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CUSTOM VS FLASH

BY DG WILSON (C) OCT. 2007

It is the biggest battle raging in the tattoo customers' mind. What do they want? Where are they going to get it? How much is it going to cost? Are all questions that can be answered AFTER first deciding if you want a Flash Art or Custom.

What is the difference? The art that you see up on the walls in most tattoo shops is called Flash Art.

These are pages of designs another artist thought up, drew out, copied and then colored in the copies.

To appeal to the tattoo aritsts around the world the Flash Artist sells many designs that they think people will want on a single page. Included is an Outline page where the same designs are just lines without color or shading.

If you decided upon a tattoo from one of the pages on the walls then the tattoo artist would look up the

corresponding sheet and take the same design you chose out in line and run it through

a Thermal Stencil Unit. This is a very expensive machine that takes the design outline on a photocopy page

and transferres it to a stencil where ink that is easily washed off your skin is applied to the back of

each line in the design. The artist then takes that stencil and puts it on your skin where you want the

tattoo. This allows them to follow those same lines exactly.

Last the artist begins to tattoo the piece and looks at the finished image that you chose out and copies it

in your skin. When the tattoo is done it should look as good if not better than the piece that you originaly chose out. The more popular the Flash Art the happier the tattoo artist because that means that nominal fee of about $10 a page paid off as a great investment.

For the CUSTOMER that means there are many, many, many people out there with the same tattoo!

Now CUSTOM tattoos are a whole different animal. With a Custom Tattoo you are going to be asking the artist to draw up your design from scratch or you will bring your artist a representation of what you want or lastly you can have a design that you brought to them changed the way you like it.

If you have the artist draw up your design from your verbal description that is the only way to guarantee that you are going to get an original tattoo that no one else will have. (Some customers even go so far as to ask for the stencil back to make sure that the artist will not reuse it!) But with Custom tattoos is a lot of FAITH. Unless the artist drew it out on a piece of paper first and then made a stencil, you will never really know what the final image will look like. Even with a detailed stencil, there is no shading or color so that really won't give you a look at the finished product the tattoo artist sees in their head.

Another way to get a Custom tattoo is to have the tattoo artist sketch right on your skin with a marker. Most can't work this way but I find that it makes the tattoo very personal and fit the customer even better than if drawn and stenciled first. But with these marker sketches there is a huge leap of faith for the customer.

Basically you need to look at past work, meet the artist, find out if they can understand what you want, if you like them and their style. If you still feel comfortable have them sketch something out on paper first.

This way you will at least glimpse where the tattoo is going. If you don't like something or

nothing about the tattoo then speak up! Have the artist make changes.

But there is a huge amount of trust that you need to place into the artists' lap because you will never have a clear idea as to exactly what your tattoo will look like when finished. With Flash Art the goal of the tattoo artist is to at least as good as the picture. They are just trying to copy, not create.

Realistically price is the last thing that should come into the customers' mind--if at all. Because the money will come and go but a tattoo is always there. A cheap customer may save a few bucks but they may not be happy with their lifelong tattoo. Which is more important?

Many people will only get custom tattoos because it makes them feel more like an individual.

Other people just don't care. If they see something that they like then they will get it, and they don't care if a thousand other people have the same design.

Then there are some out there who are just not creative enough to come up with their own idea.

It is not their fault, and you have to admire those people for even being interested in a tattoo!

But there are some out there that NEED Flash Art to at least get an idea as to what they want.

Which would YOU get? Why?

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