Justin is a tattooer currently working out of Showdown Tattoo in Edmonton known for crazy bold mainly American traditional style designs.

1. How did you first get both getting tattoos and tattooing? “My best friend of like 40 years is a tattoo artist and he gave me my shot in the industry. From tricycles to tattoos I’m forever grateful to him for the chance to do my dream job and I just started going to shops and getting tattoos and the rest is history!!”

2. Who are some artists that inspire you, tattooers or other, living or dead? “Growing up for me it was a lot of comic books and mad magazines and dragonball Z art Frank Miller and Todd McFarlane were some of my favourite comic artists. Tattoo artists that inspire me are artists like @crytattoo @giuseppe.messina @bara_madrid @shamusmahannah and one of my favourite local artists is @heathsmith he sets the bar in town for traditional and he’s one of the most humble and talented people I know.”

3. What drew you to more American traditional style tattooing over other styles? “What drew me more towards the American traditional style of tattooing was the just the bold colours and strong imagery. It’s a style that some people sleep on thinking it’s easy and it’s far from it. You pretty much have zero room for error and trying to take a 2 dimensional style of art and making it 3 dimensional takes more thought than most would think.”

4. Do you think the boom in popularity regarding tattooing over the last 10-20 years is overall a good or bad thing for tattooing? “My thoughts on the overall boom of tattooing over the past 10-20 years is kinda a mixed bag. I’ve been tattooing for 16 years so I’ve seen some good things like people being able to really find the right artist for them and how the digital age has brought more eyes to the industry and made things a lot easier for bookings and appointments. But the cons of the boom is that the market is definitely over saturated and too many people have access to tattoo equipment that shouldn’t! There’s just too many tattooers these days, you really need to stand out to separate yourself self from others and I think some gate keeping should honestly come back into play to try to slow it down a bit.”

5. Do you have any crazy or memorable stories from your years of tattooing? “So the craziest story I have is, I had a client who I tattooed once who came in on a bender and passed out. So his next appointment I said have a good sleep and good meal and bring snacks and drinks you’ll be all good bro! Well…. He wasn’t!! lol so the second appointment comes around I’m about 3/4 of the way lining out this banger and homeboy says hold on I need to take a drink of my Pepsi and then he starts to pass out but was fighting it and boom, dude shits himself! His girlfriends crying in the chair up front, I’m telling him to hit the bathroom and put some water on his face instead of hey go check your drawers, and also I grew up with guy too! He comes out and tries to be like oh big bad Steve passing out and he’s laughing I’m thinking bro you just shit yourself why the hell are you sticking around?! if that was me I’d be throwing a smoke bomb ninja vanish style! And oh yeah I still got paid for my time of course hahaha.”

6. Anything else you would like to add? “So in closing I’d just like to say thank you for your time and giving me the opportunity to share my time and work with ya, truly appreciate you for always showing me all the love.”