February 19, 2025 • 55 mins
The intersection of technology and tattooing has always fascinated me, which is why I was particularly excited to dive into a recent conversation with Russ Abbott about the evolution of Tattoo Smart. From its humble beginnings as a digital marketplace in 2016 to its current position at the forefront of tattoo design innovation, Russ's journey reflects the larger transformation happening in our industry.
What started with simple brush sets and digital palettes has evolved into something far more revolutionary - especially with their latest venture into 3D modeling for tattoo design. But this story isn't just about new tools; it's about how the tattoo industry adapts and grows while staying true to its artistic roots.
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Keep up with Russ at the links below:
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https://tattoosmart.com/
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Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hey, friends, welcome to the fireside.
We are back with another episodefrom this past year's Richmond
tattoo, an arts fest hosted by our friendJesse Smith.
And today's guest is another familiarface, Russ Abbott,
who is a good friend of the show,a good friend of mine.
We have had Russ on the show,
I don't know, quite a few timesnow over the years,
and it's always a fun conversation.
We talk about a lot of stuff,as always in this episode,
(00:22):
we talk a good bit about, tattooing the future of tattooing tattoo
technologies, including tattoo smart,his, online business where he sells
stamp sets and brushes for Procreateand Clip Studio and Photoshop
and all of those things mostly procreate.
These days, I believe we talk a good bitabout some of his competitors,
and, like always,it was a good conversation.
(00:43):
I had a good time. I hope thatyou enjoy it and get something out of it.
And, we'll see you at the end.
I didn't want to share what I
was going to ask on the front end at all,so found out that the surprise of me.
Which is a bummer.
But I do want to start with whatI just asked.
I'm curious.
(01:03):
So I've been around Tattoo Smartsince the very beginning.
In fact,I remember having a conversation with you
and you gave me the name Tattoo Smart,and at the time it sounded
like brush sets and I didn't fully wrapmy mind around what it was going to be.
And I thought, like,yeah, that sounds cool.
You know, I thought maybe it was like,
you know, like the Abbott colorwheel was like a thing that you sold.
That was a thing.
And then people bought itand then they used it,
(01:25):
and then you had to come up with somethingelse, you know, to sell, you know
that.
So that's, that's kindof what I was thinking at the time. Yeah.
And that's kind of what it wasbecause I was selling the Abbott
Color wheeland a few other little things products
I createdthat were for educational purposes
for Tattoo Artist on Ink and Daggerand my Tattoo Studios website.
So what, you know, any of our clientswould go to their website
(01:47):
and there would also bethese things that Russ does, but
and that's didn't make sense to me.
So I needed a new placeand Tattoo Smart was that place.
But of coursethen it became so much bigger, right.
Like I could yeah,it could be a marketplace
where other people who make digital toolscould sell them.
So that was kind of the the main thingwas just going to be all about
(02:08):
digital design for tattooing and whateverthings we could come up with.
You know, as technology progressed,we would be there to to serve that market.
Yeah, yeah, that started in 2016,2016, 2016
is also the year that the Apple Pencilcame out for the iPad.
Okay. Yeah.
And so there was just,you know, a lucky time
(02:31):
to create a platform like that,I don't guess I realize that okay.
So you like that.
So when you made those those like
do they weren't procreate
based necessarily because they werefor all or not at first at all.
Yeah.
I was using a Wacom Cintiq and creatorfor my designs and so and Clip Studio
studio was the softwareand the, the brushes and clip studio
(02:55):
I in a lot of ways are better,especially the repeater
brushes or ropes, chains, snake scales, all those.
So even back then I was exploring, like,what can we do?
Because there Clip studio was made for,Japanese manga.
And it's a really,really great set of software.
And it already had brushes
that did that type of stuff,but they weren't tattoo style.
(03:18):
And so I learned I just watch YouTubetutorials, and I learned
how to switch out the artwork in a brushand adjust
the settings to make it repeatand do the all the things.
And I just startedkind of playing with it, you know,
it was just, a lot of R&D, you know.
Oh, I wonder if I can do this. Oh.
You know, and so it's it felt likewe were always discovering something
(03:41):
that, you know, wasis heading towards something, right?
Something useful or, I could useor another tattoo artist could use.
Right. So
I've always kind of thought
that I just misunderstoodthe whole thing from the start.
I was thinking of brushes.
I remember, like the Cheyenneneedle groupings or things like that.
Was the idea of stamp setsand collaborating
(04:01):
with artists on your mind at that pointor that came later?
What was it like drawing tools?
Yeah, no,it was like the first set of products
that I thoughtwere going to be everyone's favorite.
And it turned outthat no, here were the digital palettes.
So because I'd already madethe Abbott of color wheel, which was
during that process,I figured out how to accurately sample
(04:23):
the color of tattoo inkand apply it to a color wheel.
So the color wheel had 200and do something colors organized on it.
And I was going to use
the same technology to createdigital palettes of other brands.
So the original lineup included fusion, eternally,
(04:43):
world famous new a few others.
Yeah.
And we got all the ink in the studio,which was nice.
We had like all this tattooingto play with,
but got all the inkand we sampled every color.
And we did all this,you know, got these fancy spreadsheets
and took the, the data from the colorand turned it into swatch files
(05:05):
that would work in Photoshopand work in Clip Studio.
And you just kind of import the file,and then you have all of the colors.
And I thought that that would be a hit.
Sure. You know, turned out it wasn't.
And therefore a lot of people that wantedto, to work in that way,
you know, to to paint their tattoo designswith accurate colors.
(05:27):
Yeah.
And so and sometimes it'sjust a matter of like being
almost like a stepping stone in technologybecause now you can,
you know,
now you can like bring in a photographor an illustration in, like, matte like,
like drag and drop of that full colorpalette, like create a full color palette
from a photograph. Right?
Which is obviously super cool.
It may not be mapped necessarily toa tattoo pigment, but the color is there.
(05:50):
And so probably if something likethat had already existed,
you would have been less likelyto put the effort
into creating the color palette, right?
I mean, maybe not. Maybe you justreally thought people would,
I don't know.
Yeah.
So a lot of times it's just like throwingas many hooks into the water.
Yeah, as you can and seeing which onethey bite on.
And that was, that was a good example of,you know, something that I like
(06:13):
definitely overinvested in that,you know, eventually
I just pulled them off the site becausethey were just kind of taking up space
and people didn't seem to be interested.
I also didn't want to keep supporting the,cause set new colors
coming out from all these companies.
So they were getting help needed, right.
That the other projects. Yeah.
So yeah, I would imagine otherwise
it's difficult to, to put so much timeand work into something and go.
(06:36):
And then I mean, it's one thing to say,okay, it's not performing
the way that I had hopedand make excuses for yourself.
But when you finally come to terms with
and you're like, I was pulling it downwhere it's not available anymore,
that's like a real recognition of yourselfthat it's a failure, you know?
Yeah.
That's it.
Yeah.There have been a few of those. Right.
So, so that that is even my startingquestion we haven't even gotten to yet
what I've noticed overthe last months or year
(06:59):
or so is that I'm, you know,
half of my Instagram feed is sponsored,are things that they think I might like.
It's not even people that I care to seenecessarily, but I see all of these,
I don't have any names to throw out,but essentially it will be like
25,000 procreate brushes for $9.99.
(07:20):
Or maybe their stamp sets as well.
I don't click,I don't go into it to see what they are.
Yeah, but I guess I think about you a lot
whenever I see that because I'm just like,shit, how do you like, how do you
like people are only paying attentionfor a second, right?
And you just have a little squarethat they're paying to get your point
across and like,how do you separate what you're doing?
(07:40):
First off,
if you're if you're separate,what you're doing from
what those are doing would be helpfulfor people who are paying attention.
And then second, like,
how do you separate yourselfand grab people's attention so they know
in a short period of timethey're like, hey,
these two, we're not comparingapples and apples right here.
Yeah, I don't know.
I mean, like first off, like,what are those companies?
Right.
Because they'rethey're not run by a tattoo artists.
(08:03):
Right.
You can't like they might say somethinglike for artist by artist or something.
But when you when I've really dugin I'm like, I don't know who this is.
And, and also when I see the productthat they're putting out, it's
very, very obvious.
You know, either it's AI generated stuffor it's,
stuff that they just stolefrom the internet and compiled it.
(08:24):
And, you know,I actually had one a couple of years ago.
I saw one of ourproduct images on there AD.
And, this obviously is a problem, right?
You know, we pay a lot of money and workvery hard to create these products.
And, and so I, I went to their websiteand I found the contact.
(08:48):
I reached out to them and I said, hey,you know,
you've got our work on your website,like what's going on?
And I think they basically were like,I'm so sorry.
We're just teenagersin this other country.
And we wanted to have a business.
(09:09):
And we hired we paid like $500 to thisother group of teenagers
and to make our websiteand like our, our product
and this is what they did. Wow.
We'll take it down immediately.
So sorry I got you. I'm really like,
okay.
So I think they did.
(09:30):
I a little bit. It's.
Yeah, I guess I didn't,but I never saw the ad again.
There.
Some of these companies are,
you know, obviously,
outsiders from tattooing,you know, who are looking at let's
what's the thing that I can generate some,you know, side hustle money on.
(09:52):
Let's see if this works.
Let's do this. Let's do that. Right.
And so it there's,there's not any of the things that we do.
I'm like, you know, I've builtrelationships in tattooing, right.
Like I go outand I source artwork from people
who are experts in the subject matter,in the style that they're working in.
And then we work togetherand they work really hard.
(10:14):
We work really hard.
We compensate them really well. And,
you know,
there's an obvious differencein what the experience
of working with something that we madeis compared to that,
you know, the the problem,I guess, that I see is
just the way peoplecome along to tattooing.
And, you know, there's so many thingsthat at the beginning
(10:36):
of the career that they might thinkthey need to invest in.
And if, you know,
buying a set of tattoo stampbrushes is on that list,
you know how many of those shitty onesthat he encountered before,
they just kind of go, that's dumb.
Yeah, it's not worth it.
Like, I shouldn't bother with, you know?
But we used to bethe only company doing this.
(10:57):
Now there's several others
that are run by tattoo artists, you know, putting out quality stuff,
and there's a whole bunch of stuffon Etsy
so much, you know, and, like, so,like the Google search is flooding, right?
Like if you type in procreatetattoo brushes,
you know, we used to be the only ones.
Now we're just one of many, right.
(11:17):
And so that's just the waythat the way that it goes.
Right.
The only, only thing that can happenis that market becomes more watered down
with competitors.
So yeah, you know,it's just about like let's use
we're still focusing
on what we can doand like what we want to do.
And you know, trying to trying to help,
(11:40):
you know, educate people about why this even a
for me, it's always
just been about getting to that nextfuture.
Like being prepared to help to bringsomething more interesting to tattooing.
It hasn't really been about like,oh, I'm so excited about,
you know, flash stamp brushes.
(12:00):
That wasn't even my original intent with
the company is justwhat tattoo artist seem to want to buy.
Yeah.
You know, so in order to keep the lightson, I'm actually keep doing it.
And along the way, you know,
I'm really started to enjoy it,you know, like, it's starting to look like
this is going to be a giant library
(12:21):
of really, really well drawn tattoo flash,
that, you know,I've curated the entire time.
So it's already got,
you know, like when you look at the sitelike there's so many now.
Yeah. You know, I think there'sstill room for so many more.
And I'm excited to keep working.
We do, like one product a month,you know, at most maybe two.
(12:42):
Right. So I think the pace has slowedfrom what it used to be.
But you know, it's it'sit's still something I'm working on.
You know, you're always thinking
I think about like how people interpretthings, how they are like trying to like
gauge your
audience, you know, and,and that is even,
you know, the language that they speakand all that kind of thing.
So with that in mind that you,that you are doing something
(13:05):
completely different than somethingthat's either
generated by teenagers in another countryor AI or whatever.
Do you have any,any like way that you are trying to,
grab attention, separate yourselfin whether through social media,
through your email campaigns, through yourlike just how you interact with people.
Is there any way to to separate yourselfin a, in a flash,
(13:27):
or do you have to depend just on kindof the original grassroots, boots
on the ground effort of like, well,these people, know tattoo smart
I'm going to keep putting out great stuffand keep hoping that they'll share it.
Not physically share the fileswith their friends, but share the,
but share the word with their friends.
So like, I yeah, this is it like that.
This is like,
these are legit, you know, tattooersthat are making these things and you know.
(13:49):
Yeah. Right. Yeah.
