hardest artist to book

[mellowyellow]

who are some of the hardest artist to access and book. i'm sure they are hard to book cause they are good but are they a fad or are they really worth it?

[Perez]

Mike Roper.

[Iwar]

Second Roper. I have also heard that Lars Uwe is damn near impossible to get an appointment with. Guessing Filip Leu, Shige, Horiyoshi III and

Mike Rubendall has quite the waitlist too.

[s33ktruth]

Grime, I wish I could get tattooed by him!!!!!!!!!

[Perez]

Higgs is pretty hard to nail down too ;)

[Avery Taylor]

Higgs is pretty hard to nail down too ;)

You can't nail him down because so many people have nailed him up on a tattoo cross.

[Julio Avila]

i think its not too difficult to get tattooed by somebody you really want if you are patient. WAIT. get in contact with the person, let them know what you want, drop off a deposit and wait. save that spot you want to get tattooed for that tattoo.

people bug out when i tell them they gotta wait two weeks for their tattoo. like they are going to die or go to prison in that time. CHILL. if you aint a pain in the ass, itll happen

[Deb Yarian]

Greg Irons

[ShawnPorter]

Greg Irons

I have an appointment with Irons on Sunday, Rapture permitting.

[Stewart Robson]

Man, everybody already used my smart-ass answers but the Greg Irons quip was funnier than I could have come up with.

But back to the original question.

This is one of the newer approaches to tattooing that makes me slightly uncomfortable to be honest. Myself and a few tattooers I know and work with have noticed the trend of customers finding a sense of pride in how long they had to wait for their tattoo. As if that makes the tattoo more worthwhile.

With some of the currently living/working tattooers mentioned in this thread, I personally know people (not even on the internet) that have tattoos from all of them. Filip, Horiyoshi III, Shige and Mike Rubendall. Yeah, they had to wait a little while for some of them but not as long as you'd think for others. Mike Roper is a different situation because he makes it deliberately difficult to get in touch with him, which answers the question posed above. But that wasn't really the question that was asked and it's rarely the question that gets asked. The question, or at least the implication, is "who has the longest waiting list' or "who has appointments booked furthest into the future". If I were to be snarky "who gives me the most bragging rights".

For me the hardest people to get a tattoo from are the tattooers who are located furthest away from me. The ones where I have to get off my ass and do something about it. Time is easier to overcome than distance although patience is a different matter. It astonishes me that people call our shop from the outskirts of the city expecting us to change the way we work because they are catching a train to get here. On the other hand, we are humbled and honoured by the people who cross seas and continents to get tattooed regularly with us.

But that's aside from the issue.

Why is it a trend that makes me uncomfortable?

Because I've heard people brag about how long they had to wait for 'x' artist and wear that information like a badge of honour. It feels almost as distasteful as bragging about who charges the most. Yeah, tattoos are for tough guys and tough buys like to brag and maybe that seems harmless, but it makes me uncomfortable and I have trouble clearly explaining why.

Maybe it's because it's a phenomenon spurred on by the internet and the gossipy world of hearsay. Nobody calls and checks with the artists or shops they want to get tattooed at. Nobody travels down to the shop to ask the question. They just ask random strangers on the internet who have a lot of time on their hands and like to talk about something they know nothing about. Then the reality gets lost or twisted and in the end the real information is lost. I see this a lot with regards to the shop I work at. Forums are (or certainly used to be) bursting with 'facts' about how much we charge, how long we take, how far 'x' and 'y' are booked or how long their waiting lists are. Nobody calls the shop to ask and nobody suggests that the person calls to ask.

I know that happens with a lot of things but it seems like this is starting to have a real-world effect, however small. People who wanted tattoos that we would love to do heard that we wouldn't tattoo them at our shop because we were so cool and busy and booked up for decades and rolling around in money 'n' bitches or something. We've heard of this a few times and it seems to be happening more. Yeah, we're busy, you may have to wait a little, maybe not. If someone has contact information, especially a phone number on their website it means that they want you to call.

I'm not really going to touch on the tone of the "are they a fad or are they really worth it?" comment, except to say that if you have to ask, the answer is "no".

Sorry to jump on this fun thread with a rant. I look forward to more witty quips.

[Deb Yarian]

And customers often make the assumption that the person booked out the furthest is the best!

I used to work in a shop with 6 other tattooists. We were booked according to seniority at the shop. So, inevitably some were booked out further than others.

A customer would come in only to be told that Joe is booked out for 6 months and Jim for 3 months and 2 months out for Jay and John but You can get in with Deb TOMORROW! Customers assumed then that if you weren't booked you weren't worth waiting for, usually not taking in to account that Jay only booked 1 appt a day or Jim only worked every other week.

