's [ __ ] awesome that there's this like skill, you know, that that people develop to the level that it was. But in a lot of ways, you know, there was this giant workforce of sign painters and they were making show cards and they were making billboards, billboards and real estate for sale signs and all kinds of boring [ __ ] that none of them particularly enjoyed doing. " I was kind of sick of painting these stupid signs anyway. I'm just going to buy this machine and let it do it. " And they complained about it and they didn't stick with like adapt and ultimately they are not in that business anymore.

Right. So a disruption will absolutely occur and is occurring. Yeah. In so many ways in tattooing. And then there's like always going to be people who are like, "Fuck this. " And then there's going to be other people who are like going to educate myself about this. I'm going to see what it is. I'm going to explore.

I'm going to understand it at least and decide if it's useful for me or not. And I'm going to make an informed decision. And then there's going to be the younger crowd who are just out automatically comfortable with it. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Those cycles continue. So I mean what is my answer?

Uh it will continue changing. People like me will continue wondering what its usefulness is and you know exploring it. People will also complain about it and we'll try to stop people from exploring it. We'll try to shake them away from doing it. We watch the same things happen with so many different cultures and yeah it's interesting. I don't know why I'm like convinced that there's going to be some sort of machine that like the laser can change the pigment of your skin. Like I feel like we'll have like some sort of weird like digital like we'll see what we think tattooing is now it it won't be what we we know it is now. I'm sorry I'm stumbling over my words but like in my head I feel like I see like there'll be like especially like melanated skin like being able to like laser in cool patterns or some [ __ ] I don't know.

Or what if you can laser in a portrait and it bleaches your skin? That'd be wild. Well, yeah. It seems like you could Yeah, I think I think it's already possible to bleach your skin. Yeah. Right. And make it lighter. I think that's popular in some countries like Korea for example.

I think they are into that. So like I've often wondered like well can you selectively bleach a specific area and then like once it's lighter can you make colors look brighter in that skin? Is that a thing? I haven't wondered about it enough to try it. the um but yeah like technology that I've seen seems to revolve around the idea of medical tattooing. So when there's something that pops up where you're like you know you see it press release goes out you know someone's trying to raise money you know some scientist somewhere is trying to apply some technology to tattoo but they already recognize that tattoo in the normal sense isn't a big enough market and isn't interesting necessarily to investors. So if they need to raise money to try to fund their their big thing, they tend to go like towards the medical use I've noticed.

And so it'll be like we are developing a tattoo that will change colors when your blood sugar is too high. You know, I don't remember the exact use case, but they have already, you know, there's patents for this [ __ ] and they already put out press releases. So if you if you Google like medical tattoo you know you'll you'll enter into a whole wormhole of stuff but like so that will happen or people are trying to bring that into existence and then these like encapsulated particles that of like there's been a few attempts and patents around that right like so that's wild we can instead of a normal tattoo pigment if we can encapsulate a particle of some dye in something that will dissipate as soon as we hit it with a certain type of laser. We can laser tattoos out in one session.

Okay. Right. And so, of course, the the tattoo community says, um, not interested in that. You shouldn't get tattoos if you don't want to keep them for life. Yeah. Yeah. But then clients or potential clients hear it and they go, maybe that would solve the problem of why I haven't gotten a tattoo. Yeah.

Because of the permanence. And so there's like this possible market and then there's these people who are like I don't want to deliver that service right over here there's like a bunch of press and publicity and money and investment over here there's a bunch of people saying [ __ ] you I'm not doing it and those companies they have like a hard time like crossing that that bridge. Yeah. I guess the scary thing is that like if there's really a demand like you know someone will pop up to you know deliver it. It'll just be like Another thing it'll be like um microbladers learning to do tiny tattoos, right? Yep. Right. And why are they doing that?

Because there were a whole bunch of people in tattoo shops who were saying, "No, I don't want to do that work. " But there was a bunch of people who were not nice to them when they walked in or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. Kind of did it to ourselves. Not us, you know, but like Yeah. Like it's simple economics, right? If there's like if there's a market that desires a product or service, someone's going to jump on it.

You know, someone or some entity is going to be thinking about how can I, you know, rise to meet that demand. [ __ ] Well, I think we're good, dude. I don't know. What do you think? I don't want to get too doomsday, but yeah. Like, I think uh I think tattooing is is at an exciting place. I think um technology is at an exciting place. Uh, we haven't said the the, you know, we haven't talked about AI yet.

I'm happy to. I use AI in my business quite a bit. You know, like I get a lot out of AI tools. I have experimented with generative AI image stuff. I think it's so fascinating. I think it's fascinating and it's it's it's really interesting. And I also understand the um the ethical, you know, problem that artists have with it. And so I've kind of like stayed on the side of like I'm interested and I'm going to explore it cuz I don't like to, you know, not know what's going on with something, but I haven't like started, you know, like bring it into my tattoo process really, you know, and I I haven't started using it to make tattoo smart stuff.

Like we still go out and like hire artists. And I think that's like that's me sort of like saying, "Okay, this is like I think where I'm going to stay stuck now, you know? I'm gonna stay because I I believe in compensating artist. Yeah. And I believe in what artists can produce and you know quite frankly like if there is anything huge that's disrupting the business of tattoo smart it's AI you know like it's like here I am like in this like mindset of of like okay we should adapt or die and then I'm like I don't know about this one. So that's where I kind of sit right now but I'm you know I'm not strongly against but I'm also not like you know, running to switch over to the world where I think it's just nice to be curious and and at least like roundaboutly knowledgeable about what's going on.

