The journey to be a Custom Tattoo Artist….To be Included, or to be Excluded? That is the Question

I’ve never fit in. Not matter how hard I’ve tried over the years. I think we all have these feeling wrapped around being included or being excluded. Early in my interest in tattooing I read somewhere that those are the two core reasons to get tattooed. If you have read some of my other posts, you may have figured that I have struggled a lot to be included over the years. It led me into a lot of trouble and often when I get there, I spend all of my energy trying to be different and excluding myself in some way. Even now, I am only recently leaning into the idea of going solo as a completely Custom Tattoo Artist after so many years working in and owning tattoo shops.

When it comes to art and tattoos I have definitely always been on the excluded side and happily so. I want to be a Custom Tattoo Artist. I’m just not in to doing all of the same stuff everyone else is doing. It’s weird too, on one hand people generally go and get tattoos as a way of standing out or separating themselves from family and social structures that may have been more oppressive than they thought was due. Now, I love the rebellious aspect, but I’ll never understand why so many people take that step just to look like everyone else.

Here I took a single sculpture of a dragon and produced 5 ideas for larger scale project/layouts. My attempt at “flash”

My mission is to help people tell their unique story. To dig deep into your brain, scoop out all of your great ideas, wants, fears and motivations and then bury it in your skin for the world to see. I love bringing in symbolism and those little Easter Eggs that you wouldn’t otherwise have thought of but make an excellent conversation piece as you blaze the trail of your next adventure.

I do respect people who are steeped in tradition. I understand the cathartic nature of working this way. It is often gorgeous. Unfortunately I just can’t get the idea out of my head that the people who MADE those traditions, were not following traditions, but were explorers or the second generation. And I can’t look at the basic tattoo related things without thinking that the “tattoo style” designs all look so great because so many people have done them so often that as a community it has just become visually pleasing to see comfortable designs and easier for the artist who is mostly able to draw from things they see. This was my problem for a long time and my motivation for getting into work that is so different from the traditional aspects while still attempting to respect the rules that matter and tossing the ones that don’t.

If you are an explorer, a dreamer, an entrepreneur. Come talk to me. I give options and second opinions for free (whether you want it or not sometimes) and am looking for clients with challenging stories to tell. I never pressure the sale but will definitely let you know what I see as pitfalls to your ideas if there are some. I’m seldom looking for people who know exactly what they want. I want to focus on people looking for ideas and ready to go hard for the perfect fit. And I’m willing to travel for work over 3 days or to offer you the most comprehensive service possible.

If you are concerned with fitting in, you should definitely go where everyone else goes and get what everyone else gets. If you want to stand out come talk to me. I often find many clients to be unaware of what the real possibilities are. They just know that they want to be tattooed but have no clue what they would want on their body forever. Turns out, I have an answer for that. As much as you want to be different you likely DO want what everyone else wants, at least at a primal level. You want positive feedback and attention when you enter the fray and from across the room without anyone needing to invade your personal space. You want to tell your story and have conversation boosting Easter Eggs in there to spur great conversations and opportunities for storytelling. If this sounds like something you are into then please feel free to contact me for a consultation.

I do welcome people in the shop but prefer to work over zoom or someplace where I can share my screen and ideas with you in the comfort of your own home. The beauty is that because of the way my design process works I can maximize my output capabilities while offering you something completely unique by using 3d tools in the design process.

I’m happy to chat and thumbnail with clients with no risk and no pressure. If you like what you hear and want to move forward, then you can let me know and I will send you the invoice for your deposit. I won’t charge for the artwork separately, but the deposit is non-refundable and pays for your FINAL session. I need people to be absolutely certain in moving forward with the process.

The work will be a minimum of a month out and during that time we will be talking a bit. More at the beginning. And then I will commence the process for the final work which I will reserve artistic license on because many times people that I work with are unable to envision what I am envisioning. There will be a day where we have covered you in tattoos and you are dreading the details. That’s where we officially throw in the towel as far as money and book a session for you to come in for a half day for me to inspect the healed tattoo, put in the bells and whistles and get some photos. If your skin is too irritated for the photos, we will schedule additional time to meet and take photos with no cost to you. I’ve been horrible about photography in the past but in 2024 there is just no room for that. Photography is an integral part of my ability to market my work and will therefore be part of the entire process.

So, after 20+ years in this business my advice is to go into things as mentally prepared as you can and that comes from knowing what your options are. I tell people that less is more and bigger is better. If you want to look good as you move from across the room, this is how I design. I spent years chasing all the tiny details and while it was fun to work on and cool to look at, if you can’t make it out from your view in the mirror brushing your teeth, no one else will be able to either. Be included in the group of people who know what they want, go for it, and invest in themselves. Be excluded from the impulse buying drones that want to be safe and look just like everyone else.

Currently my books are closed but I do keep track of all my requests and open them frequently to make the next quarter or so worth of appointments. I do make exceptions for consultations from my Wanna-Do page. There simply MUST be something there that gets the creative juices flowing for you, but I am trying to update most of it to video soon. In that workflow, I have room for my final 10 projects at my current pricing.