So I mean,you know, there there was always the,
you know, like the bootlegger
guy, like, come into your shopto sell your flash and you're like,
you knew it wasn't, you know, actuallymade by that person because you know him.
Yeah, yeah.
And, but you know, thatthat ethos in that ethic, you know, is
(14:11):
still in the minds of a lot of peoplewho have been tattooing a long time.
But I don't think it's reallythat prevalent,
you know, in the new generationand, newer generations.
Right.
But yeah, you know, I, you know,how we got to talking about that?
It was like one little pieceof what you asked me, but the, the
the fact is like, yeah, you canyou can share our product.
(14:33):
We can airdrop it straightout of procreate to all your friends.
You know, we we know it happens.
You know,we hope it happens in, like, a 1 to 1
kind of thing where, you know, insteadof, like, you know, everyone,
you know, gathering 100 peopleat a convention, you're just like,
you're dropping it out there,but because, I mean, like,
look, I mean, obviously,you know, I'm working very hard.
(14:56):
My team is working very hard.
The artists that we're working withare working very hard
to put something out there, and we hopethat people are gonna value it.
And, you know, it'll make sense for themto pay what we're asking.
We actually do have a, ten daymoney back,
100% satisfaction guarantee.
Right.
Like, yeah,
I don't think a lot of people know that,but you can purchase something from us,
(15:20):
and if you don't like it,you can just let us know you don't like it
and you can't give it back to usbecause you've already got it right.
And you can still give itto 100 of our friends.
And we'll give you your money right?
So yeah, that's my answer to it.
It's likeif if you bought something from us
and you thought it was so terrible
that you wanted to cause damage to us
(15:42):
by putting it out there and having thatnext person put it out there again?
Share, Share, Share, Share, Share,If that's the way that you feel about
what we gave you or what we whatwe sold to you,
then, you know, I,I guess we did a bad job.
You know, that's kind of a riskI gotta take.
But, yeah, you can come backand you can get your money back.
(16:03):
It's it's.
Can I do a few times a week?
You know, it'snot it's not hundreds. Not maybe
this can be the reason, right?
Like all of a sudden, you know,tattoo smarts gonna be ruined, you know.
Yeah.
But look, you can do that.
And, sometimes people do.
And when they do, it's an opportunityfor us to say, you know,
curious, like, what was it?
(16:23):
You know, what was it thathow did we not meet your expectations?
And a lot of times it's just it wasn't what I thought it was, you know,
like, based on what you were ableto show me before I bought it,
like, it didn't really didn'treally tick the right boxes.
We can learn from that.
Sure. And learn from that conversation.
Yeah.
And I guess at some point you have tolike, for your own peace of mind.
(16:44):
You have to eitherfind a way to fight that
sharing kind of thing tooth and nail,and figure out a way to stop it.
Or the farother extreme is what you’ve done.
If you just like come to terms with likenot only do we know you can take it,
but it's like you can take itand we'll just pay you back
if you're that like
it's kind of the way to say,like if you're that big of a shithead,
we'll just give it back to youand you can just live with yourself.
(17:04):
It's kind of unheard of.
I don't know if any of our competitors doit. I've never heard you say that.
You've done that. No, I don't know.
Yeah, we've been doing itfor, like, a year now.
Yeah, it says it, you know,it says it in multiple places
where you purchase and it says itlike even in the email saying exactly.
Yeah.
You know, we have,you know, support at tattoo smart.com.
You know,
(17:24):
my, my coworker
Sara is in that inbox every day,unless it's the weekend,
and she's the one that has to figure out,like, how to get your money back
or how to help you fix your passwordor whatever it ever is going on.
So, yeah,I mean, yeah, it's human support.
It's not, you know, some data centerin some other country.
You know,it's like it's a small, small company.
(17:47):
Right.And it and I think it's a lot of fun.
Yeah.
And I think it was awhen you and you hit on it
that you know, you put a lot of timeand effort in and your team.
But then also the artist that createsthe stuff if you are an artist, which
I guess if you're buying brush setsor stamps that you are,
you know, just just the idea that you'retaking advantage of an artist
who took the time to create the,you know, the stamp set, and then go,
(18:10):
yeah, it truly is that I mean, it'sit would be very similar to,
you know, like making copies on The flashthat they sold you and,
you know, give them to all your friends.
It's it's probably worse than thatbecause it takes the time and effort
to make a copy like AirDrop is amazing,but there's nothing we can do about it.
I mean, it's a featurethat procreate built in
(18:30):
well into their app, and until procreatedecides to unbuild that feature.
Yeah. You know, that'sjust what it is, right?
You mentioned a minute agothe kind of the you've
you started Tattoo Smart with the ideaand and the color wheel.
Everything with the idea of that justcontinue to evolve as a creator of things
for the tattoo world, at least mostlyfor the tattoo world, I guess.
(18:53):
So what
I think that that's, my, my coachDan, says like,
when people have complaints about people,you know, biting stuff off of them,
we've got the same thing with Fire Side,you know, for years,
that where people are either, like,physically copying, downloading, re
uploading and monetizing our videos,which was happening
(19:14):
from some Russian outfita while back, was pretty crazy,
getting a lot of views like marketing itand stuff like that. Getting paid.
And then, like, man, like,you know, I was like, can we hire you?
Sometimes that might be the right idea.
Right?
But, but my coach, Dan says, like,you know, no one can copy.
The next thing you know,they can always get a copy
of the current daywhen no one can copy the next thing.
(19:35):
So we're always focused on the next thing,and that's the way that you kind of
keep your vibe straightwhen it comes to that type of thing. So.
Yeah.
So what what is that been lately for you?
The next thing for Tattoo
Smart, it's been the,the, 3D models that work in procreate.
Yeah. So we have this whole line.
They're called model humans.
They're 3D body parts.
(19:55):
They're, you know, there's entire people.
There's like eight different characters.
They all have names.
Yeah.
And, they're all different body types.
All right, so there's four differentfemales for different males.
You've got an athletic build,an obese build, a thin build.
And somewhere in the middle and
then we
also recently put outkind of a giant pack of just alternatives
(20:17):
or alternatives for sleeves and, arm sleeves, like sleeves, torso.
So just kind of like we didn't,we didn't really want to like, overdo it
because we want to do every single bodytype with all of these options
was just a unbelievably huge investmentin every way.
So but I did see opportunities to improve,or to give more options.
(20:40):
People were asking for more optionsfor where the seam is cut on the sleeve,
for example.
Yeah, like for example, on the arm sleeves
where the seam is cut,like where if you unwrap a human arm,
like where is the seam.
Because with all 3D models,
the best way to work on them is actuallyworking on the flattened out part.
Or, you know, not.
(21:00):
You can sketch on the modeland you can kind of get your layout,
and then you flatten it out into two more,and then you can see your sketch
on a flattened out version of an armand so on.
The original model humans,the seam for the arm runs straight down
the middle of the inner arm.
So it's the down here.
And unfortunately, youknow, that wasn't what everyone wanted.
(21:23):
Sometimes people wanted to really easilyput their artwork
on the inner arm,so we needed to make variations.
And, you know, in the advanced,they're called model humans,
advanced 3D body, for instance,what the the newest sets are.
And that's the one that has likea whole lot of options
for different sleeves and legs.
And that's pretty much the one I wouldrecommend anyone get to start with.
(21:47):
Yeah.
If you're just getting into model humans,
I don't know if you have any idea,like what the purpose of them is or why
anyone would.
Yeah, I, I have an idea.
I've never used them myself.
I have your earlier versions, the photo classes that what they were called.
So protoplasm was the images, images of, 3D models.
Yeah.
You can use as stampsand those are still really popular.
(22:10):
Yeah, I love those.I still use them for, for layout.
If I don't have great photos of the clientor if I'm presenting an idea that I
if the clients out of town or somethinglike that, you know, like online is great
for that kind of stuff.
I really like them.
And and like you're saying,I assume somewhat to model humans.
There are enough variations
of body types where I can like,I usually will like try to get an idea,
like, let's say I did a zoom conversationfor our consultation, but I don't have
(22:33):
I haven't met them in personjust based on their appearance.
I'll try to get an ideaof what their body type is,
and then I'll back off the body typewhenever I choose it.
So that's like a little more attractive.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.
So that brings up a funny thing.
So, you know,we had to go through this whole process
of thinking about this, like how do wehow do we represent, you know,
a giant range of possiblehuman body types in a range.
(22:57):
So we we started with three,you know, it was like the
kind of workout physique, you
know, the kind of like, thin personin the obese person.
Right.
And then we were like, was it forI can't remember.
I think it wasI think it was four to start.
And then we just added Norman Normal,which makes it
maybe it's a total of ten model.
(23:18):
There is result. Okay.
So Norman Norman were name because theyare the normal body type thing right.
There's like a little potbelly
you know, like Norm's arms are kind ofkind of not that muscular, right?
You know, he's just, like,kind of every man,
and then, but if you look at,
you know, what are people actually buying?
(23:39):
Right.
Your, your two most fit women
and your muscle guy, Ryan,really are the most popular choices.
And why do you do these?
Yeah, ones are the least popular.
Yeah.And and I'm thinking about like. Right.
I mean that tracks right like to humanity.
But the, the thing aboutit is like you just pointed out,
(24:03):
like if we're going to look at our client
and then select the 3D modelthat we think is the closest to them,
put our art on, put our design on it,and then show it back to them.
What's that gonna
feel like for anyone who's like, oh,
right, that's the one you picked.
So it's like, yes, you know,and it could be like
(24:24):
like people have all kinds of hangupsabout their bodies, right? Like what?
What is the guy you picked to represent?
Your client was too skinny, right?
And he's like, oh, man,he thinks I'm skinny.
Yeah.
So I, I don't know, like maybe,maybe it just makes sense
to only put our designson the most athletic, like,
you know, steroid jacked guy and like,yeah, I guess like, yeah.
(24:47):
And I guess it's a use case thingbecause, like, if I'm designing,
if I'm doing want to do designsand I'm like trying to sell back pieces
or bodysuits or whatever big tattoosthat like, fit the body nicely.
I probably want to put them on the bestlooking figure.
So it's like, hey,this could be you, you know?
But if you're using it like I like,I am where I just don't, you know, you ask
someone who's out of town, who's flying,have you get tattooed to send you photos.
(25:10):
And it's like selfies in the mirrorwith a glare of their leg and you're like,
I'll just figure it out, you know?
And then I'm using it as a toolrather than that.
They're both used as tools,but you know what I mean?
I'm using it as a tool for myself to like,all right, this is close to them,
and I want it to be flattering enough,but, you know, when they get it back. So.
Yeah. Yeah.
I mean, all those
all those thoughtswere going through our minds
as we were working through this processand like, how do we make this
(25:33):
actually useful?
The 3D models are mostly just usefulfor people
who were doing full sleeves, full legsleeves, full back pieces for torsos.
Yeah, that's where I really think likethis workflow makes a lot of sense because
it's obviously,you know, difficult when you're laying out
a full sleeve on a flat piece of paperand we've all figured out ways to do it.
(25:56):
We've all got a process,
but with something like this, I'mable to really, really mess around with
how the elementsfit on the arm or the legs,
and I come up with some,I hope you know, more
interesting compositions,because I have this tool here. And
the second part to that is where you canjust do like basic sketching on this.
(26:19):
If you want,
you can draw directly on the 3D model,and then you can flatten it out into 2D,
and you can export that 2D as your baselayer.
You base sketch in a regular procreatefile. Okay.
And you can just make it as detailed andfully developed and rendered as you want.
And then
you can take that back to the 3D modeland map it back on to the body part.
(26:41):
And I think that's the workflowthat most people miss.
They try to do all the rendering directlyon the model or,
you know, some kind of kind of waythat just doesn't work as well.
It's a little bit uncomfortable.
So yeah, you know, that's why I'm actuallyteaching a workshop here at the,
the Richmond Convention in Paradisenext week because it's I've found that,
you know, we try to make videosabout how to do this, and
(27:03):
I tried to show people in as many waysas we can, like how to think about it.
But yeah, it's just a lot of peopleneed a hands on kind of like
step by stepkind of do it yourself workshop.
So I'm, I'm hoping that people will attendthat.
And, you know,maybe I'll get a little bit better
at teaching other peoplehow to apply this tool.
(27:23):
Yeah.
I think saying things outloud in front of people,
too, is like the best way to learnif you're saying it right,
if it's if it's getting across,you know, like
it's one thing to make a video, make itsuper polished and give instructions,
you know, on your website before or do itwhen they download or whatever.
