According to the Tattoo Snob Facebook page, the average age of our readers is 25 to 34 years old, which means a majority of you should be able to identify this portrait.
If you don’t know, click here.
Tattoo by Carlos Torres at So Cal Tattoo in Los Angeles, CA
An entire leg sleeve of skulls is no laughing matter – and not an easy one to blog about, either. I’ll just let the bearer do the talkin’:
Kind of funny looking at my leg now compared with the original concept of what it was going to be. It started about 3 ½ years ago with the announcement that I was going to be a father. At that time I had a few tattoos, but not a major collector in any way. When I found out my son was going to be born a Leo, the search was on for an artist to do a realistic lion cub. I did tons of research, finally stumbled across Mike Devries‘ work and was totally sold–I contacted him right away to set up an appointment.
Luckily, he was booked out almost a year. I say that because if I had jumped the gun on the lion tattoo, it would have been a major mistake–my son wound up being a Virgo instead.
Since I already had the sitting lined up, I started thinking about what else to do and then it hit me, a skull! I have always loved skulls as far back as I can remember. I wasn’t sure if DeVries would be into it since all the work of his I had seen involved people and animal portraits. I contacted him about the change of plans and the rest, as they say, is history.
Since doing so much research initially, I had compiled a “tattoo dream team list.” I talked with my wife about the idea of continuing the skull theme. She was completely supportive and told me to go for it. I immediately started contacting the artists on my list. Many of them not only were interested in the project, but actually moved me up in line on their waiting lists just to be part of it.
The following, in order, are all the artists who contributed: Mike DeVries, Carlos Torres, Jeff Gogue, Nikko Hurtado, Robert Hernandez, Bugs, Jason Butcher, Joshua Carlton, Carlos Rojas, Aric Taylor, Shawn Barber, Bob Tyrrell, Stefano Alcantara, and FAT.
Each artist was given complete freedom to tattoo anything they wanted as long as it was a skull. It was so much fun to see what the guys would come up with. Some did exactly what you’d expect based on their respective styles, and others took it in totally different directions than anticipated.
After having such a wonderful experience with this project, I have started an arm sleeve with the same concept. So far the contributing artists are Phil Garcia, Goethe and Jeff Ensminger. Time to get that “tattoo dream team list” out and start making some calls!
There’s something about black and grey portrait tattoos with women as the main subject that just makes them look like an instant classic. Take this piece from Carlos Torres, for example:
Tattoo by: Carlos Torres at So Cal Tattoo in Los Angeles, CA
The opening reception of Carlos Torres’ Timeline Gallery was earlier this month, and Sullen Clothing was there covering the event.
At the event, they discussed Black and Grey’s Finest with Big Gus, which opened last night. For more information about this project, check out the official Black and Grey’s Finest website.
Do you ever catch yourself studying a portrait for a long period of time before you realize you either definitely know who the person pictured is or they are a complete stranger to you and you just think you might know them? That’s definitely the case with the portrait below.
Tattoo by Carlos Torres in Los Angeles, CA.
This squid isn’t a subject that Carlos Torres does on a regular basis, but as you can see, he didn’t have any problems with it.
Check out Carlos’ portfolio for more inspiring black and grey tattoo work.
Tattoo by: Carlos Torres at So Cal Tattoo
I was totally blown away when I first stumbled upon Sullen Clothing. In a time where I often cringe at the idea of a tattoo related t-shirt company, Sullen Clothing is a breath of fresh air. The roster of artists they have is absolutely ridiculous – and it continues to grow.
I shot the Sullen crew a couple questions about the brand, and what the future had in store. Jim was nice enough to answer them, and even nicer for tossing in a discount code for you!
Tattoo Snob: How did Sullen first get started? Who was involved at square one?
Jim: Sullen trademarked in 1999. In March of 2001 we sold clothes off our couch in an apartment in Downtown Huntington Beach. Ryan Smith and Jeremy Hanna were the primary partners in the beginning, an investor came along around year 5 to help make the ship run smooth.
TS: How many are involved in the daily business now?
Jim: Currently we have 9 full timers and a few outside sales reps.
Sullen Clothing Stone Virgin
TS: The Sullen family is an array of artists, musicians, and extreme sport athletes. Is the family a representation of what are interested and involved in?
Jim: We sponsor professional athletes like TJ Ellis who is a Freestyle BMX rider, who finished 3rd overall at the Dew Tour. Destin Cantrell is our FMX rider, who was nominated for best new rider at the Transworld Motocross awards show. Chad Knight skates for us, and we have a hand full of fighters who call Sullen home.
Sullen Clothing Live Life (Shawn Barber)
Sullen is a family for sure we work with tattooers such as Jeff Gogue, Nikko Hurtado, Carlos Torres, Big Gus, Bob Tyrrell, Jack Rudy, Corey Miller, Tom Berg, Jack Mosher, Hunter Spanks, Jason Butcher, Carlos Rojas, Norm, Jay Langer, Preston Chambers, Steve Soto, Christian Nguyen, and Shawn Barber to name a few. Most of these guys paint and draw with us, but we have a personal realtionship with all of them. Being a small company without big money, we focus our efforts on building friendships and hope to grow them lifelong.
TS: That’s an impressive list. I know several of them have their work featured on various products, who’s in the Fall ’09 line?
Jim: For Fall 09 we have Corey Miller, Preston Chambers, Shawn Barber, Big Gus, Carlos Rojas, Carlos Torres, Jack Mosher, Hunter Spanks and Jeff Gogue.
TS: Can you tell us if any of them are going to be in the next line of clothing?
Jim: Our next offering will be Holiday where we are dropping a Collaboration T with Carey Hart’s Hart & Huntington Brand. We started a design and emailed it to there creative team and went back and forth till the piece was finished.
Spring’s our next big season with Franco Vescovi from OC Inkhouse coming on board, also Paolo Acuna, Flaks, an amazing apprentice from Europe named Vicky Morgan adding to the line. Kim Saigh also has a piece in our womens line.
Hart & Hunnington and Sullen Collab
TS: Have any of these artists tattooed any employees or other family members of Sullen?
Jim: A bunch of the guys here have been tattooed by the artist we work with including the owner, Ryan Smith, who still tattoo’s people on a regular basis.
TS: Where can people find Sullen clothing at?
Jim: Sullen can be bought online or you can check the store locator to find a location close to you!
TS: Any chance we could get a discount code for Tattoo Snob readers?
Jim: We will make a code called “Snob” for your readers 15%
TS: Any last minute plugs?
Jim: We would like to say thanks to all the artists that we’ve worked with – without them, we wouldn’t be where we are today.
Check out Sullen Clothing for additional information.
Sullen Clothing Dead Mary (Hunter Spanks)Sullen Clothing Simon