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