But when you say thingsto a group of people
and you're looking at their faces,you can tell I didn't land on any of them.
(27:44):
You're like,all right, I'm saying that wrong. Yeah.
For sure.
It's really helpful.
I think one thing about that,that workflow
that you just went through that
so that could be so usefulto so many people, especially people
who are just getting into large scaletattooing,
is, you know, howwell you always can tell,
you know, the differencebetween what I think is a really well
designed, sleeve, for example,as opposed to a beginner sleeve.
(28:06):
It's just like,look at the tricep in the back of the arm
and see where stuff comes togetherand see if people just end up with a lot.
Like, a lot of times it's, you know,you're designing a few main elements
that sit on the areasthat you think about first,
and then you get to a pointwhere you have it, oh, shit.
And I'm like,you're like, I'm just going to like,
but when this into thatand you'll end up with this kind of like
area of
a tattoo where there's just nothingcool to look at, you know,
(28:28):
and I think that I fought with thata long time to.
So, I mean, I thought was that a long timeto and I make a point
now to think to think about like,no matter what
angle of view or experiences this tattoo,I want there to be something
that grabs that attention that, that,you know. Yeah.
And so that that workflow
where you're drawing it flat, but thenyou wrap it back on, you're like, oh shit.
Like that actually doesn't sit well.I thought it would.
(28:50):
I need to scoot that.
Yeah, a little bit. Yeah.
I think it's a switching from 3Dto 2D a lot during this sketch process
is nice because, you know, there'sthis sort of distortion that happens
when you take a flat image and you wrap itaround a cylindrical body part.
Right.
And it's really hard to predictwhen you're only drawing flat.
So once you get into working in this way,you've kind of already problem solved.
(29:13):
A lot of things that you would have hadto do when the client got there in person.
After you printed out this giant stenciland taped all the pieces together,
and you think you got it,
and you got a stencil and you're like,holy shit!
Like, yeah, that didn't work out.
Like I thought it would.
This helps fix that. Yeah. Yeah.
Well what I okay.
So that's, that's, the thing that you'reworking right now in procreate.
(29:34):
before we leave that subject,we've talked over the years, I know,
and I've, was thinking about itwhen I, when I was working on a product
that was called Digital Skinwith Shaun Belina and with another person
that it was like a projectionmapping type of thing
of, actuallymapping the physical client's body.
And I don't know if we ever talkedabout that
(29:55):
without the Huntsvilleand went into one of these. Yeah.
It's essentially like, a little spherethat they would like photograph
you in the round. And then they could likeit was they were printing you.
They were like making a 3D modelof one of those made myself like,
oh, six years agoat that exact experience.
Oh, cool.
Yeah.
So I when I as they were doing that,I was like, oh I wonder if we could like,
you know,
(30:15):
like essentially do the model humansbut with the, with the human
that you're tattooing.
Yeah. You couldand so we're standing in a,
a cylinder of cameras, I don't know,there's like 100 cameras
and they're all connected to a very,very expensive computer.
All of them take a picture at one time,and then that computer in the software
(30:36):
turn all of those photos into a 3D model.
And so that's how that works.That's called,
well, a version of it's called PhotoGrammatry Yeah, it might be true.
Someone out there is going to be like,no, that's not photo grammatry.
I'm pretty sure that's what it's called,like stitching a bunch of photos.
Now there's apps that do that.
You know, there's appsthat you can walk around anything,
(30:58):
a person in a scene
and take a bunch of pictures,and then they'll
shoot them up to the cloudand will send you that model and yes,
you could use thatto get a 3D model of the client.
The issue that I've found withit is that it's not to scale.
Right.
It's it's just a model.
(31:18):
It doesn't know how big or small it is.
And, that may or may not be a problem,but I think the ultimate solution,
the one that I feel like I'm waitingfor, is the one where we can
just pull out our smartphoneand it's got everything it needs
to create a scaled model of our clientwithout a lot of extra work.
Right.
(31:38):
So someone has to build an appor an interface that knows
this is for tattoo design.This is a human.
We're going to eventuallybe designing a tattoo on them.
And so it needs to be exportedin this very specific way.
And right nowall of those things are possible.
And I think that peoplewho have been doing it on just one
(31:58):
call, Thomas Sinnamond
out of,Seattle, has been he's a tattoo artist
and he's been scanning people,and he ended up
figuring out how to do itwith, like, a handheld scanning device.
It's very expensive,20, $30,000 or something.
He's invested in this processand he actually teaches workshops on it.
So there's anyone listening to this
who wants to learn how they can right now,with that amount of investment,
(32:22):
you the process where they can scantheir clients
he's doing is really impressive.
Because, you know, of course,what I'm waiting for
is it to become easier, accessible,right.
Like, if you look at,
the adoption of digital designis tattooing, right?
Like, I was doing it before the iPad
(32:42):
Apple Pencil came outand it was a bigger investment.
You got to learn more complicatedsoftware.
You had to just kind of take a leapand spend a few thousand dollars
to buy all this gear.
And then the iPad came along,and then once.
All right.And that's when the shift happens.
Even still,you know, we're still at a place
where there's still a few tattoo artistsout there that don't work digitally, which
(33:05):
but we've seen a massive shift.
And so I guess it's possiblethere's some future state
where the tattooing processalways starts with capturing,
where you scan a client you're working oninto some kind of 3D space, right?
So always be people don't want that. But
that's a beautiful thing.
Well, look yeahwe're seeing it already like,
(33:27):
yeah I think we're going to expectmore in the future.
And well what I meanis we're seeing visualizations
of what a product or service will be likebefore we buy.
Right?
I always use the example of rugs.com.
You can go to rugs.com.
You can upload a pictureof your living room with your sofa
or coffee tableand all of your things, and very quickly
(33:51):
put that out on their websiteinto that space in perspective.
And it looks like it belongs
there.
That experience makes you more confidentthat that's the right rug for you, right?
You know, and they're doing that nowwith eyeglasses.
You can buy glasses online.
You can see them on your faceand move your head.
They move. You know that's all possible.
(34:12):
And at a certain point in the future,we're doing that with every new clothing
article we buy.
We're getting, you know, pants and shirtsthat fit us because we scan ourself
really quickly with a map.
And I was able to figure outwhat the right size was for us.
So of course, customers in the future
are going to expect to see what is thistattoo going to look like on the
(34:35):
right.
And there's going to be some tattoo artistthat realized that that opportunity
and wanted to want to take it onand give them that are some people like me
that want to do that now.
And we are doing it now,you know, through all kinds of other ways.
But I'm not currently.
I'm not like Thomas Sinnamond.
I haven't gone outand invested in this 3D scanner.
So I just use like surrogatesor I use Tattoo Smarts model humans.
(34:58):
And we have a bunch of different bodytypes.
We can adjust the skin toneor closely match the client,
and we put the designonto a 3D model of the client
when it's something that they need
or something that it's eithersomething I need, like I want it
for my own design process,and then I'll just share it with them.
Yeah, hopefully they'll be delighted.
And in some cases there'sclients out there who like you value see.
(35:22):
Sure. Yeah, yeah.
It's funny that and most likely thatthat process will come, you know,
a tattooing will probably adopt itfrom larger industries.
Those technologies, like with clothingand glasses, we're already already seeing
that they'll solve the bigger problems ofwhat is it like as far as I know?
Like there's there's not anyonewho's more interested in seeing this
(35:43):
come to tattooing than me. Right.
And I've been interested in this ideaof since probably 2014 and 2015,
when I kept thinking,oh, we're right around the corner.
We're going to have that soon, andI want to be the one to make it happen.
Yeah.
You know, I want to usher in that futurethat I imagine and,
you know, all this time,
all those attempts that I've made to tryto figure out, is it possible now,
(36:04):
you know, and and seeing how it ispossible also,
the system has made me realize that, like,
you know, the wayit'll probably come off the back
of innovation in fashion.
Fashion in medical.
Right?
Because, you know,you're you're trying to make, or,
you know, obviously,I mean, any other like, giant
(36:26):
pillar of industry will solve the problem.
So many of the problems around this enough
to where the tattoo use casewill become obvious.
Yeah. It'll just be like, oh, okay.
We just have to like,you know, take this and tweak it.
Just tiny.
Yeah, yeah.
There's a great,I'll forget what it's called, but but,
(36:47):
Peter Diamandes is a thing that he callslike the Five D's or the Seven d’s.
I don't know what they are, but it's abouthow the technology moves and the D's.
I might be wrong on the order,but it's like, first, they are deceptive.
Like, that doesn't really mean anything.
It's not going to make any difference.
Then it becomes disruptive.
And then eventuallyit becomes, demonitized
So you're saying that it's ThomasSinnamond is spending 20 grand,
(37:09):
and eventuallyyou'll be able to do with your iPhone.
So think about like,the cost of taking photographs
when you first started tattooing versusthe cost of taking photographs
today, you know, and then, so that's a disruptive, disruptive,
but, the, demonetized and democratized
because what's demonetizedbasically becomes accessible to everyone.
I might be missing another one,but here's a great explanation
(37:32):
for how that works.
And he can show you dozens and dozensof technologies that follow those days
really specifically.
So it's fun to, like,see where things might be in the realm.
You know, when you identify a technology like in so many things
that we thought we were goingjust about to have, right.
Like, over the last couple of years,it's been, what do you call it, like VR.
(37:53):
Right?
Like meta investing so heavily in VR,you know, now Apple's got their thing.
It's it's kind of a flop,you know, like all these really,
really smart people at allthese really amazing companies
come back that think now'sthe time to go and invest in this thing.
And then it doesn't work. For now.
They're like, okay, well over on it,
maybe it's going to be another five yearsand it's going to be another time.
Yeah. And or maybe never.
(38:15):
But you know,it's really hard to imagine never.
But it's.
Yeah, tattooing is going to change.
You know.
No, it just is, of course it is, right.
Like that.
People who get tattoos in the futureare going to interact with my tattooing
in a totally different way.
And, you and I will probably thinkit's dumb.
(38:38):
That's just what keeps happening, right?
Like there was a you and I 50 years ago.
And I think what we do now is done like,
sorry, but they were innovatorsin their own time.
Sure.
Yeah. Yeah. I think that,
I think that's true.
I think it is fun to kind of seewhere it's at least for your own.
Like,peace of mind to be able to think about.
(38:59):
Well, this is frustrating to me.
Like, for example,Digital Skin was something I don't know
that I've talked about a lot on here,but the idea, that we invested
a lot of time, into was, was projectionmapping, slash AR stenciling.
So essentially if you had
layers in Photoshop, you had a photo layerand a line layer and the shading layer,
you could cycle through layerswith voice commands.
(39:20):
So you can say like, show me that you
I say, you're doing a portrait,send me the photo, drop into 40% opacity.
Show me the line overlay.
Okay, I got it.
You know, like then you're doing all thatlive on the skin
and you can seeall of the individual pieces of the puzzle
that I was thinking of existindependent of each other, you know?
So all of those things are true.They happen.
They just don't happen on the skinwhile you're stretching the skin.
(39:41):
So there were enough piecesthat didn't work right.
For example, there's some issue withgeometry where there were three points.
And I started thinking about itbecause I saw a, a router,
a handheld router that was essentially a Cand C, like you could make it
a C and C by laying this grid tape overthe piece of wood using a program.
And it would follow,you know, follow the grid.
(40:01):
And I was like, we could probably do thatwith tattoo stencils in some way.
We could project the grid project thethe image within the grid.
And when I stretch the skin, it'll knowthe distance between the grid pieces
and it'll adapt the stencil thatjust turned out not to be true right now.
So even though it's frustratingnow, it's still going to happen.
Yeah, 100%.
Yeah. Eventually.
(40:22):
Like when Apple Vision Pro I went there,
you know, tried it on an Appleand I ended up buying it
just to find out like what the experiencewas like to think
about whether or not I could likeactually tattoo while looking through it.
Answer is no, I don't think so. Yeah.
It was it was quite heavy.
It was just I'm not taking you back.
(40:43):
You get 30 days to try it outso anyone can go.
If you want to buy yourself an AppleVision Pro, you can experience it.
But you know, the at the time,I was thinking, I gotta do this, it's R&D.
I gotta find out
if this is something that, you know,could help realize that future.
It probably can once, once they'reon their third, fourth, fifth generation.
And they fixed a lot of those problems.
