Tattooing is one of the raddest, welcoming, quirkiest, creative, and friendly cultures I’ve ever encountered. I have twenty tats, nothing compared to Ruby or Lans or folks who’ve had the money or connections and time to really get inked. I’ve enjoyed every one. Nearly half of them I’ve done, about five by friends with a gun (in a garage and my bedroom), and the rest professionally. Some are shit, blown out, bad line work, uneven colour, as you’d expect from scratchies, but I regret none. That’s the thing for me, no matter how lame the symbol is or how rough the execution, each tat represents a time, a place, people, and a version of me who isn’t here anymore. Sure, I’ve not aged to see any real fading, but some of my red ink looks so bad you’d think I was fifty. Half of my tats have really deep and personal meaning, but the other half either I thought looked cool, or a friend simply wanted to do. My close mate Dan really wanted to give me a weed leaf in year 13, probably thankful I passed on that. 

I only really got into tattooing last year. A pen from AliExpress, some inkcaps, some cyan, red, white, and of course black ink, latex gloves, fake skin, a tattoo marker, some transfer paper, and boom I was set. I was given the pen for free as Dan’s prefrontal cortex developed enough to be done with garage tats. I’ve done plenty on myself and a handful for several friends of mine. The first ink I ever got was a skateboard from Dan. I tattooed my flat’s address last year – stupid uni student antics. One of my first tattoos I did on a mate was this little monster designed by and for my homie, Brodie. It ended up getting hundreds of thousands of views on r/shittytattoos. We were both really drunk. Drunk enough that I forgot to spread the skin and went way to deep. Yeah, it was bad, but he doesn’t regret it. It’s a funny story and in a weird way it kind of suited his design—yes that’s a cope. I regret tattooing drunk and fucking up his calf but hey, my other tipsy tattoos turned out fine. Stories like this are the kind Gen X share in pubs and I’d rather we all walked around with blown out pieces than traded these stories for a doomscroll. 

I more recently did Sound Garden’s King Animal symbol on my flatmate Kyuss. That’s healed now and turned out great, might I say. So, I guess I’m getting better or just sober more often now. I’ve learnt a lot, red ink is a lot harder to get right than black, get the depth right and this depends on the body part, the needle type really matters, start by learning line work then whip shading, move your wrist not hand, and STRETCH THE FUCKING SKIN. 

Shoutout Hiro up in Auckland, Cam at Good Honest here in Hams for his rad skating and skills with the gun, and there are some super talented artists in Melbourne. Hiro did my thigh, stupidly good at realism and shading, and I’ve got my back booked with him. Cam got my arm patchwork perfect. 

So, when you’re wondering if you should get ink or not, do it. Not because ‘it’s cool’—or even ‘cos you really want the piece and it means a lot to you— do it to support art and the artist trying to make ends meet same as the rest of us.