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I don’t know who Lil Bandito is, but he’s clearly stealing the spotlight from those two fighting roosters.

Tattoo by Nikko Hurtado at Black Anchor Collective in Hesperia, CA

The next time you see Kelly Eden, make sure you pay special attention to her newest tattoo.

For the record, this is the only thing related to Lady Gaga that I’m really psyched on…

Tattoo by Nikko Hurtado at Black Anchor Collective in Hesperia, CA

No, you didn’t misread the title – Sullen Clothing is giving away a free tattoo by Nikko Hurtado.

Interested in winning? The only thing you have to do is ‘Like’ Sullen Clothing on Facebook.

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!

Andy Engel is coming to America in June, and will be making stops at multiple shops in Southern California. It doesn’t look like he’s going to be around for too long, so if you want something, I suggest you act quickly. Dates and details are below:

• June 3-4 with Nikko Hurtado at Black Anchor Collective in Hesperia
• June 6-8 at MD Tattoos in Northridge
• June 10-12 at the Ink-N-Iron Festival in Long Beach
• June 14 at So Cal Tattoo in Los Angeles
• June 15 at Goodfellas Tattoo Studio in Orange County

Tattoo by: Andy Engel in Kitzingen, Germany

Last year at Ink-N-Iron, I had the privilege of watching Nikko work on this piece. I didn’t stand there the entire time, but circled back every hour and watched as he shaded in giant sections of this tattoo. I was excited when Nikko posted this, as I’ve always wondered how it turned out.

Tattoo by: Nikko Hurtado at Black Anchor Collective in Hesperia, CA

I was excited to see this black and grey work that Nikko Hurtado posted on his Twitter account earlier this week. It’s always cool to see artists do something different from what we normally see from them.

For the record, the piece on the hand is healed, and the work on the arm is fresh.

It’s hard to tell exactly how big this is, but it’s a killer piece. Apparently it was an open spot on a collector – and I’m not using that word lightly. While you can’t see the surrounding pieces, I was told the one above is from Bob Tyrrell, the one below from Nikko Hurtado and to the right is a Shawn Barber original as well.

Tattoo by: Stefano Alcantara at Last Rites in New York City, NY

I’ve always admired Nikko’s work, and I’ve always been curious what he could do with a traditional style tattoo. I was hesitant to approach him with the idea, because I assumed there was a reason I’ve never seen him do anything along those lines.

Now that I see this piece, I’m kicking myself in the ass for not saying something sooner. Hopefully he enjoyed doing this, because I would love to see more work like this in the future.

Tattoo by: Nikko Hurtado at Black Anchor Collective in Hesperia, CA

As most of you probably know, this past weekend was the Detroit Motor City Tattoo Expo. This year marked the 15th anniversary of the show, and despite the bad weather – the turnout was great. The artist turn out was nothing short than stellar, and the floor was packed all weekend.

As always, I brought out my camera and tried to capture some of the quality work that surrounded me. I snapped entirely too many pictures to post on here, so I’m just going to post the cream of the crop. Please remember, my photography skills are amateur at best.

If you’re interested in seeing all of the mediocre pictures I took, become a fan of Tattoo Snob on Facebook. All of the pictures from this past weekend are posted in the albums.