WHICH ARTIST IS BEST FOR YOU?
When choosing the best artist for the piece you want, it’s important to take a look at the portfolios of the artists and see how consistent they are at the style you are looking to get.
ASK YOURSELF THESE QUESTIONS AFTER LOOKING AT THEIR WORK:
- How many pieces in your chosen style do they have to display?
- How often does it look they do that style?
- How consistent is the quality of their work?
- Are they enthusiastic about their finished and/or upcoming pieces? (via their personal social media)
- Are others enthusiastic about their work? (comments/reviews)
Now that you’ve seen their work, how well they do the style you want and how happy others are about their work, you can start to finalize your decision for an artist. In quite a few cases, a consultation isn’t necessary. However, a consultation is a good way to see if you and the artist are seeing eye to eye, on the same page on he design idea you looking for, and to see if you “vibe” together (if that’s important to you). For smaller, more straight-forward tattoo ideas, you generally do not need a consult.
Most of the time, a “vibe” issue is non-existent. The artists at Lucky Bamboo Tattoo are all good people, have good personalities, and are easy to get along with. Of course, you may connect more with one artist over another, but that shouldn’t be a leading factor when choosing the best artist for you for the piece you are looking to get. Let their work do the most speaking.
Something to avoid when looking for the best artist for your tattoo idea is choosing an artist strictly on how much you want to work with them. If you are dead set on working with a particular artist, but are also set on a particular style, you may want to change the style you want if that artist isn’t the best option for the style you originally wanted.
For example, you want to work with artist “Joe”, and you want a photo-realistic picture of your dog, but “Joe” doesn’t do photo-realism, you’ll need to either change your idea or your artist. You don’t want to try and force an idea with the wrong artist just because you so badly want to work with them. You will end up disappointed in the end. In fact, it’s not a terrible idea to go see the artist you really want to work with and let them tattoo whatever they choose aka a “blind tattoo”. It’s a fun experience and your artist will enjoy doing it.
It’s no secret most artists are more specialized in one style or another and not perfect in everything. Researching to choose your artist to make sure they’ll do a good job in your chosen style is in you and your artists best interest. Don’t rush your decision, take your time. You’ll be glad you did.
Some artists don’t particularly specialize, per se, but like to do a variety of styles and designs to keep their tattoo days interesting, like our artist Rob. Rob does enjoy doing nature and animal tattoos, but if that’s all he did all the time, he would get bored. He likes to be excited about a piece he’ll be working on, and fortunately that’s most of the time.
Then there’s our artist Vitalii who is capable of many different styles, but he does his best work when he gets to do long sessions, hand drawing Norse inspired pieces. He’s the opposite of Rob, in this sense, where he loves doing the same style each day. That’s not to say he doesn’t enjoy doing other tattoos, it’s just his passion for Nordic artwork.
Sometimes it’s not a style that an artist is necessarily into, but perhaps the size of the tattoo or the length of time the tattoo would take, like with Christina. Christina can do all sorts of styles, but what she really likes to do are tattoos that are bigger or take more time. She can certainly do smaller and simpler, and does do those tattoos, but she just enjoys to do the more elaborate ones more.
When you are finally choosing the best artist for your upcoming piece, just remember to be patient when choosing, meet with your artists if needs be and just have fun with it. The whole process of getting a tattoo should be an enjoyable one, from choosing your artists, to getting to admire your work once it’s done.