Ever been called a tattoo snob?

[jade1955]

My butler has heard other people calling me a snob.

[Kev]

My butler has heard other people calling me a snob.

It is such an annoyance when the help gets to gossip; our halls echo with their whispers and innuendos from behind the servant quarter's door.

[YOMONEY]

the more ink i get, the more i appreciate all ink.. even homemade, flash, and prison stuff can be cool to me- artistically.. not like, "hey i want that".. to me that stuff is way more respectable than some guy whos like BRO LET ME A GET A ROBOT ARM!!!

[Brock Varty]

I used to keep a book of bad tattoos people came in to have covered. There was an abundance of work by the same people. Sometimes when talking to people they tell you other shops they have went to or are thinking of checking out and if they seemed cool we would show them the book and stop them from going to certain shops. Until one day someone wrote a bad review of one of these shops on a review site and referenced our book of bad tattoos (even included shop name). Next day someone wrote a fake review about our shop, citing poor work and that they did a lot of cover up work from our shop, they also were trying to say that they were scarred after the tattoo but don't know how to spell so it says "the tattoo scared them". I wrote a short response but it's not the popular review site so I don't think many people have seen it even to this day. Needless to say we don't show that book much these days, and that shop has since gone out of business and owner left town. I would say that is the most snobby thing I have done.

The area I live in is a chain of towns with roughly 110,000 people in the area. There are 19 tattoo shops in the city and that isn't counting appointment only shops. 19 street shops!!! Needless to say, the kind of behaviour you outlined in your post is something that happens every day where I live. There are only two or three people with quality work in town and only one who tattoos me. Everyone else is only tattooing for the money it seems. I would think that a shop owner would realise that this behaviour loses them clients. It is like a tv show with all of the drama...and to be honest...it makes the good tattooers look bad. It makes all tattooers and shops look bad.

[McAstronaut]

I'm still very much a neophyte and nowhere near as versed in the subject as a lot of you, but when I see a good piece I definitely mention it to the person who owns it. I also think the way the client takes care of the piece has a lot to do with it. I talked one of my friends into going to see a really amazing artist and she ended up with a really shitty tattoo because a) she didn't want to listen to the artist, and b) she didn't follow her aftercare regime correctly. So when people see her shitty pieces and then some of mine they're like, "That was the same artist?".

[BenHa]

i have been called a "tattoo snob" or "cool guy tattoo artist" just because i shot down peoples ideas of the dumb ass shit they wanted to get. Not trying to be a dick or anything just doing my job as the artist to save the client from themselves. One particular case was when someone (who was apparantly a pimp) asked me to do a naked "hoe bitch" on an upper scale hotel bed smoking a pizo (meth pipe). Not only was he super upset and vugar when i said i wouldnt do it he was also upset that i wouldnt have done it for super cheap. He'll thank me later if he ever lives long enough to not me put in jail for life or killed over dumb ass street shit. i'd rather be a tattoo snob or a cool guy artist than someone known for hooking people up giving them whatever garbage ass shit they ask for.

[rileykill]

I think Im lucky to live in a tattoo city. Austin has a shit ton of shops and many of them are great to decent. As a result, a lot of even the shitty hipster tattoos are well executed. Of course, there is plenty of crap, but a LOT of people are tattooed, and we have Rock Of Ages, True Blue, Atomic, Ancient Ink, etc. Shit, Chris Trevino if you are patient enough. Its a nice place to be.

[else]

I think Im lucky to live in a tattoo city. Austin has a shit ton of shops and many of them are great to decent. As a result, a lot of even the shitty hipster tattoos are well executed. Of course, there is plenty of crap, but a LOT of people are tattooed, and we have Rock Of Ages, True Blue, Atomic, Ancient Ink, etc. Shit, Chris Trevino if you are patient enough. Its a nice place to be.

It's a good thing I don't live in Austin! At the rate I'm going there's no way I could afford it - I'd have a full bodysuit and be sleeping in a cardboard box.

[rileykill]

Exactly! I could cover my entire body and never use the same tattooer twice. I have favorites, of course, but still ......

[CaptCanada]

@else problem? Banks can take away everything from you but your tattoos.

[Pugilist]

I think Im lucky to live in a tattoo city. Austin has a shit ton of shops and many of them are great to decent. As a result, a lot of even the shitty hipster tattoos are well executed. Of course, there is plenty of crap, but a LOT of people are tattooed, and we have Rock Of Ages, True Blue, Atomic, Ancient Ink, etc. Shit, Chris Trevino if you are patient enough. Its a nice place to be.

Yeah, whenever we go to Brooklyn we are pretty blown away by the quality of tattoos seemingly everybody around us is sporting. In our neighbourhood here in Montreal, everyone is tattooed too, but the difference in quality is staggering. It does mean that we really notice folks wearing great work here. If we lived in Brooklyn I bet we'd be all "another dude with Thomas Hooper sleeves? YAWN." :)

[semele]

It's a good thing I don't live in Austin! At the rate I'm going there's no way I could afford it - I'd have a full bodysuit and be sleeping in a cardboard box.

That's exactly how I feel about New York, except I'm still on my way to a full bodysuit and a cardboard box. Good thing cardboard boxes in Ohio are dirt cheap.

[Pugilist]

That's exactly how I feel about New York, except I'm still on my way to a full bodysuit and a cardboard box. Good thing cardboard boxes in Ohio are dirt cheap.

