247 Ink Magazine (August/September) 2017 Issue#16 | Page 237

Heaven, Black Cauldron and so many more, Tom Bancroft, a lot of Disney stuff. Hanna Barbera, that’s the stuff that influ- enced me. Drew Struzan who did Back to The Fu- ture, Indiana Jones and all of those iconic movie posters from the 80’s. My daughter Lily, she influences me. She’s doing some balloon art right now. We had a balloon fight in the yard yesterday and now she’s making art with all the balloons. (laughs) Ok, let’s get back to Ink Master for a minute. You and Derek seem to work pretty well together. We have worked together in a few shops. Going into it we had a good re- lationship and our communication skills were right on point. What was the biggest surprise for you about the show? The surprise...it’s not the tattooing, that’s the easy part. Dealing with the people in the house. The environment. That’s the hard part. Literally the windows are boarded up, there’s no clocks, no TV, no cell phones, and you’re under lock and key. They set it up that way so you all go insane. You drive each other crazy and it spills over into the drama for the show. Tattooing is easy. Dealing with people’s personalities is the hard part. A lot of artists say not having music is the rough part. 235