(41:04):
But, you know, or maybe, you know,whatever Meta’s is coming out with next
or whatever,you know, someone else is gonna do, like,
you know, that that endless kind of like
cycle of innovation, it'salways going to keep happening.
So it's going to get smarter,lighter, faster, better.
Yeah. Cheaper. Right.
All those things were popping in.
Yeah. Followed probably if I these
(41:27):
you can
kind of imagine like whatthe ideal version of it would be is like,
I would never have to stencil anythingright on the skin.
I would just look at the skinand I would see
whatever stencil I needed to see,and it would always track
and it would never get glitchy and never,you know, I wouldn't start the outline.
I then it would move somewhere else,like it would just be perfect.
But and and if I wanted like yousaid, voice command.
(41:48):
Let me see it colored in again.
All right, take the color back away.
So now it's like, runa simulation of what happens.
If I had read that.
Yeah, in the hair.
You know, it's like,okay, here. Yeah, right in the hair.
And I guess I can probably do that.
Yeah.
I'm sure even if you, Covid disruptedus, or disrupted my project,
we just have never gotten backon our feet.
(42:10):
But, just the leaps and I, from 2019to today, I believe, because.
So I, I pitched this idea because I'malways thinking about tattooers.
It was a tattooers tool to meas we looked at raising money
for it, people were like,it needs to be for the end user.
So what about,you were saying a visualization tool?
What if someone could cyclethrough geometric designs
with their forearm projectingonto their arm, test different colors?
(42:33):
Maybe I could look at their skin tone andgive them a color palette recommendation.
They can social shareright there on the spot and say,
hey, should I get it here or here?
Should I get it? I'm at the studio.
I'm I'm in the consultation room.
Like, should I get it in red or blue?
And their friends can thumb it upor thumbs it down.
So that was their idea on how it wouldwork first and then evolved to my idea.
Yeah.
I think you got to if
(42:54):
you really want to make something viablefor the market for that much investment,
and it's got to appeal to a much wideraudience and people who are doing tattoos
for a living. Yeah.
You know,and so the next step is like people
who get tattoos,
you know, much, much more people, right?
You know, like, of coursewe think about that with tattoo smart.
(43:14):
Like,just like we created all this artwork,
you know,and it's currently our customers.
The tattoo artist is our versionwhere it makes sense, the customer becomes
the client.
Right? Right.
And but of course, we know as artistslike,
I know a lot of people who tattoojust heard what you were saying
a few minutes ago.
And I'm kind of cringingwhen I was thinking about, like, creating
(43:36):
this, like endless amount of indecisionin your clients, right?
Yeah, yeah,because that's probably what would happen.
Right?
Like if you give people these tools tolike, you know, even AI does this right.
And you just like kind of sit thereand like keep typing in words.
Instantly,seemingly amazing pictures show up.
You could never pick likeyou could never feel settle.
(43:56):
If this is the one. Right.
And I definitely think that's only goingto become more of an issue in the future
with this whole visualization.
It's like we're giving peopleall these tools to,
yeah, you know,be able to see a million options.
How are they ever going to pick one?Right?
Yeah, actually comes backprobably to just needing to have someone
or some kind of guide say,no, this is the best one, right.
(44:19):
And give them some certainty about.
Yeah, I think most clients don't even wanteven any of that
who just want the artist toto be confident.
Yeah.
That's, you know, one of the,
one of the big sayings that I hear a lotnow is the, would be
it's like the question is,you know, what?
Will AI replace me? Will AI take my job?
And it's like, the answer is, you know,AI probably won't take your job,
(44:41):
but as someone who knows how to useAI better
than you will definitely take your job,you know?
And so that's the type of relationshipthere.
It's like an artist who knows how to you.
Like, I'm not a fan of like askingMidjourney to make my tattoo designs,
but I'm certainly more than comfortableasking Midjourney
to give me dozens of pieces of referencethat I can, like, plop down on my screen
and use to draw from and still, like,translate it to my own, you know, voice.
(45:04):
I think that's actually
a much more effective way for me to designthan just in screenshotting
a bunch of Pinterest and Googleimages, for sure, you know? Yeah.
And so that's knowthat's the difference in like,
AI isn't going to do that,but AI is going to help me to do it. So.
Well. Yeah.
It means how do you give the human a tool
that helps themdo one part of their process
a little more efficientlyor a little faster?
If that human is passionateand as an artist,
(45:27):
they're going touse up all of that free time
to push some other part further, I think.
Yeah. You know, in theory.
So like the argument that this toolor that tool is just going
to make everybody lazy isn't true.
It's going to let some people continueto be lazy because they already are lazy.
And if there's a person who's not lazy,
(45:47):
they're going to take that extra level upand push even further.
So we all get to see potentiallya more interesting version
of tattooing because of that tool,whatever the tool.
Yeah, right.
And that's the same, you know, argumentI make for digital designers.
Right? Right, right.
Yeah.
You're going to sacrifice some, you know,
(46:07):
huge amounts of time that you otherwisewould have spent to do something.
You might not feel so good about itbecause it wasn't that hard to do.
Right.And there's definitely something to that.
Yeah.
If you want to be artist, are just proudof the effort that they make.
And quite frankly, the the audience
likes their art betterwhen they see that it's hard.
(46:28):
Sure.
You know, you just show someonea painting these days.
It could look like AI might have done it.
And that takes away the powerunless you show how hard it was.
Yeah.
So like artists nowadays
that are doing things the hard way,they're doing things with physical media
are going to benefit a lotfrom documenting how hard it was.
(46:49):
Right.
And making that documentationof the process
a piece of the presentation of the art.
Because otherwise people, you know,
especiallyif they're looking at it online,
they're not going to seethe brushstrokes or not.
You see the effort.
Yeah, we're seeing that so much more worklately as as social media
has moved to video and things like that.
(47:09):
And we're seeing so much of people'sprocesses, I think that's
I hadn't thought about why,but I think that's a great reason why.
It's like, hey, if you just saw the endresult, it could have been anything.
You know, it could have gotten therein ten minutes, you know?
No, a lot of the value comes from
how difficult it was to make it.
So. Yeah.
What craft is still alive?
Yeah. Yeah.
(47:31):
Impressed by it.
Still same here.
You, on on a slightly different topic.
And, I knowwe're going to get food in a few minutes,
so I'll find a wrap up point,but the, you've gone back to chat.
You went quite a few years,so that would do it.
Almost no tattooing at all, right?
I was tattooing one daya week or never slowed down some of that.
Sometimes I would travel and soit might be 2 or 3 weeks in between.
(47:53):
Yeah. A one day a week session. Right.
You know, I just got so busybetween running my studio
and what everything was going onwith Tattoo Smart a few years back,
it's reallyit reached, sort of the pinnacle.
You know,it was a company with six employees and
and a bunch of different,like, subcontractors, designers,
3D modelersand all these different things.
(48:15):
And I was
basically out there trying to figure outhow to become the CEO of, of a small
tech publishing company, you know,and I was doing
a lot of personal developmentand really thinking like, okay,
it doesn't really make sense for me toit makes sense for me to tattoo,
like the research and developmentside of it,
(48:35):
to stay connected to tattooing,to be able to think of the new ideas.
But it didn't make a lot of sense for meto be a tattoo a full time.
And it wasn't
in my back was hurting.
Yeah.
Every time I was sitting down to tattoo,I was having to with my shoulder blades
between my shoulder blades.
It was just miserable sometimes.
(48:57):
Yeah, I need to go fix that.
And. And you've done a lot.
You're a much better physical conditionthan you were in your tattooing before.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I lost a bunch ofweight and started going to the gym first.
I started just like two days a weekwith a personal trainer,
and these days I'm doing five days a weekand I'm like, actually, right.
Strength training.
I'm, you know.
Yeah, try and try not to hurt myself,but also just trying to,
(49:20):
you know, undo a lot of yearsof not taking care of my body.
Yeah. Trying to make sure that I at 45.
I'm building up muscleto and like as I grow older,
I start naturally losing muscle.
I think after you hit like 70 years oldor something, you start losing weight,
you know, 5% of muscleevery decade or something.
(49:41):
So it's you're, you know, if you build itup during this time in your life,
you have more to lose.
So you can be 80and still be able to walk up stairs.
Yeah. You know. Yeah.
You know, to lift a suitcase, you know,in the overhead bin on the airplane.
I still enjoy that time, right?
Yeah. Right. Right.
Well, what has what,if anything, like leaving
(50:03):
not not necessarily leaving tattooing,tattooing
one day a week as opposed to comingback. And like, you've made an effort.
I've seen it where you're like, hey,
I want to start some projects, you know,I want to do some new,
interesting, fun things.
So so you're having to first kind ofidentify like what's interesting and fun.
What do people expect out of mebased on what they saw ten years ago
or however long?
And what do I how much of thatdo I want to carry forward?
How has it impacted the shop, I guess,and the other artists with you being there
(50:27):
more, is that have been a net positiveor would you even know that?
Okay, I think so.
I mean, you know, to answer that question,I have a shop with 15 resident artists
and a lot of them have been and startedworking there during the period
where they were told fromthe very beginning, Russ is only here
every once in a while, you know,there were once before
(50:48):
that were more impacted by mecutting back right.
There's always going to be theI mean, it's not the same as it used to be
conversations.
And and I was really conscious of thatat the time when I was in.
It's basically creating a problem
in the culture in my shopbecause I needed to be there less.
And it was a problem for people that,you know, felt
(51:10):
that me being there was part of the reasonthat they wanted to be there.
And and so as new team members came on,
we just tried to be like really honestabout what they could expect of me.
And I show them all the time
the effort that I'm putting in frommy home, where I'm working on our website,
I'm working on our marketing,I'm working on our brand You know, we're
we have an active, WhatsApp groupwhere we're all communicating.
(51:34):
Right? Right. I have meetings with them.
You know, every few monthsI take each of them out
to breakfast or lunchand we just check in,
because even though the timesI am tattooing, I'm tattooing.
Right.
So there's not a lot of like backand forth time, so.
Right.
So what about you as far as the workthat you're trying to do, I'm
assuming you don't want to just like jumpright back into 3D geometry
(51:57):
and like, you know, and and work ona lot of the time you do want to.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Okay. Okay.
So yeah, 45 years old I feel like,
you know, ten more years is allI have to do.
Some body suits.
And so my dream is that some people outthere with no tattoos, wherever you are,
people with no tattoosor a few things that need to be covered up
(52:20):
or reworked or whatever, well,I love what I'm doing
and just want me to come createan entire body suit of cohesive tattoos.
I've had a few opportunities to do italong the way, you know that
didn't need that.
You know, no tattoos criteria.
That's like really rare.
That's rare.
You know, that that would be a dream.
(52:40):
But the kind of work I do. Yeah.
And full colorsometimes I do black and gray work, too,
but the kind of work I do, it,it takes a long time,
you know, a lot of timesit's really super intricate.
I wear a magnifying glasses and I.
I put some of the patterns in,but I also try
to keep other parts of it really simpleso that we can be more efficient.
We're talking about,
I mean, ultimately, like I think my workis architectural and ornamental.
(53:04):
So I mean, it can span centuries
of ornamental design the way thatthat you mentioned different cultures,
decorated buildingsand applying that to the human form.
So, yeah, you know, I use the scroll worka lot because it just helps navigate,
areas of the bodythat aren't good for linear designs.
(53:24):
So, you know, one of the,the main themes that you'll see,
especially in my recent work,I just did this like sleeve,
in that client's getting a second leg
in the same style,and it's just ornamental scrollwork.
And then the pattern that's happening isfrom Kumiko, It's a Japanese woodworking.
If you've ever seen in Japan,they, really carefully cut
(53:45):
pieces of wood into strips, and then theyarrange them into an isometric grid.
So they're like cutting out notchesand clicking them together.
Right.
And they create wooden panels or screens
and they can change the color of the wood.
And so it's not just that isometric gridthat's like the base grid.
And then within each of those triangleson the grid there's a different pattern.
(54:09):
And so I'm using the
patterns to create these geometricpatterns.
And, and I'm just applying color to itin a way that looks cool.
Yeah.
And do have stamp set for those patternsthat you're having to do.
I don'tI don't have a stamp set for them yet.
I do have my own private digital toolthat I use to to make
the design a little bit easier, butI haven't made it into, into a product.
(54:31):
I mean, in fact,I don't think anybody really cares.
Like, I'm like, what?
one of three peoplewho would even use it, so...
(garbled inaudible sounds from the stage)the loud content mic guy is starting,
I don't know if they can still hear us,
but I think that's that'sprobably a good sign to shut it down.