Speaking of which, I was chatting with Stephanie the other day about her awesome ass dragons and she said she was stoked that this cool girl had let her put one on her. :)

[rileykill]

I also kinda got lucky. I am from a small town, so everything growing up was shitty tribal, Calvin pissing on something or Tazmanian devils. If I had gone too far when I was young, God knows ......

[David Flores]

It's weird in Portland, because neighborhoods dictate where you see good tattoos. I lived on the west side for awhile and most of the tattoos I would see over there would be crap from hack shops, cause there is only a couple good shops west of downtown, Bunch of lettering and shitty middle school art class drawing tattoos mostly. If someone has a good tattoo they stick out on that side of town. Now I live in North Portland and it's amazing how much better the tattoos people get are. Even a person with mostly shitty tattoos will have one or two really good tattoos. Atlas is the closest shop to me and there are couple other good shops close to them and that is pretty much what people up here are walking around wearing is their tattoos, especially service industry folks, . You walk a mile or so east and you go to Alberta and you will find gutter punks with super realistic color bomb tattoos, because they hang on that street so they get tattooed at the shop there, which really leans towards the no outline realistic stuff. You go to Hawthorne and there is a tattoo school and some shitty shop that basically hires people right out of the tattoo school, so when Hawthorne was the cool place to live people walked around with shitty tattoos because you could literally go into the school and pay $20 to have a student tattoo/fuck your skin up. If they went down the street to what they perceived as real shop they didn't get much better tattoos. Smart people would travel a little bit out of the neighborhood to the good shops in Southeast like Historic, Scapegoat, and Oddball, but again it does seem like to some degree where you live and your willingness to do research really does dictate what kind of tattoo and quality of tattoo you get in Portland.

BTW Tazmanain Devils are kind of making a comeback, I see them being big in 2013

[rileykill]

Oh man. Well, everything comes around. Music, fashion, tattoos .......

[Graeme]

Oh man. Well, everything comes around. Music, fashion, tattoos .......

I predict that we're going to see a resurgence in people getting Greg Irons designs. And by people I mean me.

[Dan S]

Portland is a trip...I get there a bit, n spend most of my free time down in Little Vietnam, place by 60th n Sandy is, I think, the best in Portland...for food. Wait! There's actually two of 'em down there I like.

David, do you know of any S.E. Asian tattoo parlors in Portland? I've seen one in that 'hood, but it was pretty old, not even sure it's there anymore.

[rileykill]

I predict that we're going to see a resurgence in people getting Greg Irons designs. And by people I mean me.

Some of his 80s lookin fantasy stuff is wicked. I think I know a couple of people who would do a good job with his flash.

http://http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=safari&tbo=d&biw=768&bih=928&tbm=isch&sa=1&q=tony+hundahl+wizard&oq=tony+hundahl+wizard&gs_l=img.3...13813.17293.0.17694.13.5.0.6.0.1.223.435.1j1j1.3.0...0.0...1ac.1.2.img.LjuXdPw42RI#biv=i|16;d|9wmNV3jD5jzloM:

[Dan S]

I predict that we're going to see a resurgence in people getting Greg Irons designs. And by people I mean me.

Scope this...

The Chicago Tattooing Company - Chicago, IL - Tattoo & Piercing | Facebook

[Graeme]

Scope this...

The Chicago Tattooing Company - Chicago, IL - Tattoo & Piercing | Facebook

Anything in particular there because it just links to the shop's Facebook. That said I will certainly pay CTC a visit if I am ever in Chicago.

[Dan S]

Anything in particular there because it just links to the shop's Facebook. That said I will certainly pay CTC a visit if I am ever in Chicago.

Sorry, don't do FB, so I guess I amn't linking correctly. There is a pic of Greg Irons getting tattooed by Cliff Raven way back when.

[David Flores]

Portland is a trip...I get there a bit, n spend most of my free time down in Little Vietnam, place by 60th n Sandy is, I think, the best in Portland...for food. Wait! There's actually two of 'em down there I like.

David, do you know of any S.E. Asian tattoo parlors in Portland? I've seen one in that 'hood, but it was pretty old, not even sure it's there anymore.

60th and Sandy I don't usually go back the Rhinelander at like 47thish when I get out that way. I don't know of any asian tattoo shops, at least none of significance, there was a dude tattooing out of shop on Sandy named Mod from Thailand doing solid stuff, but he has since moved back to Thailand and that shop he was working at was mostly white dudes, it was an experiment to create what the owner called the Tattoo Death Star, he wanted someone for every style and to have the best tattooers in town, and for a minute it was probably the second best shop in Portland next to Atlas, but now it doesn't even come up in conversation as everyone has left and moved on to their own shops.

- - - Updated - - -

@Graeme we redrew a bunch of that Greg Irons flash and put it up in the shop, stuff is so cool and people actually sometimes get it. His use of negative space is mind blowing to me still.

[Dan S]

Check it out...there's a pho restaurant in an old coverted gas station, I think like right at 60th or 61st...killer soup.

[else]

Check it out...there's a pho restaurant in an old coverted gas station, I think like right at 60th or 61st...killer soup.

I know the place! That's one of my favorites. If you're ever in North Portland there's a good one up on Killingsworth near Jefferson high school.