People are weird, they like the hard to get, the over priced .

[chrome]

Roper: nearly impossible to get his number.

Grime: 3 year wait list

Marcus Pacheco: from what I hear he never check his voicemail therefore never calls u back.

Lot of them are fucked up in their own way. Pick ur poison.

[kylegrey]

Don't know about booking but even locating Ivan Szazi seems pretty tough ,real treasure awaits the successfull though!!

[Julio Avila]

grime's at three years?! dang. id really hate to know all the shit ill be doing for the next three months, let alone years!!!!!!!!!

glad i only waited like three months to get tattooed by him.

[Rebushido]

ive been so lucky!

i got a appoinment with grime when i got tattoed by another artist that helped me out.. about 5 months wait.. but it was perfect cos i needed to plan my trip to the states and fucking save the cash!

And Mike Roper.. i stalked some people that knows him and got an email adress!(not giving it out though) i sent him a mail and dident think he´d answer but he did! dident set a date because i havent my trip all planned out yet but

im going to Tempe getting a Tiger on my tigh!!!! sooooo stoked!!

im a fucking lucky guy i know!..

maybe long way travellers get some special treatment.. hahaha

[Avery Taylor]

I think that a lot of the tattooers with the longest waits are the ones that do mostly large scale work. If someone is getting tattooed by Mike Rubendall (Chris Trevino, Mike Roper, etc..) then it is probably going to be a large piece that takes multiple sessions, and that person books multiple appointments. This means that one person's tattoo takes up a lot of that tattooers time so they end up tattooing less people. On the other side of things the dudes at Smith Street do mostly one shot tattoos, and are not booked out for years in advanced.

Personally I would never book an appointment more than six months in advance, unless it was based on travel.

[ian]

Jeff Gogue

[JOLLY J]

To wait a long time for a notable artist like Grime or Filip is understandable,but I have seen artists that aren't even very good that are "booked solid" for several months. Like Deb said some artists only book 1 appointment a day.That equals out most times to be a little over 20 tattoos a month,while other artists do that many in a couple of days.Being the "hardest artist to book" may mean that they are very good but it could also mean that the artist has no work ethic.I think a lot of times artists do this to stroke their own egos and seem more in demand than they actually are.

I get a lot of customers saying that they went to other shops for something small like a name or something and they are told that they can't get it done because everyone at that shop is fully booked,but the customer says that there were like 5 artists there and none of them were tattooing or drawing custom pieces,but instead just hanging out and playing video games or watching TV.

It is a lot like people in the 1970s waiting on line with a few hundred people to get into an exclusive club like studio 54 or something,only to finally be let inside to find out that there are only a handful of people inside the club.What I am trying to say is that while for a great artist it is worth the wait,in most cases it is just a manufactured waiting period and a marketing gimmick to charge more and act exclusive........just putting on airs.

[remindsmeofyou]

I am such a huge fan of Valerie Vargas' work. Her waiting list is currently closed. She does take bookings at conventions, or for last minute cancellations, which are announced on twitter.

I developed a seriously geeky system in order to monitor any twitter announcements, which includes alerts set up on my desktop and work, and text alerts on my mobile, for all tweets from Valerie or Frith Street Tattoo.

Ah, one day.... In the mean time I'm saving up all of my best spots.

I sound like a crazy fan girl, don't I?

[MsRad]

I am such a huge fan of Valerie Vargas' work. Her waiting list is currently closed. She does take bookings at conventions, or for last minute cancellations, which are announced on twitter.

I developed a seriously geeky system in order to monitor any twitter announcements, which includes alerts set up on my desktop and work, and text alerts on my mobile, for all tweets from Valerie or Frith Street Tattoo.

Ah, one day.... In the mean time I'm saving up all of my best spots.

I sound like a crazy fan girl, don't I?

you know she's on here and bound to read this don't you? ;)

[remindsmeofyou]

you know she's on here and bound to read this don't you? ;)

I suspect the existence of legions of fan girls will not surprise her!

[remindsmeofyou]

Oh, and I also have a folder of reference material to hand in case of scoring one of the coveted last minute cancellations.

Yes, I'm that lame.

[mario desa]

i just got tattooed by her yesterday, we traded! it pays to be connected ;)

[conor blue eyes]

mike giant.

he tattoos, he doesn't tattoo, he tattoos for a limited time. wtf. then i saw dude was booking temporarily at 300/hr. phew.

[irezumi]

i sent him a mail and dident think he´d answer but he did!

I think he's more accessable than people think if they put serious effort into contacting him. but that would only be the case if you were serious about getting tattooed by him.