But yeah,
we need to talk about something elsethat is be in paradise next week together.
(54:54):
So maybe we can, take it back upif we want to take it back.
Oh, it's great talking to.
Yeah. You too.
Thank you guys for watchingwhat we do. We'll see you next time.
Hey, friends, welcome to the fireside.
We are back with another episodefrom this past year's Richmond
tattoo, an arts fest hosted by our friendJesse Smith.
And today's guest is another familiarface, Russ Abbott,
who is a good friend of the show,a good friend of mine.
We have had Russ on the show,
I don't know, quite a few timesnow over the years,
and it's always a fun conversation.
We talk about a lot of stuff,as always in this episode,
(00:22):
we talk a good bit about, tattooing the future of tattooing tattoo
technologies, including tattoo smart,his, online business where he sells
stamp sets and brushes for Procreateand Clip Studio and Photoshop
and all of those things mostly procreate.
These days, I believe we talk a good bitabout some of his competitors,
and, like always,it was a good conversation.
(00:43):
I had a good time. I hope thatyou enjoy it and get something out of it.
And, we'll see you at the end.
I didn't want to share what I
was going to ask on the front end at all,so found out that the surprise of me.
Which is a bummer.
But I do want to start with whatI just asked.
I'm curious.
(01:03):
So I've been around Tattoo Smartsince the very beginning.
In fact,I remember having a conversation with you
and you gave me the name Tattoo Smart,and at the time it sounded
like brush sets and I didn't fully wrapmy mind around what it was going to be.
And I thought, like,yeah, that sounds cool.
You know, I thought maybe it was like,
you know, like the Abbott colorwheel was like a thing that you sold.
That was a thing.
And then people bought itand then they used it,
(01:25):
and then you had to come up with somethingelse, you know, to sell, you know
that.
So that's, that's kindof what I was thinking at the time. Yeah.
And that's kind of what it wasbecause I was selling the Abbott
Color wheeland a few other little things products
I createdthat were for educational purposes
for Tattoo Artist on Ink and Daggerand my Tattoo Studios website.
So what, you know, any of our clientswould go to their website
(01:47):
and there would also bethese things that Russ does, but
and that's didn't make sense to me.
So I needed a new placeand Tattoo Smart was that place.
But of coursethen it became so much bigger, right.
Like I could yeah,it could be a marketplace
where other people who make digital toolscould sell them.
So that was kind of the the main thingwas just going to be all about
(02:08):
digital design for tattooing and whateverthings we could come up with.
You know, as technology progressed,we would be there to to serve that market.
Yeah, yeah, that started in 2016,2016, 2016
is also the year that the Apple Pencilcame out for the iPad.
Okay. Yeah.
And so there was just,you know, a lucky time
(02:31):
to create a platform like that,I don't guess I realize that okay.
So you like that.
So when you made those those like
do they weren't procreate
based necessarily because they werefor all or not at first at all.
Yeah.
I was using a Wacom Cintiq and creatorfor my designs and so and Clip Studio
studio was the softwareand the, the brushes and clip studio
(02:55):
I in a lot of ways are better,especially the repeater
brushes or ropes, chains, snake scales, all those.
So even back then I was exploring, like,what can we do?
Because there Clip studio was made for,Japanese manga.
And it's a really,really great set of software.
And it already had brushes
that did that type of stuff,but they weren't tattoo style.
(03:18):
And so I learned I just watch YouTubetutorials, and I learned
how to switch out the artwork in a brushand adjust
the settings to make it repeatand do the all the things.
And I just startedkind of playing with it, you know,
it was just, a lot of R&D, you know.
Oh, I wonder if I can do this. Oh.
You know, and so it's it felt likewe were always discovering something
(03:41):
that, you know, wasis heading towards something, right?
Something useful or, I could useor another tattoo artist could use.
Right. So
I've always kind of thought
that I just misunderstoodthe whole thing from the start.
I was thinking of brushes.
I remember, like the Cheyenneneedle groupings or things like that.
Was the idea of stamp setsand collaborating
(04:01):
with artists on your mind at that pointor that came later?
What was it like drawing tools?
Yeah, no,it was like the first set of products
that I thoughtwere going to be everyone's favorite.
And it turned outthat no, here were the digital palettes.
So because I'd already madethe Abbott of color wheel, which was
during that process,I figured out how to accurately sample
(04:23):
the color of tattoo inkand apply it to a color wheel.
So the color wheel had 200and do something colors organized on it.
And I was going to use
the same technology to createdigital palettes of other brands.
So the original lineup included fusion, eternally,
(04:43):
world famous new a few others.
Yeah.
And we got all the ink in the studio,which was nice.
We had like all this tattooingto play with,
but got all the inkand we sampled every color.
And we did all this,you know, got these fancy spreadsheets
and took the, the data from the colorand turned it into swatch files
(05:05):
that would work in Photoshopand work in Clip Studio.
And you just kind of import the file,and then you have all of the colors.
And I thought that that would be a hit.
Sure. You know, turned out it wasn't.
And therefore a lot of people that wantedto, to work in that way,
you know, to to paint their tattoo designswith accurate colors.
(05:27):
Yeah.
And so and sometimes it'sjust a matter of like being
almost like a stepping stone in technologybecause now you can,
you know,
now you can like bring in a photographor an illustration in, like, matte like,
like drag and drop of that full colorpalette, like create a full color palette
from a photograph. Right?
Which is obviously super cool.
It may not be mapped necessarily toa tattoo pigment, but the color is there.
(05:50):
And so probably if something likethat had already existed,
you would have been less likelyto put the effort
into creating the color palette, right?
I mean, maybe not. Maybe you justreally thought people would,
I don't know.
Yeah.
So a lot of times it's just like throwingas many hooks into the water.
Yeah, as you can and seeing which onethey bite on.
And that was, that was a good example of,you know, something that I like
(06:13):
definitely overinvested in that,you know, eventually
I just pulled them off the site becausethey were just kind of taking up space
and people didn't seem to be interested.
I also didn't want to keep supporting the,cause set new colors
coming out from all these companies.
So they were getting help needed, right.
That the other projects. Yeah.
So yeah, I would imagine otherwise
it's difficult to, to put so much timeand work into something and go.
(06:36):
And then I mean, it's one thing to say,okay, it's not performing
the way that I had hopedand make excuses for yourself.
But when you finally come to terms with
and you're like, I was pulling it downwhere it's not available anymore,
that's like a real recognition of yourselfthat it's a failure, you know?
Yeah.
That's it.
Yeah.There have been a few of those. Right.
So, so that that is even my startingquestion we haven't even gotten to yet
what I've noticed overthe last months or year
(06:59):
or so is that I'm, you know,
half of my Instagram feed is sponsored,are things that they think I might like.
It's not even people that I care to seenecessarily, but I see all of these,
I don't have any names to throw out,but essentially it will be like
25,000 procreate brushes for $9.99.
(07:20):
Or maybe their stamp sets as well.
I don't click,I don't go into it to see what they are.
Yeah, but I guess I think about you a lot
whenever I see that because I'm just like,shit, how do you like, how do you
like people are only paying attentionfor a second, right?
And you just have a little squarethat they're paying to get your point
across and like,how do you separate what you're doing?
(07:40):
First off,
if you're if you're separate,what you're doing from
what those are doing would be helpfulfor people who are paying attention.
And then second, like,
how do you separate yourselfand grab people's attention so they know
in a short period of timethey're like, hey,
these two, we're not comparingapples and apples right here.
Yeah, I don't know.
I mean, like first off, like,what are those companies?
Right.
Because they'rethey're not run by a tattoo artists.
(08:03):
Right.
You can't like they might say somethinglike for artist by artist or something.
But when you when I've really dugin I'm like, I don't know who this is.
And, and also when I see the productthat they're putting out, it's
very, very obvious.
You know, either it's AI generated stuffor it's,
stuff that they just stolefrom the internet and compiled it.
(08:24):
And, you know,I actually had one a couple of years ago.
I saw one of ourproduct images on there AD.
And, this obviously is a problem, right?
You know, we pay a lot of money and workvery hard to create these products.
And, and so I, I went to their websiteand I found the contact.
(08:48):
I reached out to them and I said, hey,you know,
you've got our work on your website,like what's going on?
And I think they basically were like,I'm so sorry.
We're just teenagersin this other country.
And we wanted to have a business.
(09:09):
And we hired we paid like $500 to thisother group of teenagers
and to make our websiteand like our, our product
and this is what they did. Wow.
We'll take it down immediately.
So sorry I got you. I'm really like,
okay.
So I think they did.
(09:30):
I a little bit. It's.
Yeah, I guess I didn't,but I never saw the ad again.
There.
Some of these companies are,
you know, obviously,
outsiders from tattooing,you know, who are looking at let's
what's the thing that I can generate some,you know, side hustle money on.
(09:52):
Let's see if this works.
Let's do this. Let's do that. Right.
And so it there's,there's not any of the things that we do.
I'm like, you know, I've builtrelationships in tattooing, right.
Like I go outand I source artwork from people
who are experts in the subject matter,in the style that they're working in.
And then we work togetherand they work really hard.
(10:14):
We work really hard.
We compensate them really well. And,
you know,
there's an obvious differencein what the experience
of working with something that we madeis compared to that,
you know, the the problem,I guess, that I see is
just the way peoplecome along to tattooing.
And, you know, there's so many thingsthat at the beginning
(10:36):
of the career that they might thinkthey need to invest in.
And if, you know,
buying a set of tattoo stampbrushes is on that list,
you know how many of those shitty onesthat he encountered before,
they just kind of go, that's dumb.
Yeah, it's not worth it.
Like, I shouldn't bother with, you know?
But we used to bethe only company doing this.
(10:57):
Now there's several others
that are run by tattoo artists, you know, putting out quality stuff,
and there's a whole bunch of stuffon Etsy
so much, you know, and, like, so,like the Google search is flooding, right?
Like if you type in procreatetattoo brushes,
you know, we used to be the only ones.
Now we're just one of many, right.
(11:17):
And so that's just the waythat the way that it goes.
Right.
The only, only thing that can happenis that market becomes more watered down
with competitors.
So yeah, you know,it's just about like let's use
we're still focusing
on what we can doand like what we want to do.
And you know, trying to trying to help,
(11:40):
you know, educate people about why this even a
for me, it's always
just been about getting to that nextfuture.
Like being prepared to help to bringsomething more interesting to tattooing.
It hasn't really been about like,oh, I'm so excited about,
you know, flash stamp brushes.
(12:00):
That wasn't even my original intent with
the company is justwhat tattoo artist seem to want to buy.
Yeah.
You know, so in order to keep the lightson, I'm actually keep doing it.
And along the way, you know,
I'm really started to enjoy it,you know, like, it's starting to look like
this is going to be a giant library
(12:21):
of really, really well drawn tattoo flash,
that, you know,I've curated the entire time.
So it's already got,
you know, like when you look at the sitelike there's so many now.
Yeah. You know, I think there'sstill room for so many more.
And I'm excited to keep working.
We do, like one product a month,you know, at most maybe two.
(12:42):
Right. So I think the pace has slowedfrom what it used to be.
But you know, it's it'sit's still something I'm working on.
You know, you're always thinking
I think about like how people interpretthings, how they are like trying to like
gauge your
audience, you know, and,and that is even,
you know, the language that they speakand all that kind of thing.
So with that in mind that you,that you are doing something
(13:05):
completely different than somethingthat's either
generated by teenagers in another countryor AI or whatever.
Do you have any,any like way that you are trying to,
grab attention, separate yourselfin whether through social media,
through your email campaigns, through yourlike just how you interact with people.
Is there any way to to separate yourselfin a, in a flash,
(13:27):
or do you have to depend just on kindof the original grassroots, boots
on the ground effort of like, well,these people, know tattoo smart
I'm going to keep putting out great stuffand keep hoping that they'll share it.
Not physically share the fileswith their friends, but share the,
but share the word with their friends.
So like, I yeah, this is it like that.
This is like,
these are legit, you know, tattooersthat are making these things and you know.
(13:49):
Yeah. Right. Yeah.
So I mean,you know, there there was always the,
you know, like the bootlegger
guy, like, come into your shopto sell your flash and you're like,
you knew it wasn't, you know, actuallymade by that person because you know him.
Yeah, yeah.
And, but you know, thatthat ethos in that ethic, you know, is
(14:11):
still in the minds of a lot of peoplewho have been tattooing a long time.
