Tattoo art has come a long way in the past fifteen years. Now there are as many styles and themes in modern tattooing as there are tattoo artists. This article is about my journey in finding an artist who specialized in Comic and Graffiti style artwork to do my first tattoo.
Comic design and artwork is my life. I have a BFA from RISD and for the past 15 years have work in the comic industry. My work has been published with Image Comics, DC and others. I wouldn't trade what I do for a living for any other career.
About six years ago I was in the market for getting a new tattoo. Like most people who are tattoo virgins I started my search by looking online for tattoo shops in my area. I live in Manhattan and this initial search flooded me with an overwhelming number of tattoo shops and artists. Besides the shear number of artist's and shops, the general quality of the artwork work was top notch. This should be expected, New York City is the art capital of the world.
My search was made a little easier being that I was looking for an artist that could do an old Frank Frazetta painting of Vampirella with her name in Old English style letters with a graffiti edge to it. Not only was I looking for a technically proficient tattoo artist but hopefully one who specialized in contemporary comic book style artwork, which I adore. A tall order, I thought. Being a professional in the comic book industry I had a predetermined idea that if the artist could handle today's intense comic book style then my Vampirella would be no problem.
Tattoo artists working in a graffiti style were pretty easy to come by. One site in particular, http://www.graffiti.org/tattoo/index.html, list only tattoo shops that have graffiti artists working for them. From there I found “Seen” http://tattooseen.com a very talented, truly old school New York City graffiti artist. After visiting several shops I realized that lots of cats can bust awesome graf; unfortunately, my first impression of most of the tattoo artists I met was either that they were too rough around the edges, personality wise or they seem to lack real experience in the field.
Through my research, I found out that tattooing in New York City is actually still in its infancy, legally that is. Evidently, after a hepatitis scare in the 60's NYC made the practice illegal and law was only repealed in 97. It seems that perhaps this may have something to do with why so many of the tattoo artists I meet seemed to be newbies. When you are going to have someone sticking needles in your skin and leaving behind an image that you'll carry to your grave plus spend the kind of money you can buy a car with, I think you have the right to be judgmental. To be honest the idea of having some dude in his 20's with a couple of years experience doing my tattoo scared the hell out of me, no matter what their work looked like.
As luck would have it while at a party one night I saw this guy sporting an incredible tattoo of the comic book character Ghost Rider http://www.nyartman.com/ghostrider.htm. I immediately introduced myself and inquired as to who did his tattoo. One word, NYARTMAN. NYARTMAN... like Superman or Batman? Finally, I felt as though my search was nearing its end. That night when I pulled up his website, I was blown away. Being a graphics professional, I very much appreciated the expertise involved in the artwork of the website itself, not to mention the tattoos he had done. Here is the link to his site www.nyartman.com. I was also very surprised and happy to see that he had done another Frank Frazetta piece “The Death Dealer” http://www.nyartman.com/mongo.htm.
When I went in for a consultation appointment I was a little nervous because he worked out of a private studio not a public shop and I kept thinking, what if he is some big crazed biker. I showed up at the address, it didn't look so bad and I rang the bell. A very orthodox Jewish gentleman answered the door, “I'm here to see NYARTMAN” I said with a confused voice. The gentleman invited me in and asked if I would like coffee or tea and proceeded to ask me about the design I wanted. What, this man is NYARTMAN? I thought he was a rabbi or something, I couldn't believe it. This Clark Kent persona turned out to be the hero's outfit and not a biker in tights as I had feared.
I asked about the graphics on his site and whether or not he actually designed them. As it turned out, he did. I wanted to know where he learned to do such professional work. I say this because the guy could be doing his own comics instead of tattooing. Come to find out he has a Bachelors of Fine Arts from School of Visual Arts and his major was Illustration and Cartooning. For all you that are not familiar with SVA, it's probably the best art college in the country. This clenched the deal for me.
To make a long story short, no longer am I a tattoo virgin thanks to my new hero NYARTMAN. The work turned out fantastic and was exactly what I was looking for. It is my wish for those of you who are looking to get your first tattoo that you should also find that perfect tattoo artist to make what you envision a reality. The journey and process of getting inked was an exciting and also an educational experience. I hope this little story and the links provided will prove useful in your search.