Custom Tattoos in Missoula Montana

I’ve always strived to do one off custom tattoosI started tattooing in Missoula, MT in the spring of 2010. I had been working for a few years already when I did my first guest spot at American Made Tattoo on Front St. where I worked for 2 months solid. If you know the locations, basically next to Biga Pizza and across from Tamarack Brewing then you know the area is gorgeous and, I was immediately hooked. Front St. in Missoula is the last street downtown before the river and parks and parking. Not to mention I was up here preparing to be a father for the first time I was definitely in a honeymoon phase over the situation.

I went home after 2 months as my then-girlfriend needed me around more. When I came back in the first days of 2011 the opportunity at American Made Tattoo was no longer available but they let me know that a new downtown shop called Blaque Owl Tattoo was just opening up.

It was a great move for me for quite some time but after a few years living basically on the same corner all the time I did become a little less enchanted with downtown Missoula. The homeless problem keeps getting worse as the larger cities pay to bus their problems here. Everyone’s heart is in the right place trying to help. But that seems to magnify problems in the more populated areas. Eventually, I felt that I was at odds with some of the practices in the shop. The home life at this point started to get rocky and I decided the best move I could make would be to remove myself from one of those situations.

After leaving Blaque Owl Tattoo I had planned to move the whole operation down to Lolo, MT but in the end. I found the buildings over on Stockyard. It was a dream come true.

I have loved the idea of tattooing in a warehouse for some time. When I found these units I had to wait an extra month to get in, but I felt that in every shop I had been in, space was always a problem, and this space was going to cure that. My goal was to put the tattooing upstairs and leave the downstairs as an Art Gallery in the front and an Art Studio in the back. Unfortunately, the latter never did get used quite enough. I think the current plan is to move the home workstation back to the shop to fill in that area and keep my schedule a little more regular.

At Montana Tattoo Company nearly all of the success early on came from pleasantly answering the phone and helping people after they were treated poorly in some downtown shop. With plenty of free parking all day and a relaxed environment that has plenty of space, we were able to compete with any of the walk-in shops downtown. We like to watch movies and take breaks to eat with the all-day clients. The one thing that always got to me though was how many of the other artists seemed so successful in such a small town doing things that were identical to each other. Flash tattoos and traditional style are both really popular up here. Even as a person wanting to put in extra work creating custom tattoos, a lot of the clients seem to just want the same safe stuff. That’s not a Missoula thing necessarily, but I think with tattooing in general there are a lot of people on both sides of the needle playing it safe. I feel now that working so hard to please each person who came in the door was not allowing me to work in the style I wanted. It’s just not necessary for things I can draw right on the skin or that clients bring in. If I want to push my style of art and reach a larger audience, I ultimately need to just say, “This is how I work, that’s it.” hang on through all the doubt and insecurity that brings.

Now, in 2024, I’m trying to learn 3d so that I can have ultimate control over every aspect of an image and other people are charging $1000 to tell everyone how to use the free-to-use AI. It’s a competitive world and I have to accept that if I want to create to the fullest of my capabilities, then the hustle and bustle of the walk-in shops and requests are not for me. I always think about the words of Robert Frost “I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference”.

I like to work on a single client a day and have a little more of a relationship with my clients. I prefer to work on large-scale custom artwork on and off the human body in a private location away from the street traffic and issues of downtown Missoula. Luckily we are close to the interstate and the airport so traveling into and out of the shop is easy.

These days I feel my art is really “image creation” in every conceivable aspect of the phrase. I’ve been through all of the different mediums, from watercolor to oil to patinas and all sorts of wild tools in between. Even down to consulting clients about their own personal image and what their tattoos can do for or against them. I’m even playing with the idea of faux rock sculptures. I can work from reference, AI, or nature but my favorite mediums are digital painting and digital sculpture. This allows me control of every aspect of every image from the surface texture to the lighting. This lets me bring all of the lessons from years of realism and gives me unleashed creative power. The one drawback is that the final image is not apparent until far down the workflow, whereas at least with a traditional sketch you pretty much know where everything is going from the gate. For those clients willing to give me their trust and creative control I like to sculpt the subject matter and share the progress up until the point where taking the photo for the tattoo comes into play. I go the long way around, from a sketch on a 3d form representing you to a 2d drawing, to a 3d sculpture, and back to a 2d photo or line drawing so that we can project that back on your body. I like to go over this portion with the client in person and make any final changes or adjustments right there on-site. There is always room for adjustments, but whenever possible I like to go into things with the most comprehensive plan possible. When the design is a body part or less I try to use a representative shape but for backpieces and bodysuits I can make a digital avatar so we can get a little closer to your true form. I believe flow and fit are everything but it has been a bit of a challenge to get people to allow me to push my boundaries without a more clear representation of some of the ideas. That is my current challenge, changing my deadline structure to allow for both the creation of the image and the projection of that image ahead of the tattoo. Luckily all the technology available to us today is helping me meet and exceed the technological goals. Now the trick is getting that work in front of the right people.