But I don't think it's reallythat prevalent,
you know, in the new generationand, newer generations.
Right.
But yeah, you know, I, you know,how we got to talking about that?
It was like one little pieceof what you asked me, but the, the
the fact is like, yeah, you canyou can share our product.
(14:33):
We can airdrop it straightout of procreate to all your friends.
You know, we we know it happens.
You know,we hope it happens in, like, a 1 to 1
kind of thing where, you know, insteadof, like, you know, everyone,
you know, gathering 100 peopleat a convention, you're just like,
you're dropping it out there,but because, I mean, like,
look, I mean, obviously,you know, I'm working very hard.
(14:56):
My team is working very hard.
The artists that we're working withare working very hard
to put something out there, and we hopethat people are gonna value it.
And, you know, it'll make sense for themto pay what we're asking.
We actually do have a, ten daymoney back,
100% satisfaction guarantee.
Right.
Like, yeah,
I don't think a lot of people know that,but you can purchase something from us,
(15:20):
and if you don't like it,you can just let us know you don't like it
and you can't give it back to usbecause you've already got it right.
And you can still give itto 100 of our friends.
And we'll give you your money right?
So yeah, that's my answer to it.
It's likeif if you bought something from us
and you thought it was so terrible
that you wanted to cause damage to us
(15:42):
by putting it out there and having thatnext person put it out there again?
Share, Share, Share, Share, Share,If that's the way that you feel about
what we gave you or what we whatwe sold to you,
then, you know, I,I guess we did a bad job.
You know, that's kind of a riskI gotta take.
But, yeah, you can come backand you can get your money back.
(16:03):
It's it's.
Can I do a few times a week?
You know, it'snot it's not hundreds. Not maybe
this can be the reason, right?
Like all of a sudden, you know,tattoo smarts gonna be ruined, you know.
Yeah.
But look, you can do that.
And, sometimes people do.
And when they do, it's an opportunityfor us to say, you know,
curious, like, what was it?
(16:23):
You know, what was it thathow did we not meet your expectations?
And a lot of times it's just it wasn't what I thought it was, you know,
like, based on what you were ableto show me before I bought it,
like, it didn't really didn'treally tick the right boxes.
We can learn from that.
Sure. And learn from that conversation.
Yeah.
And I guess at some point you have tolike, for your own peace of mind.
(16:44):
You have to eitherfind a way to fight that
sharing kind of thing tooth and nail,and figure out a way to stop it.
Or the farother extreme is what you’ve done.
If you just like come to terms with likenot only do we know you can take it,
but it's like you can take itand we'll just pay you back
if you're that like
it's kind of the way to say,like if you're that big of a shithead,
we'll just give it back to youand you can just live with yourself.
(17:04):
It's kind of unheard of.
I don't know if any of our competitors doit. I've never heard you say that.
You've done that. No, I don't know.
Yeah, we've been doing itfor, like, a year now.
Yeah, it says it, you know,it says it in multiple places
where you purchase and it says itlike even in the email saying exactly.
Yeah.
You know, we have,you know, support at tattoo smart.com.
You know,
(17:24):
my, my coworker
Sara is in that inbox every day,unless it's the weekend,
and she's the one that has to figure out,like, how to get your money back
or how to help you fix your passwordor whatever it ever is going on.
So, yeah,I mean, yeah, it's human support.
It's not, you know, some data centerin some other country.
You know,it's like it's a small, small company.
(17:47):
Right.And it and I think it's a lot of fun.
Yeah.
And I think it was awhen you and you hit on it
that you know, you put a lot of timeand effort in and your team.
But then also the artist that createsthe stuff if you are an artist, which
I guess if you're buying brush setsor stamps that you are,
you know, just just the idea that you'retaking advantage of an artist
who took the time to create the,you know, the stamp set, and then go,
(18:10):
yeah, it truly is that I mean, it'sit would be very similar to,
you know, like making copies on The flashthat they sold you and,
you know, give them to all your friends.
It's it's probably worse than thatbecause it takes the time and effort
to make a copy like AirDrop is amazing,but there's nothing we can do about it.
I mean, it's a featurethat procreate built in
(18:30):
well into their app, and until procreatedecides to unbuild that feature.
Yeah. You know, that'sjust what it is, right?
You mentioned a minute agothe kind of the you've
you started Tattoo Smart with the ideaand and the color wheel.
Everything with the idea of that justcontinue to evolve as a creator of things
for the tattoo world, at least mostlyfor the tattoo world, I guess.
(18:53):
So what
I think that that's, my, my coachDan, says like,
when people have complaints about people,you know, biting stuff off of them,
we've got the same thing with Fire Side,you know, for years,
that where people are either, like,physically copying, downloading, re
uploading and monetizing our videos,which was happening
(19:14):
from some Russian outfita while back, was pretty crazy,
getting a lot of views like marketing itand stuff like that. Getting paid.
And then, like, man, like,you know, I was like, can we hire you?
Sometimes that might be the right idea.
Right?
But, but my coach, Dan says, like,you know, no one can copy.
The next thing you know,they can always get a copy
of the current daywhen no one can copy the next thing.
(19:35):
So we're always focused on the next thing,and that's the way that you kind of
keep your vibe straightwhen it comes to that type of thing. So.
Yeah.
So what what is that been lately for you?
The next thing for Tattoo
Smart, it's been the,the, 3D models that work in procreate.
Yeah. So we have this whole line.
They're called model humans.
They're 3D body parts.
(19:55):
They're, you know, there's entire people.
There's like eight different characters.
They all have names.
Yeah.
And, they're all different body types.
All right, so there's four differentfemales for different males.
You've got an athletic build,an obese build, a thin build.
And somewhere in the middle and
then we
also recently put outkind of a giant pack of just alternatives
(20:17):
or alternatives for sleeves and, arm sleeves, like sleeves, torso.
So just kind of like we didn't,we didn't really want to like, overdo it
because we want to do every single bodytype with all of these options
was just a unbelievably huge investmentin every way.
So but I did see opportunities to improve,or to give more options.
(20:40):
People were asking for more optionsfor where the seam is cut on the sleeve,
for example.
Yeah, like for example, on the arm sleeves
where the seam is cut,like where if you unwrap a human arm,
like where is the seam.
Because with all 3D models,
the best way to work on them is actuallyworking on the flattened out part.
Or, you know, not.
(21:00):
You can sketch on the modeland you can kind of get your layout,
and then you flatten it out into two more,and then you can see your sketch
on a flattened out version of an armand so on.
The original model humans,the seam for the arm runs straight down
the middle of the inner arm.
So it's the down here.
And unfortunately, youknow, that wasn't what everyone wanted.
(21:23):
Sometimes people wanted to really easilyput their artwork
on the inner arm,so we needed to make variations.
And, you know, in the advanced,they're called model humans,
advanced 3D body, for instance,what the the newest sets are.
And that's the one that has likea whole lot of options
for different sleeves and legs.
And that's pretty much the one I wouldrecommend anyone get to start with.
(21:47):
Yeah.
If you're just getting into model humans,
I don't know if you have any idea,like what the purpose of them is or why
anyone would.
Yeah, I, I have an idea.
I've never used them myself.
I have your earlier versions, the photo classes that what they were called.
So protoplasm was the images, images of, 3D models.
Yeah.
You can use as stampsand those are still really popular.
(22:10):
Yeah, I love those.I still use them for, for layout.
If I don't have great photos of the clientor if I'm presenting an idea that I
if the clients out of town or somethinglike that, you know, like online is great
for that kind of stuff.
I really like them.
And and like you're saying,I assume somewhat to model humans.
There are enough variations
of body types where I can like,I usually will like try to get an idea,
like, let's say I did a zoom conversationfor our consultation, but I don't have
(22:33):
I haven't met them in personjust based on their appearance.
I'll try to get an ideaof what their body type is,
and then I'll back off the body typewhenever I choose it.
So that's like a little more attractive.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.
So that brings up a funny thing.
So, you know,we had to go through this whole process
of thinking about this, like how do wehow do we represent, you know,
a giant range of possiblehuman body types in a range.
(22:57):
So we we started with three,you know, it was like the
kind of workout physique, you
know, the kind of like, thin personin the obese person.
Right.
And then we were like, was it forI can't remember.
I think it wasI think it was four to start.
And then we just added Norman Normal,which makes it
maybe it's a total of ten model.
(23:18):
There is result. Okay.
So Norman Norman were name because theyare the normal body type thing right.
There's like a little potbelly
you know, like Norm's arms are kind ofkind of not that muscular, right?
You know, he's just, like,kind of every man,
and then, but if you look at,
you know, what are people actually buying?
(23:39):
Right.
Your, your two most fit women
and your muscle guy, Ryan,really are the most popular choices.
And why do you do these?
Yeah, ones are the least popular.
Yeah.And and I'm thinking about like. Right.
I mean that tracks right like to humanity.
But the, the thing aboutit is like you just pointed out,
(24:03):
like if we're going to look at our client
and then select the 3D modelthat we think is the closest to them,
put our art on, put our design on it,and then show it back to them.
What's that gonna
feel like for anyone who's like, oh,
right, that's the one you picked.
So it's like, yes, you know,and it could be like
(24:24):
like people have all kinds of hangupsabout their bodies, right? Like what?
What is the guy you picked to represent?
Your client was too skinny, right?
And he's like, oh, man,he thinks I'm skinny.
Yeah.
So I, I don't know, like maybe,maybe it just makes sense
to only put our designson the most athletic, like,
you know, steroid jacked guy and like,yeah, I guess like, yeah.
(24:47):
And I guess it's a use case thingbecause, like, if I'm designing,
if I'm doing want to do designsand I'm like trying to sell back pieces
or bodysuits or whatever big tattoosthat like, fit the body nicely.
I probably want to put them on the bestlooking figure.
So it's like, hey,this could be you, you know?
But if you're using it like I like,I am where I just don't, you know, you ask
someone who's out of town, who's flying,have you get tattooed to send you photos.
(25:10):
And it's like selfies in the mirrorwith a glare of their leg and you're like,
I'll just figure it out, you know?
And then I'm using it as a toolrather than that.
They're both used as tools,but you know what I mean?
I'm using it as a tool for myself to like,all right, this is close to them,
and I want it to be flattering enough,but, you know, when they get it back. So.
Yeah. Yeah.
I mean, all those
all those thoughtswere going through our minds
as we were working through this processand like, how do we make this
(25:33):
actually useful?
The 3D models are mostly just usefulfor people
who were doing full sleeves, full legsleeves, full back pieces for torsos.
Yeah, that's where I really think likethis workflow makes a lot of sense because
it's obviously,you know, difficult when you're laying out
a full sleeve on a flat piece of paperand we've all figured out ways to do it.
(25:56):
We've all got a process,
but with something like this, I'mable to really, really mess around with
how the elementsfit on the arm or the legs,
and I come up with some,I hope you know, more
interesting compositions,because I have this tool here. And
the second part to that is where you canjust do like basic sketching on this.
(26:19):
If you want,
you can draw directly on the 3D model,and then you can flatten it out into 2D,
and you can export that 2D as your baselayer.
You base sketch in a regular procreatefile. Okay.
And you can just make it as detailed andfully developed and rendered as you want.
And then
you can take that back to the 3D modeland map it back on to the body part.
(26:41):
And I think that's the workflowthat most people miss.
They try to do all the rendering directlyon the model or,
you know, some kind of kind of waythat just doesn't work as well.
It's a little bit uncomfortable.
So yeah, you know, that's why I'm actuallyteaching a workshop here at the,
the Richmond Convention in Paradisenext week because it's I've found that,
you know, we try to make videosabout how to do this, and
(27:03):
I tried to show people in as many waysas we can, like how to think about it.
But yeah, it's just a lot of peopleneed a hands on kind of like
step by stepkind of do it yourself workshop.
So I'm, I'm hoping that people will attendthat.
And, you know,maybe I'll get a little bit better
at teaching other peoplehow to apply this tool.
(27:23):
Yeah.
I think saying things outloud in front of people,
too, is like the best way to learnif you're saying it right,
if it's if it's getting across,you know, like
it's one thing to make a video, make itsuper polished and give instructions,
you know, on your website before or do itwhen they download or whatever.
But when you say thingsto a group of people
and you're looking at their faces,you can tell I didn't land on any of them.
(27:44):
You're like,all right, I'm saying that wrong. Yeah.
For sure.
It's really helpful.