But damn, that [ __ ] is changing so fast. Like it is. I follow a lot of like just educator AI educators and those guys like it's like every every month like it's it's insane. I do too. Yeah. I just I'm in the algorithm and YouTube for AI. So like I I see all these updates and I think about how can I apply this or how would I you have to you know especially with what you're doing like it's cool. I don't really have any thing that I'm aware of right now of what I can apply it to other than just like helping you like write content and stuff like that and help us like build emails and text kind of stuff.

copyrightiting that I mean there's an industry right there that's massively disrupted right now you know because you know humans used to get paid to think about words and yeah companies still will do that but I think what they'll end up doing is hiring copywriters who can sound more human you know cuz it's really easy to spot AI copy now yeah if you're not good at prompting it you know like you can tell I know when when a tattoo brand is using it because I've I know I know like it's Trust me, we can tell. Always like on our in our team, I'm like, "These tools are great. " Like, give it your flaws, give it your character and stuff. So, perfect example of the maybe if there is a more ethical way developing of how to use AI and have and still feel human in that process cuz I think that's like the key thing that that's I always hit on when I think about what's going to happen in the future.

The version I like the best is the one where the AI or the tool, whatever it happens to be, helps to do the work that frees your your human creativity and time up to do some more interesting work. Because I think I naturally like the more digital design tricks that I've learned, the more that I've had energy and effort to put into what I wanted to create. I never stopped wanting to create because I'm a human. Yeah. Right. And so I guess there's a general level up that happens because of whatever the tool is and then there's like what am I going to do with the opportunity created how am I still going to compete against other humans who are also using the same tools. Yeah. And and then it just you know that's the utopian version.

Yeah. You know for anyone who's like stuck in the dystopian version right now try to think of it that way. I randomly keep wanting to play with the character generators type thing. I don't know. I don't know how you describe that, but like basically you can like film yourself doing talking head video and then you can build like I I wanted to build like this character that was a penguin like is our mascot for our company, you know, and then have him talk. I just want to play with it and see what it comes up without. Yeah, I watched a video about that the other day. It looked like you have to do some like basic rigging like you've got to like connect the eyes to, you know, like if you build your own character, right?

Like you have to like go in and tell it, okay, this is a mouth. And then you have to give it all of the different mouths for all of the vowel sounds. Oh wow. So you program all those different shapes of mouths in that they give you like a template for, right? So you just draw those mouths with your penguin. Wa. And then there's the brows and the eyes and you basically just like fill it in. Yeah.

And give it all the parts. And then once you do that, you can act out what you want on camera and the the penguin will follow that. It'll just copy you and use your voice. Weird, dude. I think it doesn't look that hard. No, I just think it'll be fun to play with. It would absolutely be fun to play with. Yeah, I want to do I want to do that.

I'm going to I'm going maybe talk more about that. I'll try to look in my video history and find the video I lost and figure out what the software was cuz a lot of times with AI stuff, you're you're stringing together three different AIs to do it. Like you you might be using one to generate um a voice. It's like you put a script in and it reads in in a in a voice and you take the voice and you feed it to this other one and it hears the voice and makes the AI characters um mouth move to say those words. Oh, weird. And then you can take and then you can change the voice now too to to where like I can make a penguin sound like Snoop Dog and like Yeah, that's that's tricky, dude. And a lot of that stuff I think is coming into like the Cap Cut app for Tik Tok too.

So like I guess the way it works is like there's random software that's hard to use with a bad user experience and like early people will go and explore it and then the user experience gets better and all of a sudden like it hits mainstream and everyone can use it and I think we're in like the sort of the middle right now where user experience is starting to get easy enough but it's definitely not mainstream. I want to play with it more. I'm glad you nerd out about that stuff. It's cool. Awesome. But, uh, yeah. So, I don't know. I think we're I think we're pretty good.

We said we were done 10 minutes ago. Oh, yeah. I know. I keep I always start back up, dude. I always say I'm done. And then I think we're cool, man. Like, I'm I'm super happy to have you here and, uh, get to know you and your wife better. And, um, I'm really pumped about sitting down and listening to your seminar.

So, um, yeah. Today or tomorrow? Friday. Friday. Okay. Okay. Mine's tomorrow. Worse.

the schedule. I got to check my schedule like 10 times a day. But yeah, dude, I hope you enjoy Vegas, man. And uh I would really like to bring you over to the Maverick Warehouse and give you a little tour and we talk about things. Yeah. Yeah. So, and then uh maybe I'll go show me or I'll at least show you where some of the murals are that we painted this in town so you can get out there and check some stuff out. But sweet.

Uh I appreciate you taking the time to sit down with me, dude. It's always really good to like get to know you a little better. And uh yeah, I appreciate it, man. and give us a little quick lay down your Ink and Dagger tattoo. Yes, Ink and Dagger Tattoo in Roswell, Georgia. Yeah. Uh Tattoo Smart in Universe. Yes, we are available in most of the world except for where they are blocking um the internet from this country.

Okay. Might be happening in a few places. Oh, that's interesting. Holy [ __ ] And uh social media is we follow you on most everybody I feel like already follows you but if you don't get on there and check out maybe um yeah so thank you so much dude I appreciate it man and look forward to hearing from you this weekend and I think that's a wrap. That's a wrap. All right guys, thank you so much for tuning in.