A lot of your work is monochrome. Is it difficult to balance
the black and the shading?
Not particularly. I think you just need to give yourself enough room
in your design to have all the lines, so it’s not overly busy, and put
enough shading in. You don’t need to patronise your audience; it’s
OK if you cover up some parts with shading. Say for example it’s a
gypsy scarf, you don’t have to show every detail – a third of her
scarf could be black with some of the design poking through. You
don't always have to always show every little detail. Suggesting it is
often sufficient. Creating that simplicity is a lot harder than it looks.
People think it’s easy to draw something, but you have to know what
to leave out. If you put in too much, you’ll look at it later and you’ll
see the bullshit. You don’t need all that stuff, like sparkly eyeballs or
whatever. The most important thing is that it looks clean, it’s
breathable and it’s got enough black in it.
It’s hard to cover up mistakes with
simplicity...
Yeah, there are certain spots on a tattoo
that you can’t fuck up! And those areas
have to be super clean. There are other
areas where you have a bit of leeway,
where you can shade stuff out if your
customer moves or if something else
happens. With an image of a woman,
the most important things are the face,
boobs and hands. A fucked up line on
those areas really shows!TATTOOIST INTERVIEW