I think one thing about that,that workflow
that you just went through that
so that could be so usefulto so many people, especially people
who are just getting into large scaletattooing,
is, you know, howwell you always can tell,
you know, the differencebetween what I think is a really well
designed, sleeve, for example,as opposed to a beginner sleeve.
(28:06):
It's just like,look at the tricep in the back of the arm
and see where stuff comes togetherand see if people just end up with a lot.
Like, a lot of times it's, you know,you're designing a few main elements
that sit on the areasthat you think about first,
and then you get to a pointwhere you have it, oh, shit.
And I'm like,you're like, I'm just going to like,
but when this into thatand you'll end up with this kind of like
area of
a tattoo where there's just nothingcool to look at, you know,
(28:28):
and I think that I fought with thata long time to.
So, I mean, I thought was that a long timeto and I make a point
now to think to think about like,no matter what
angle of view or experiences this tattoo,I want there to be something
that grabs that attention that, that,you know. Yeah.
And so that that workflow
where you're drawing it flat, but thenyou wrap it back on, you're like, oh shit.
Like that actually doesn't sit well.I thought it would.
(28:50):
I need to scoot that.
Yeah, a little bit. Yeah.
I think it's a switching from 3Dto 2D a lot during this sketch process
is nice because, you know, there'sthis sort of distortion that happens
when you take a flat image and you wrap itaround a cylindrical body part.
Right.
And it's really hard to predictwhen you're only drawing flat.
So once you get into working in this way,you've kind of already problem solved.
(29:13):
A lot of things that you would have hadto do when the client got there in person.
After you printed out this giant stenciland taped all the pieces together,
and you think you got it,
and you got a stencil and you're like,holy shit!
Like, yeah, that didn't work out.
Like I thought it would.
This helps fix that. Yeah. Yeah.
Well what I okay.
So that's, that's, the thing that you'reworking right now in procreate.
(29:34):
before we leave that subject,we've talked over the years, I know,
and I've, was thinking about itwhen I, when I was working on a product
that was called Digital Skinwith Shaun Belina and with another person
that it was like a projectionmapping type of thing
of, actuallymapping the physical client's body.
And I don't know if we ever talkedabout that
(29:55):
without the Huntsvilleand went into one of these. Yeah.
It's essentially like, a little spherethat they would like photograph
you in the round. And then they could likeit was they were printing you.
They were like making a 3D modelof one of those made myself like,
oh, six years agoat that exact experience.
Oh, cool.
Yeah.
So I when I as they were doing that,I was like, oh I wonder if we could like,
you know,
(30:15):
like essentially do the model humansbut with the, with the human
that you're tattooing.
Yeah. You couldand so we're standing in a,
a cylinder of cameras, I don't know,there's like 100 cameras
and they're all connected to a very,very expensive computer.
All of them take a picture at one time,and then that computer in the software
(30:36):
turn all of those photos into a 3D model.
And so that's how that works.That's called,
well, a version of it's called PhotoGrammatry Yeah, it might be true.
Someone out there is going to be like,no, that's not photo grammatry.
I'm pretty sure that's what it's called,like stitching a bunch of photos.
Now there's apps that do that.
You know, there's appsthat you can walk around anything,
(30:58):
a person in a scene
and take a bunch of pictures,and then they'll
shoot them up to the cloudand will send you that model and yes,
you could use thatto get a 3D model of the client.
The issue that I've found withit is that it's not to scale.
Right.
It's it's just a model.
(31:18):
It doesn't know how big or small it is.
And, that may or may not be a problem,but I think the ultimate solution,
the one that I feel like I'm waitingfor, is the one where we can
just pull out our smartphoneand it's got everything it needs
to create a scaled model of our clientwithout a lot of extra work.
Right.
(31:38):
So someone has to build an appor an interface that knows
this is for tattoo design.This is a human.
We're going to eventuallybe designing a tattoo on them.
And so it needs to be exportedin this very specific way.
And right nowall of those things are possible.
And I think that peoplewho have been doing it on just one
(31:58):
call, Thomas Sinnamond
out of,Seattle, has been he's a tattoo artist
and he's been scanning people,and he ended up
figuring out how to do itwith, like, a handheld scanning device.
It's very expensive,20, $30,000 or something.
He's invested in this processand he actually teaches workshops on it.
So there's anyone listening to this
who wants to learn how they can right now,with that amount of investment,
(32:22):
you the process where they can scantheir clients
he's doing is really impressive.
Because, you know, of course,what I'm waiting for
is it to become easier, accessible,right.
Like, if you look at,
the adoption of digital designis tattooing, right?
Like, I was doing it before the iPad
(32:42):
Apple Pencil came outand it was a bigger investment.
You got to learn more complicatedsoftware.
You had to just kind of take a leapand spend a few thousand dollars
to buy all this gear.
And then the iPad came along,and then once.
All right.And that's when the shift happens.
Even still,you know, we're still at a place
where there's still a few tattoo artistsout there that don't work digitally, which
(33:05):
but we've seen a massive shift.
And so I guess it's possiblethere's some future state
where the tattooing processalways starts with capturing,
where you scan a client you're working oninto some kind of 3D space, right?
So always be people don't want that. But
that's a beautiful thing.
Well, look yeahwe're seeing it already like,
(33:27):
yeah I think we're going to expectmore in the future.
And well what I meanis we're seeing visualizations
of what a product or service will be likebefore we buy.
Right?
I always use the example of rugs.com.
You can go to rugs.com.
You can upload a pictureof your living room with your sofa
or coffee tableand all of your things, and very quickly
(33:51):
put that out on their websiteinto that space in perspective.
And it looks like it belongs
there.
That experience makes you more confidentthat that's the right rug for you, right?
You know, and they're doing that nowwith eyeglasses.
You can buy glasses online.
You can see them on your faceand move your head.
They move. You know that's all possible.
(34:12):
And at a certain point in the future,we're doing that with every new clothing
article we buy.
We're getting, you know, pants and shirtsthat fit us because we scan ourself
really quickly with a map.
And I was able to figure outwhat the right size was for us.
So of course, customers in the future
are going to expect to see what is thistattoo going to look like on the
(34:35):
right.
And there's going to be some tattoo artistthat realized that that opportunity
and wanted to want to take it onand give them that are some people like me
that want to do that now.
And we are doing it now,you know, through all kinds of other ways.
But I'm not currently.
I'm not like Thomas Sinnamond.
I haven't gone outand invested in this 3D scanner.
So I just use like surrogatesor I use Tattoo Smarts model humans.
(34:58):
And we have a bunch of different bodytypes.
We can adjust the skin toneor closely match the client,
and we put the designonto a 3D model of the client
when it's something that they need
or something that it's eithersomething I need, like I want it
for my own design process,and then I'll just share it with them.
Yeah, hopefully they'll be delighted.
And in some cases there'sclients out there who like you value see.
(35:22):
Sure. Yeah, yeah.
It's funny that and most likely thatthat process will come, you know,
a tattooing will probably adopt itfrom larger industries.
Those technologies, like with clothingand glasses, we're already already seeing
that they'll solve the bigger problems ofwhat is it like as far as I know?
Like there's there's not anyonewho's more interested in seeing this
(35:43):
come to tattooing than me. Right.
And I've been interested in this ideaof since probably 2014 and 2015,
when I kept thinking,oh, we're right around the corner.
We're going to have that soon, andI want to be the one to make it happen.
Yeah.
You know, I want to usher in that futurethat I imagine and,
you know, all this time,
all those attempts that I've made to tryto figure out, is it possible now,
(36:04):
you know, and and seeing how it ispossible also,
the system has made me realize that, like,
you know, the wayit'll probably come off the back
of innovation in fashion.
Fashion in medical.
Right?
Because, you know,you're you're trying to make, or,
you know, obviously,I mean, any other like, giant
(36:26):
pillar of industry will solve the problem.
So many of the problems around this enough
to where the tattoo use casewill become obvious.
Yeah. It'll just be like, oh, okay.
We just have to like,you know, take this and tweak it.
Just tiny.
Yeah, yeah.
There's a great,I'll forget what it's called, but but,
(36:47):
Peter Diamandes is a thing that he callslike the Five D's or the Seven d’s.
I don't know what they are, but it's abouthow the technology moves and the D's.
I might be wrong on the order,but it's like, first, they are deceptive.
Like, that doesn't really mean anything.
It's not going to make any difference.
Then it becomes disruptive.
And then eventuallyit becomes, demonitized
So you're saying that it's ThomasSinnamond is spending 20 grand,
(37:09):
and eventuallyyou'll be able to do with your iPhone.
So think about like,the cost of taking photographs
when you first started tattooing versusthe cost of taking photographs
today, you know, and then, so that's a disruptive, disruptive,
but, the, demonetized and democratized
because what's demonetizedbasically becomes accessible to everyone.
I might be missing another one,but here's a great explanation
(37:32):
for how that works.
And he can show you dozens and dozensof technologies that follow those days
really specifically.
So it's fun to, like,see where things might be in the realm.
You know, when you identify a technology like in so many things
that we thought we were goingjust about to have, right.
Like, over the last couple of years,it's been, what do you call it, like VR.
(37:53):
Right?
Like meta investing so heavily in VR,you know, now Apple's got their thing.
It's it's kind of a flop,you know, like all these really,
really smart people at allthese really amazing companies
come back that think now'sthe time to go and invest in this thing.
And then it doesn't work. For now.
They're like, okay, well over on it,
maybe it's going to be another five yearsand it's going to be another time.
Yeah. And or maybe never.
(38:15):
But you know,it's really hard to imagine never.
But it's.
Yeah, tattooing is going to change.
You know.
No, it just is, of course it is, right.
Like that.
People who get tattoos in the futureare going to interact with my tattooing
in a totally different way.
And, you and I will probably thinkit's dumb.
(38:38):
That's just what keeps happening, right?
Like there was a you and I 50 years ago.
And I think what we do now is done like,
sorry, but they were innovatorsin their own time.
Sure.
Yeah. Yeah. I think that,
I think that's true.
I think it is fun to kind of seewhere it's at least for your own.
Like,peace of mind to be able to think about.
(38:59):
Well, this is frustrating to me.
Like, for example,Digital Skin was something I don't know
that I've talked about a lot on here,but the idea, that we invested
a lot of time, into was, was projectionmapping, slash AR stenciling.
So essentially if you had
layers in Photoshop, you had a photo layerand a line layer and the shading layer,
you could cycle through layerswith voice commands.
(39:20):
So you can say like, show me that you
I say, you're doing a portrait,send me the photo, drop into 40% opacity.
Show me the line overlay.
Okay, I got it.
You know, like then you're doing all thatlive on the skin
and you can seeall of the individual pieces of the puzzle
that I was thinking of existindependent of each other, you know?
So all of those things are true.They happen.
They just don't happen on the skinwhile you're stretching the skin.
(39:41):
So there were enough piecesthat didn't work right.
For example, there's some issue withgeometry where there were three points.
And I started thinking about itbecause I saw a, a router,
a handheld router that was essentially a Cand C, like you could make it
a C and C by laying this grid tape overthe piece of wood using a program.
And it would follow,you know, follow the grid.
(40:01):
And I was like, we could probably do thatwith tattoo stencils in some way.
We could project the grid project thethe image within the grid.
And when I stretch the skin, it'll knowthe distance between the grid pieces
and it'll adapt the stencil thatjust turned out not to be true right now.
So even though it's frustratingnow, it's still going to happen.
Yeah, 100%.
Yeah. Eventually.
(40:22):
Like when Apple Vision Pro I went there,
you know, tried it on an Appleand I ended up buying it
just to find out like what the experiencewas like to think
about whether or not I could likeactually tattoo while looking through it.
Answer is no, I don't think so. Yeah.
It was it was quite heavy.
It was just I'm not taking you back.
(40:43):
You get 30 days to try it outso anyone can go.
If you want to buy yourself an AppleVision Pro, you can experience it.
But you know, the at the time,I was thinking, I gotta do this, it's R&D.
I gotta find out
if this is something that, you know,could help realize that future.
It probably can once, once they'reon their third, fourth, fifth generation.
And they fixed a lot of those problems.
(41:04):
But, you know, or maybe, you know,whatever Meta’s is coming out with next
or whatever,you know, someone else is gonna do, like,
you know, that that endless kind of like
cycle of innovation, it'salways going to keep happening.
So it's going to get smarter,lighter, faster, better.
Yeah. Cheaper. Right.
All those things were popping in.
