Hi Everyone,
I’m an Aussie traveliing to California in October and I want to get a new tattoo while I’m there. I really want to try and narrow down my choices of artists/parlours by doing a little research first. I’ll be staying in LA, San Diego, Vegas, but am open to travel a little if I need to.
I am wondering if someone can recomend any artists or parlours worth checking out. I really want a Japanese style dragon, in colour,or B+W if I can get the right image. I really don’t want to get stuck going to a crap artist and getting ripped off just because they have a shop in the tourist type areas. Any recomendations for a quality artist in a clean shop would be appreciated.
Thanks!
Ben.
Hi Ben
Check out my album the Lion of Judah was done by Zombie Tattoos in LA John was an awesome guy and he even opened up on his day off (I was flying the next day) at no extra cost.
They do specialise in zombie tats but they can turn their hand to pretty much anything. For Japanese I would poss suggest Colin (John is awesome at portrait work).
He was also a good 1/3 cheaper than the tourist area tattoos.
http://www.zombieinktattoo.com/colin/
Take Care
Matthew
tons of artists in cali. check out jess yen at mytats.com, bill canales in san diego, fip buchanan at avalon in san diego. horitaka is good too, but he is in northern cali. if you are willing to travel, horitaka will be having a tattoo convention in october and you can check out the current master of neo trad japanese, shige, in his only US appearance of 2010.
if youre in vegas, there is the “biggest tattoo expo on earth” going on in october and there will be a SHIT load of talented artists at that event. good luck!
EDIT: edit to mention that horitaka is the senior apprentice of the GRAND DADDY of traditional japanese tattooing, HORIYOSHI III!!!
Hi Everyone.
Thanks for all the info. It’s great to get some recomendations so I can check out some portfolios and try and narrow it down to just a couple. It was all just looking a little too hard to know where to start, but it is all becoming clearer now. Thanks again. 😀
Will be sure to let you know where I go in the end.
Ben.
Thanks heaps everyone for the info. I really like Jess Yen’s work, as well as Lucy’s from his studio. I’ve sent Jess an email asking about his workload etc. I’m guessing he’s gonna have a decent wait list though. It does mention that lucy works from appointments as well, but is known to accept walkups. Anyone had any experience with these Artists? any idea of waiting list times?
Thanks.
I emailed Lucy to see about getting some work in Oct. Had a few email exchanges back and forth but they haven’t responded in over a week. It sounded like they were willing to kick out someone else and let me in but that didn’t seem fair to the person already scheduled. Never did find out if they had an opening. I am going to find someone else.
She charges $300 for the first hour and $200 thereafter but after I told her assistant what I wanted she said I may get charged a ‘flat fee’. Never found out what that was either. Probably better to call them than email.
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