West Hartford’s Original Tattoo Studio for 30 Years 🎆

  Before you arrive, it’s important to have an idea of what you want. Even the most experienced artist at Green Man can have difficulty understanding your tattoo design if you aren’t sure what you want, at least in general terms. Bring in visual references that can help convey what you have in mind. It’s OK if the pictures aren’t exactly what you want. Doodles on cocktail napkins work too. We can help work out the details, but the more references you have, the better. 

Are you interested in a custom design from Green Man Studio? Most artists enjoy doing custom work. Keep in mind however; custom tattoo work is often a multi-step process. An artist takes your ideas and references and creates a unique piece of personalized artwork for permanent placement on your body. This typically requires a revision of the design based upon your input. If it sounds involved, that’s because it is…and it should be.

It can be difficult to create custom work quickly. Thanks to several television programs and their clever use of editing, there exists the popular myth of the instant custom tattoo . While this is possible most of the time, be aware that, generally speaking, custom designs may require a 20 minutes to half hour for an artist to create. Any large–scale and even many smaller designs may require a week or more. This is because of the time involved in possible research of the subject, drawing and refinement of the design, and the fact that you probably aren’t the first person in line.

  Do you want something small? The smaller a design is, the simpler it needs to be. Pencil and ink can make much thinner lines than a tattoo machine can. Thus, a design that might look nice on paper may not be practical as a tattoo. But you really love it? Simplifying the design is usually an option. This may involve removing some details or lines but generally allows you to retain the essential elements that you like about the image. Green Man Studio artists can assist you with this process. Another option is to get the design done larger. A larger image allows for more detail and often times a much more dynamic tattoo. This is especially the case with images that contain faces (animal or human), hands, and generally anything that needs to look photorealistic. A larger tattoo may mean changing the placement.

  As you might imagine, some parts of the body are more challenging to tattoo than others. Hips, breasts, the lower abdomen, & buttocks for example are challenging due to the underlying bone-structure (or lack there of) and the skin consistency. Areas such as the ribs, tops of feet, and the neck can be difficult due to the uneven nature of those particular parts of anatomy. This often means that getting a quality tattoo on these locations requires more time and effort on behalf of the artist. This is often reflected in the price.

and…location!
Our tattoo artists want the tattoos they create to look as good as possible for as long as possible. How does this affect the location of a tattoo? Some parts of the body just don’t tattoo well. Some of these areas include hands, fingers, toes, sides of the feet, the Achilles tendon, faces, ears. Some artists may be willing to tattoo these areas, but they may not guarantee (for free touch-ups) work performed on certain parts of the body. Some artists simply don’t tattoo those spots at all. If you’re interested in getting tattooed on one of these spots, or another part of the body that you’re not too sure about, just ask. An artist will be happy to discuss the options with you.

   All tattoos inherently fade and spread given enough time. How quickly this happens is relative to how well you take care of your fresh tattoo, how much sun the tattoo gets exposed to in its lifetime, and your own personal body chemistry. Black pigment holds up and stays true the longest. Because of this fact, many tattoo artists agree the vast majority of tattoos need a black outline. “No-outline” tattoos can be done and tend to look nice for the first few years but the majority of them have a very strong likelihood of bleeding out, becoming fuzzy and muddy, and ultimately indistinguishable. While there is some debate on this in the industry and everyone has their own experiences and opinions…

…at Green Man Studio our artist’s choices about what they will and won’t tattoo are based upon the 30 years of hands-on experience and their understanding of their craft. They want you to have a tattoo you are happy with and proud of and they also want to be proud of the work they do. Most tattoo artists aren’t a big fan of rules to begin with, so if they have adopted a few, those rules exist for a pretty good reason.