Yeah. Followed probably if I these
(41:27):
you can
kind of imagine like whatthe ideal version of it would be is like,
I would never have to stencil anythingright on the skin.
I would just look at the skinand I would see
whatever stencil I needed to see,and it would always track
and it would never get glitchy and never,you know, I wouldn't start the outline.
I then it would move somewhere else,like it would just be perfect.
But and and if I wanted like yousaid, voice command.
(41:48):
Let me see it colored in again.
All right, take the color back away.
So now it's like, runa simulation of what happens.
If I had read that.
Yeah, in the hair.
You know, it's like,okay, here. Yeah, right in the hair.
And I guess I can probably do that.
Yeah.
I'm sure even if you, Covid disruptedus, or disrupted my project,
we just have never gotten backon our feet.
(42:10):
But, just the leaps and I, from 2019to today, I believe, because.
So I, I pitched this idea because I'malways thinking about tattooers.
It was a tattooers tool to meas we looked at raising money
for it, people were like,it needs to be for the end user.
So what about,you were saying a visualization tool?
What if someone could cyclethrough geometric designs
with their forearm projectingonto their arm, test different colors?
(42:33):
Maybe I could look at their skin tone andgive them a color palette recommendation.
They can social shareright there on the spot and say,
hey, should I get it here or here?
Should I get it? I'm at the studio.
I'm I'm in the consultation room.
Like, should I get it in red or blue?
And their friends can thumb it upor thumbs it down.
So that was their idea on how it wouldwork first and then evolved to my idea.
Yeah.
I think you got to if
(42:54):
you really want to make something viablefor the market for that much investment,
and it's got to appeal to a much wideraudience and people who are doing tattoos
for a living. Yeah.
You know,and so the next step is like people
who get tattoos,
you know, much, much more people, right?
You know, like, of coursewe think about that with tattoo smart.
(43:14):
Like,just like we created all this artwork,
you know,and it's currently our customers.
The tattoo artist is our versionwhere it makes sense, the customer becomes
the client.
Right? Right.
And but of course, we know as artistslike,
I know a lot of people who tattoojust heard what you were saying
a few minutes ago.
And I'm kind of cringingwhen I was thinking about, like, creating
(43:36):
this, like endless amount of indecisionin your clients, right?
Yeah, yeah,because that's probably what would happen.
Right?
Like if you give people these tools tolike, you know, even AI does this right.
And you just like kind of sit thereand like keep typing in words.
Instantly,seemingly amazing pictures show up.
You could never pick likeyou could never feel settle.
(43:56):
If this is the one. Right.
And I definitely think that's only goingto become more of an issue in the future
with this whole visualization.
It's like we're giving peopleall these tools to,
yeah, you know,be able to see a million options.
How are they ever going to pick one?Right?
Yeah, actually comes backprobably to just needing to have someone
or some kind of guide say,no, this is the best one, right.
(44:19):
And give them some certainty about.
Yeah, I think most clients don't even wanteven any of that
who just want the artist toto be confident.
Yeah.
That's, you know, one of the,
one of the big sayings that I hear a lotnow is the, would be
it's like the question is,you know, what?
Will AI replace me? Will AI take my job?
And it's like, the answer is, you know,AI probably won't take your job,
(44:41):
but as someone who knows how to useAI better
than you will definitely take your job,you know?
And so that's the type of relationshipthere.
It's like an artist who knows how to you.
Like, I'm not a fan of like askingMidjourney to make my tattoo designs,
but I'm certainly more than comfortableasking Midjourney
to give me dozens of pieces of referencethat I can, like, plop down on my screen
and use to draw from and still, like,translate it to my own, you know, voice.
(45:04):
I think that's actually
a much more effective way for me to designthan just in screenshotting
a bunch of Pinterest and Googleimages, for sure, you know? Yeah.
And so that's knowthat's the difference in like,
AI isn't going to do that,but AI is going to help me to do it. So.
Well. Yeah.
It means how do you give the human a tool
that helps themdo one part of their process
a little more efficientlyor a little faster?
If that human is passionateand as an artist,
(45:27):
they're going touse up all of that free time
to push some other part further, I think.
Yeah. You know, in theory.
So like the argument that this toolor that tool is just going
to make everybody lazy isn't true.
It's going to let some people continueto be lazy because they already are lazy.
And if there's a person who's not lazy,
(45:47):
they're going to take that extra level upand push even further.
So we all get to see potentiallya more interesting version
of tattooing because of that tool,whatever the tool.
Yeah, right.
And that's the same, you know, argumentI make for digital designers.
Right? Right, right.
Yeah.
You're going to sacrifice some, you know,
(46:07):
huge amounts of time that you otherwisewould have spent to do something.
You might not feel so good about itbecause it wasn't that hard to do.
Right.And there's definitely something to that.
Yeah.
If you want to be artist, are just proudof the effort that they make.
And quite frankly, the the audience
likes their art betterwhen they see that it's hard.
(46:28):
Sure.
You know, you just show someonea painting these days.
It could look like AI might have done it.
And that takes away the powerunless you show how hard it was.
Yeah.
So like artists nowadays
that are doing things the hard way,they're doing things with physical media
are going to benefit a lotfrom documenting how hard it was.
(46:49):
Right.
And making that documentationof the process
a piece of the presentation of the art.
Because otherwise people, you know,
especiallyif they're looking at it online,
they're not going to seethe brushstrokes or not.
You see the effort.
Yeah, we're seeing that so much more worklately as as social media
has moved to video and things like that.
(47:09):
And we're seeing so much of people'sprocesses, I think that's
I hadn't thought about why,but I think that's a great reason why.
It's like, hey, if you just saw the endresult, it could have been anything.
You know, it could have gotten therein ten minutes, you know?
No, a lot of the value comes from
how difficult it was to make it.
So. Yeah.
What craft is still alive?
Yeah. Yeah.
(47:31):
Impressed by it.
Still same here.
You, on on a slightly different topic.
And, I knowwe're going to get food in a few minutes,
so I'll find a wrap up point,but the, you've gone back to chat.
You went quite a few years,so that would do it.
Almost no tattooing at all, right?
I was tattooing one daya week or never slowed down some of that.
Sometimes I would travel and soit might be 2 or 3 weeks in between.
(47:53):
Yeah. A one day a week session. Right.
You know, I just got so busybetween running my studio
and what everything was going onwith Tattoo Smart a few years back,
it's reallyit reached, sort of the pinnacle.
You know,it was a company with six employees and
and a bunch of different,like, subcontractors, designers,
3D modelersand all these different things.
(48:15):
And I was
basically out there trying to figure outhow to become the CEO of, of a small
tech publishing company, you know,and I was doing
a lot of personal developmentand really thinking like, okay,
it doesn't really make sense for me toit makes sense for me to tattoo,
like the research and developmentside of it,
(48:35):
to stay connected to tattooing,to be able to think of the new ideas.
But it didn't make a lot of sense for meto be a tattoo a full time.
And it wasn't
in my back was hurting.
Yeah.
Every time I was sitting down to tattoo,I was having to with my shoulder blades
between my shoulder blades.
It was just miserable sometimes.
(48:57):
Yeah, I need to go fix that.
And. And you've done a lot.
You're a much better physical conditionthan you were in your tattooing before.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I lost a bunch ofweight and started going to the gym first.
I started just like two days a weekwith a personal trainer,
and these days I'm doing five days a weekand I'm like, actually, right.
Strength training.
I'm, you know.
Yeah, try and try not to hurt myself,but also just trying to,
(49:20):
you know, undo a lot of yearsof not taking care of my body.
Yeah. Trying to make sure that I at 45.
I'm building up muscleto and like as I grow older,
I start naturally losing muscle.
I think after you hit like 70 years oldor something, you start losing weight,
you know, 5% of muscleevery decade or something.
(49:41):
So it's you're, you know, if you build itup during this time in your life,
you have more to lose.
So you can be 80and still be able to walk up stairs.
Yeah. You know. Yeah.
You know, to lift a suitcase, you know,in the overhead bin on the airplane.
I still enjoy that time, right?
Yeah. Right. Right.
Well, what has what,if anything, like leaving
(50:03):
not not necessarily leaving tattooing,tattooing
one day a week as opposed to comingback. And like, you've made an effort.
I've seen it where you're like, hey,
I want to start some projects, you know,I want to do some new,
interesting, fun things.
So so you're having to first kind ofidentify like what's interesting and fun.
What do people expect out of mebased on what they saw ten years ago
or however long?
And what do I how much of thatdo I want to carry forward?
How has it impacted the shop, I guess,and the other artists with you being there
(50:27):
more, is that have been a net positiveor would you even know that?
Okay, I think so.
I mean, you know, to answer that question,I have a shop with 15 resident artists
and a lot of them have been and startedworking there during the period
where they were told fromthe very beginning, Russ is only here
every once in a while, you know,there were once before
(50:48):
that were more impacted by mecutting back right.
There's always going to be theI mean, it's not the same as it used to be
conversations.
And and I was really conscious of thatat the time when I was in.
It's basically creating a problem
in the culture in my shopbecause I needed to be there less.
And it was a problem for people that,you know, felt
(51:10):
that me being there was part of the reasonthat they wanted to be there.
And and so as new team members came on,
we just tried to be like really honestabout what they could expect of me.
And I show them all the time
the effort that I'm putting in frommy home, where I'm working on our website,
I'm working on our marketing,I'm working on our brand You know, we're
we have an active, WhatsApp groupwhere we're all communicating.
(51:34):
Right? Right. I have meetings with them.
You know, every few monthsI take each of them out
to breakfast or lunchand we just check in,
because even though the timesI am tattooing, I'm tattooing.
Right.
So there's not a lot of like backand forth time, so.
Right.
So what about you as far as the workthat you're trying to do, I'm
assuming you don't want to just like jumpright back into 3D geometry
(51:57):
and like, you know, and and work ona lot of the time you do want to.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Okay. Okay.
So yeah, 45 years old I feel like,
you know, ten more years is allI have to do.
Some body suits.
And so my dream is that some people outthere with no tattoos, wherever you are,
people with no tattoosor a few things that need to be covered up
(52:20):
or reworked or whatever, well,I love what I'm doing
and just want me to come createan entire body suit of cohesive tattoos.
I've had a few opportunities to do italong the way, you know that
didn't need that.
You know, no tattoos criteria.
That's like really rare.
That's rare.
You know, that that would be a dream.
(52:40):
But the kind of work I do. Yeah.
And full colorsometimes I do black and gray work, too,
but the kind of work I do, it,it takes a long time,
you know, a lot of timesit's really super intricate.
I wear a magnifying glasses and I.
I put some of the patterns in,but I also try
to keep other parts of it really simpleso that we can be more efficient.
We're talking about,
I mean, ultimately, like I think my workis architectural and ornamental.
(53:04):
So I mean, it can span centuries
of ornamental design the way thatthat you mentioned different cultures,
decorated buildingsand applying that to the human form.
So, yeah, you know, I use the scroll worka lot because it just helps navigate,
areas of the bodythat aren't good for linear designs.
(53:24):
So, you know, one of the,the main themes that you'll see,
especially in my recent work,I just did this like sleeve,
in that client's getting a second leg
in the same style,and it's just ornamental scrollwork.
And then the pattern that's happening isfrom Kumiko, It's a Japanese woodworking.
If you've ever seen in Japan,they, really carefully cut
(53:45):
pieces of wood into strips, and then theyarrange them into an isometric grid.
So they're like cutting out notchesand clicking them together.
Right.
And they create wooden panels or screens
and they can change the color of the wood.
And so it's not just that isometric gridthat's like the base grid.
And then within each of those triangleson the grid there's a different pattern.
(54:09):
And so I'm using the
patterns to create these geometricpatterns.
And, and I'm just applying color to itin a way that looks cool.
Yeah.
And do have stamp set for those patternsthat you're having to do.
I don'tI don't have a stamp set for them yet.
I do have my own private digital toolthat I use to to make
the design a little bit easier, butI haven't made it into, into a product.
(54:31):
I mean, in fact,I don't think anybody really cares.
Like, I'm like, what?
one of three peoplewho would even use it, so...
(garbled inaudible sounds from the stage)the loud content mic guy is starting,
I don't know if they can still hear us,
but I think that's that'sprobably a good sign to shut it down.
But yeah,
we need to talk about something elsethat is be in paradise next week together.
(54:54):
So maybe we can, take it back upif we want to take it back.
Oh, it's great talking to.
Yeah. You too.
Thank you guys for watchingwhat we do. We'll see you next time.
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